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I WANT A BRAND NEW MINER WILLY GAME

18/2/2019

28 Comments

 
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You know what I want? A new Miner Willy game.

It might seem a trifle perverse to desire a reboot for a series which choked to death on a frond some 35 years ago - unless you count NumFun's terrible 2005 phone racer Jet Set Racing - but Miner Willy is, arguably, the greatest British video games character of all time. After Lara Croft, who  - let's face it - these days is British in accent only. 

How can I make such a ridiculous assertion? Because games have become homogenised and safe, and there was nothing safe about Miner Willy.

Try and think of another British games character who is as iconic, or has endured, to the degree Miner Willy has. He is - or was on his way to becoming - our very own Mario or Sonic. What's more, his games had a personality all their own - a wry, uniquely British, sense of humour, filtered through the cracked, unhinged, worldview of the young Matthew Smith.  Even the character's name was a double-entendre, the game's humour being a weird blend of Carry On, Python and satire; the surreal mixed with the mundane. 

How much better would the world be if Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that Jumpman's real name was, I dunno, Huge J'bottom, or Max Johnson, or Buster Hardy.
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TOUGH GAMES
Matthew Smith, of course, is British gaming's very own Syd Barrett - an iconic game designer who wandered away just as his career was reaching peak momentum.

Had he been able to create Miner Willy Meets The Taxman, or Megatree, or whatever would've been the third bona-fide instalment in the series (not counting a Smith-written type-in game, Andre's Night Off, published in Computer & Video Games in 1984), it should've cemented the character as Britain's very own gaming icon. 


We could've had proper Willy games on the Mega Drive and SNES - and still be getting them today. The character, the idea, is perfect enough that it stands up to reinvention in the way that Mario has done. There are reasons why gamers of a certain age don't want to forget those games.

Smith has since resurfaced in recent years, giving sporadic interviews here and there, and the story of what became of him post-Jet Set Willy has been revealed as somewhat sadder and more tragic than the romanticised version we all chose to believe. 

Without Smith at the helm, Software Projects tried to keep the franchise alive - releasing the not-quite-a-sequel reworking Jet Set Willy II: The Final Frontier - while attempting to motivate Smith into working on either a Willy sequel or Attack Of The Mutant Flesh-Eating Chickens From Mars (heavily advertised by Software Projects as the next big Smith game, after work on his Willy sequel stalled). Beyond that, and a terrible Vic-20-only game entitled The Perils of Willy (again, not written by Smith)... it was the end. 

​And it was premature. ​

GO AWAY
The thing is, Miner Willy never needed to go away. They were tough games, but they've remained iconic for a reason - because they're simple to play, full of quirky, distinctly British, humour, and feature a main character who is every bit as defined as Sonic and Mario. Ie; barely at all, but just enough for you to get who he is. 

There was something profoundly mysterious about Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy - their surreal interpretations of, respectively, a mine and a mansion, were intriguing, full of bad acid trip nightmare fuel, and dayglo whimsy. From hideous giant demon heads floating above the gateway to Hell, to saws cutting through the floor, to pirouetting penguins and a lethal off licence, they felt simultaneously dangerous and unhinged, and incredibly playful. Indeed, as a piece of art, they appeared to be a reflection of their creator.

Just take look at the insane, needlessly complicated, sci-fi backstory included with Manic Miner:

"Miner Willy, while prospecting down Surbiton way, stumbles upon an ancient, long forgotten mine-shaft. On further exploration, he finds evidence of a lost civilisation far superior to our own, which used automatons to dig beep into the Earth's core to supply the essential raw materials for their advanced industry.

"After centuries of peace and prosperity, the civilisation was torn apart by war, and lapsed into a long dark age, abandoning their industry and machines. Nobody, however, thought to tell the mine robots to stop working, and through countless aeons they had steadily accumulated a hugh stockpile of valuable metals and minerals, and Miner Willy realises that he now has the opportunity to make his fortune by finding the underground store.

"Can YOU take the challenge and guide Willy through the undergraound caverns to the surface and riches. In order to move to the next chamber, you must collect all the flashing keys in the room while avoiding nasties like POISONOUS PANSIES and SPIDERS and SLIME and worst of all, MANIC MINING ROBOTS. When you have all the keys, you can enter the portal which will now be flashing. The game ends when you have been 'got' or fallen heavily three times."


What's brilliant about this is that Miner Willy isn't motivated by chivalry or selflessness or saving the world - but sheer, self-serving, greed. It's pure wish-fulfilment; wouldn't we all want to be as selfish as Willy, were it not for those pesky morals?
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SPRAWLING
Jet Set Willy built upon everything which made Manic Miner a classic. Players would've been happy with more of the same, but Smith went above and beyond, creating a sprawling, free-roaming, collectathon, which built upon its predecessor in the same way Super Mario Bros. built upon Mario Bros. What's more - having reaped the financial benefits of Manic Miner - Smith once again seemed to be telling his own story:

"Miner Willy, intrepid explorer and nouveau-riche socialite, has been reaping the benefits of his fortunate discovery in Surbiton. He has a yacht, a cliff-top mansion, an Italian housekeeper and a French cook, and hundreds of new found friends who REALLY know how to enjoy themselves a a party. His housekeeper Maria, however, takes a very dim view of all his revellry, and finally after a particularly boisterous thrash she puts her foot down.

"When the last of the louts disappears down the drive in his Aston Martin, all Willy can think about is crashing out in his four-poster. But Maria won't let him into his room until ALL the discarded glasses and bottles have been cleared away. Can you help Willy out of his dilemma? He hasn't explored his mansion properly yet (it IS a large place and he HAS been VERY busy) and there are some very strange things going on in the further recesses of the house (I wonder what the last owner WAS doing in his laboratory the night he disappeared).

"You should manage O.K. though you will probably find some loonies have been up on the roof and I would check down the road and on the beach if I was you. Good luck and don't worry, all you can lose in this game is sleep. Why not join the Jet Set and share in Willy's good fortune."


Smith had gone from seeking success to getting everything to dream of, and it doesn't take a genius to work out why his next game could've been Miner Willy Meets The Taxman.

Jet Set Willy was full of secrets - both intentional and accidental, not least the fact that it was impossible to complete the game... until two players wrote to Software Projects pointing this out (their work became the official JSW  POKEs and they were announced as the winners of a competition the company had included with the original release). 
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EXPLOITATION
It'd be pointless to expect Matthew Smith to work on a new Miner Willy game, but somebody out there must have the rights to the character, and there have to be creators capable of building upon what he started. To leave the series languishing without exploiting the potential of such a unique, and cruelly curtailed, franchise, feels like a crime.

We're living in a new era of indie gaming, where Smith would've been right at home - so there has to be somebody out there who can take a gamble on this. There have been enough remakes and home-brew interpretations to demonstrate that it's a series that's not without its fans, but it needs to be more than that; it needs to be a proper release that has had a few quid lobbed at it. One that can, potentially, re-establish Miner Willy as the British gaming icon.

Start from scratch again with a Manic Miner reboot - take Willy back to his money-grabbing roots. Throw him into a series of surreal, sci-fi, caverns, with limited air supply, and a simple left-right-jump control system - but potentially with the sprawling, open map of Jet Set Willy. Give it a degree of modern graphical gloss - but don't lose sight of the bizarre, Gilliam-esque, humour which defined those games. That's the selling point; that balance between what we expect from a game, and the constant surprise.

Keep the satirical element intact - lest we forget that among the other things Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy achieved was to offer their own twisted interpretations of games like Donkey Kong and Hunchback. 

And most importantly, make the game personal; whomever is doing it needs to forget making a game with universal themes. Make it yours, own it, pour yourself into it in the way that Matthew Smith did. Make a Miner Willy game which doesn't ignore the fact that its a sequel to a 35 year-old game that nobody wanted or expected.

​Let's see an ageing, washed-up, Miner Willy trying to restart his career - surrounded by pretty young things. Use it as a platform for commentary on where games are at today. Make a virtue of how out-of-step Miner Willy is with the times. 

Please do this now, yes? It'll be well worth it, probably.
28 Comments
Rowan
18/2/2019 03:20:53 pm

Lovely read, thankyou! Does anyone have any more information on how Matthew Smith is now and the story of the ‘lost’ years? On the Thumb Candy documentary back in 2002 or so he seemed to be doing okay, but in more recent videos of him on Youtube etc. he doesn’t appear to be as lucid/well.

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TheBuff1
18/2/2019 10:52:27 pm

Mr Smith can be found on Facebook! There's a group on there called Central Cavern (The Wonderful World of Willy) which I'm a member of and he recently joined which was a bit surreal!

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Spiney O'Sullivan
18/2/2019 04:39:47 pm

Personally my vote for "Best British Game Character Who Isn't Lara Croft" is Jack the Nipper. I had no idea what I was doing in that game, but it felt as close to a Beano strip in game form as you were going to get.

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Tw
18/2/2019 05:09:31 pm

Mate, I've got my own things going on here, you know? I can't just drop everything and learn how to make games because you want play them. Fucking nerve of it, honestly.

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Tackorama Ltd link
18/2/2019 05:51:26 pm

I already made a game shamelessly inspired by Jet Set Willy. Available on Nintendo Switch and PC/Mac via Itch.io.

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colincidence link
21/2/2019 12:38:43 pm

This looks good! Your name is worth clicking!

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Col. Asdasd
18/2/2019 06:23:56 pm

We already have one, grandad, it's called VVV- *gets lynched by wheezing gen Y oldsters*

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Mr Biffo
18/2/2019 08:06:57 pm

Yeah, yeah. I've played it. I'm talking about one that isn't overtly retro-styled.

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Col. Asdasd
18/2/2019 09:21:51 pm

Only joking friend. Have you had a look at Spelunker Party for the Switch? There's a free demo..

Jack Thomas
18/2/2019 08:27:12 pm

A classic that was compulsive game playing for me and many others in the early 80s who'd nagged their parents to invest in a ZX Spectrum. My parents hid mine for a while, as I would stay up until the early hours on it!

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Robin
18/2/2019 08:47:34 pm

>Try and think of another British games character who is as iconic, or has endured, to the degree Miner Willy has.

Um, Dizzy? ;-)

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Quivver sticks
19/2/2019 10:49:11 am

Dizzy is no way an iconic British Character. It was an egg that played a load of almost similar arcade adventures.

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Col. Asdasd
19/2/2019 11:31:28 am

British developer? ☑️
British character? ☑️
Immediately British design? ☑️

I present to you the most iconic British character in gaming!

https://banjokazooie.fandom.com/wiki/Chris_P._Bacon

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Robobob
18/2/2019 09:14:35 pm

"Jet Set Willy was full of secrets - both intentional and accidental, not least the fact that it was impossible to complete the game... until two players wrote to Software Projects pointing this out (their work became the official JSW POKEs and they were announced as the winners of a competition the company had included with the original release)."

What was the competition? Presumably not "this game is broken can you fix it for us"?

Also, did it genuinely say POISONOUS PANSIES?!

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Cat Mara
24/2/2019 08:55:46 pm

"POISONOUS PANSY" sounds like an insult from those "Gay Dalek" sketches from "TV Offal"

(wanders off to YouTube to see if they actually ever used it...)

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Rychanwr3 link
18/2/2019 09:34:35 pm

Jayenkai makes a lot of games sort of along this ilk,might be worth having a chat to him. He made well over 30 games for the OUYA way back when and they all had a certain charm to them also.

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JTM
18/2/2019 09:44:34 pm

Nearest I came to playing a Jet Set / Manic game was the frustratingly addictive Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'd play a new MW for sure, but would the current generation of gamers have the patience? I'd hazard Pokemon obsessives might. Worth a Crowdfund for the right team?

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Marro
19/2/2019 12:01:17 am

Miner Willy is unfortunately locked up with Rolf and Gary after Operation Banyan Tree saw what was on his Hard Drive.

I still think Manic Miner is about as close to perfection as a game gets. Written entirely by a 17 year old in 8 weeks...

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Nathan link
19/2/2019 02:40:56 am

I agree with Biffo, on the proviso that Matthew Smith's namesake Matthew Simmonds (aka 4-MAT) gets to do the music. His audio work on the PC remake is stunning and perfectly suits the atmosphere. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqDo7cvbBZ4

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The Green Spurt
19/2/2019 05:09:25 pm

I can't say too much, but this is being worked on. People with the resources and ability to do this are in contact with Smith at the moment.
The problem is that he is, not without good reason, very distrustful of anyone when it comes to licensing the Miner Willy and Jet Set Willy IPs. He's been ripped off a lot of times in the past. There are some interesting stories behind all of this, but I can't go into them publicly! The resourceful parties I mentioned above are working hard on getting his trust and I am hopeful there will be more news about this in the near future!

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Stuart
19/2/2019 06:48:00 pm

Buster Hardy is a cool name, but what about Buster Hardly? Then at the game over screen Miyamoto could have put a headstone saying "we Hardly knew ye".

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Stuart
19/2/2019 06:55:57 pm

Oh yeah, also, a game I've just started playing that has a really unique sense of British humour is Gremlin Interactive's Normality. From the first room, it seems like it's going to be an MTV-style, 90's American drop-out culture kind of thing, but when you get outside you're in this weird world of bus stops, UK road signs and British accents and slang.

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Andy Spencer link
19/2/2019 08:53:02 pm

Awesome bit of writing - you have captured a lot of peoples thoughts I guess (including my own). I have been playing Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy for many years and will continue to do so for many more years. :)

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Gaming Mill link
19/2/2019 10:27:14 pm

One of the most beautiful things about JSW was, to me, not trying to complete it but to make it to another screen to see what wonders were to behold...and adventure that didn't need completing to enjoy!

Such fun; the uniqueness of it made me a far more creative person than I would have been without it.

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Mike
19/2/2019 10:32:53 pm

This, Atic Atac and Chuckie Egg are the rarest of things...ZX Spectrum games that are still genuinely playable in 2019.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
20/2/2019 05:36:59 pm

Has anyone outside of British gamers of a very certain age range heard of him, though? The Lemmings (Lee Ann Womack or whatever the one himself was called) are arguably more iconic.

The real question is why didn’t Willy just sack Maria and go to bed and hire a new housekeeper the next day?

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colincidence link
21/2/2019 12:34:20 pm

ain't British or platformy, but I always thought 'Citizens of Earth' (99p on eBay) achieved this manner of comedy particularly well. It's an obvious tribute to a different classic game, though.

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CdrJameson
21/2/2019 05:13:32 pm

I love the idea that you don't 'die' in the game.
'So sorry, I appear to have fallen heavily too many times and can no longer get up'.

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