ZX Spectrum and Manic Miner legend Matthew Smith to get video game box set

Physical media from a bygone age (Pixel Jockey)

The most famous UK video game developer of the 80s is being honoured with reissues of all four of his games on physical media.

When it comes to the topic of retro gaming, we often lament that the games and formats that were most popular in the UK during the 80s and early 90s are always ignored, because they weren’t popular in the US or Japan. From the ZX Spectrum to the Commodore Amiga, older fans are often left with no official means to celebrate the games of their youth.

There is always the odd exception though, such as this month’s Alien Breed collection and a new Kickstarter campaign celebrating the life and works of Britsoft legend Matthew Smith. And if you haven’t heard of him, it’s because you’re young.

Smith was responsible for 1983 classic Manic Miner and its sequel Jet Set Willy (but not Jet Set Willy 2). The only other games he made were the earlier Styx (which we admit we’ve never heard of until now) and a type-in game called Andre’s Night Off. And now all four titles are being celebrated via a Kickstarter funded boxset.

The Kickstarter only started on Sunday and it’s already reached double its goal of £14,500, with 29 days to go. Whether that means they’re going to add any stretch goals is unclear, but there’s the potential for the total to greatly exceed the original asking price – which is nice to see.

There are a multitude of different purchasing options and extras but the most basic costs £39 and comes with three cassettes (yes, actual audio cassettes – which is what was used before computer discs) featuring Styx, Manic Miner, and Jet Set Willy.

By default, all you get on top of that is a box to keep them in but there’s also the option to buy a physical copy of Andre’s Night Off, which was originally a type-in game from Computer & Video Games (CVG). Back in the 8-bit days type-in programs were commonplace in video game mags, where you would type in programming code written in BASIC and get a free game.

Hopefully the book contains some interesting revelations (Pixel Jockey)

Other optional extras include a very nice looking 200 page book called Matthew Smith: Mining for Success, which you can have the man himself sign. There’s also a set of badges and signed artwork created by legendary Zzap!64 and Crash magazine artist Trevor Storey.

It all seems a near perfect celebration of the man and his work, with the obvious caveat of what are you supposed to do with the audio cassettes? Unless you have a working Spectrum and cassette tape they’re useless and as far as we can tell you don’t get a digital copy as well – although ROMs of the game are easily available if you know where to look.

Smith programmed Styx when he was just 16 and Manic Miner was very much the UK’s answer to Super Mario Bros., in terms of popularity if not quality. Smith was well known to gamers at the time and while Jet Set Willy was also a huge success creating it seemingly burnt him out and he never completed the intended third entry in the series.

In fact, he disappeared from the scene and fans spent many years trying to discover what happened to him. Supposedly he spent some time in a Dutch commune but returned to the UK, and the games industry, in the late 90s. He’s still not produced a new game but hopefully the book included in the boxset will shed some new light on his past and future.

Back in the day you had to type in your own demos (Pixel Jockey)

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