Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
Archive of the
Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
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Message: 2396
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 22/10/2001
Subject: Re:
I found an instance of the shop Game that I never knew existed, and after a thorough
search, to my delight - for my hopes had dwindled after a week of futile searching - I found
issue #103 (November 2001) of Edge magazine [http://www.edge-online.co.uk/ target=new>http://www.edge-online.co.uk/> ] with the
Matthew Smith interview! Thank you so much Phil for telling me about it! :D
The article
tells the story of how Matthew Smith learned to program on the TRS-80 since he was 13. He
did the graphics for The Birds And The Bees, and wrote a game of his own called Styx. He
wrote Manic Miner in eight weeks(!), then founded Software Projects with Alan Maton and
Tommy [surname?].
But the (financial) strain told: Jet Set Willy took eight MONTHS to
write, and even then needed four pokes to debug the released version to a state of
completability. Matthew Smith's forthcoming games Miner Willy Meets The Taxman (working title The
MegaTree), Attack Of The Mutant Zombie Flesh-Eating Chickens From Mars, and Footy, were never
released. Software Projects was dissolved in 1989.
There's always been an intriguing air
of mystique about Matthew Smith's lifestyle, and the Thumb Candy interview (televised
earlier this year) served to fuel the speculation. We do know that he went to Holland in 1995,
but was deported back to England in 1997, where he now lives in Dewsbury, Yorkshire (how
did Edge know his address?). He was employed by the games company Runecraft for a while,
but is, I understand, currently unemployed.
It's obvious that the screenshots have
been `cooked': I think they took the screenshots in attract-mode (many of them in the
middle of drawing, too) and stuck the Willy graphic on those (note that Willy has the same
posture every time). Look at "Processing Plant": Willy is standing half-way up a half-drawn
green platform without colour-clash!
I'm annoyed that the article said "Manic Miner
was a great game in 1983, but it has hardly stood the test of time." Okay, it wasn't
written by a team of elite programmers, with movie-like 3D graphics and all that, but together
with JSW, it has been one of the most influential and addictive computer games of all time,
due to the elegant simplicity of its game-mechanics, its quirky features, and above all
its editability. It would have been nice if Edge had mentioned the unofficial sequels, but
presumably they omitted to do so for copyright reasons.
--
Andrew
Broad
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/>
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/>
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/ target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/>
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/matthew_smith.html target=new>http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~broada/spectrum/willy/matthew_smith.html>
P.S. Work on Goodnite Luddite is active again. I completed the map by compiling a list of
the best 64 room ideas, cutting an A4 sheet into 64 pieces with the room-names written on,
assembling them to form the map, and creating skeletons for all the rooms. This approach gives me
the freedom to write, or partially write, whatever room I feel like whenever I load JSW
CK. I haven't recently counted the number of completed rooms, but it's about twenty to
date.
P.P.S. According to the interpretation of the JSW colour-code by a certain tea-leaf reader on
comp.sys.sinclair in 1997, today is the minus-third anniversary of Armageddon - Iraq mysteriously
becomes a nuclear force and destroys the world on 22nd October 2004. That's why the We Pretty
diary has no entries after that date.
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