Manic freaking Miner! The first game in a series created by the wonder and slightly sad case that we call Matthew Smith in 1983. The picture below is not the original Bug Byte version but the later Software Projects, however it is the same game. It has the same music and it is fiendish in its difficulty but still very, very, learnable.

Running in 48k and pulling all the tricks to make music whilst you game and get rich it is not without issues but is possibly still the best platform game of its age and perhaps others?

You star as Miner Willy, a man with one goal, to make it in the big World and be a very rich guy and you do this by ‘simply’ dodging all the enemies, collecting all the loot and not running out of air, oh and just to make it hard Matt added in fall damage on a sprite that cannot move mid jump. Matt, you are a bastard and I love you for it.

Many will tell you that the first level is the hardest and even Mr Smith himself has now stated it was hard to make you realise what kind of time you were in for. Honestly I think he said that to go with the tide as I find it a very easy level but I have played this game to death so maybe it’s easy for ‘me’.

Single screen gaming, get to the exit, move to next screen. Sounds easy yeah? Hah, play it and find out!

You can turn the music off should you want to, but why? If you do and you are playing on 48k then the game will play faster and enable some speed-run conundrums but its EPIC so keep it on or play on 128k. After several hours the tune will be embedded in your life forever and you will be happy, if slightly insane.

If you want to see how to play it, pop along to https://www.twitch.tv/retrohitch

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