From Manic Miner to Jet Set Willy: The Story and Games of Matthew Smith | Kim Justice 

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To Matthew Smith, As kids of the 80's we loved Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. God only knows how many nights were spent gaming into the early hours. Many thanks for the memories : )

Jet Set Willy was THE game that defined my childhood. Thank-you, Matthew Smith.

Matthew Smith was a former pupil of The Mosslands School in Wallasey and was 2 years above me in said school. "Dr Jones" (immortalised in JSW) was my maths teacher! I also believe that the many penguins you would see around MM and JSW were a "nod" to Mr Scudamore (former geography teacher who went on to become deputy headmaster). He walked a little bit like a penguin because he had a problem with his foot. I'm sure there are more. I eventually managed to complete 2.5 circuits of MM and it was playing that and other games that gave me an appetite to learn Z80 and to try and write my own games. I was beaten to it by a classmate called Clem Pryke who wrote Quackshot! Then me and a friend sat down to start story-boarding a game based on driving a car around a city, and then Lotus Turbo Esprit came out and we knew we'd missed the boat. By that stage, games were being churned out by the likes of Ocean, Ultimate, Psygnosis, etc. and the "bedroom coders" were becoming the exception. Great times though!

"20 Years later and I'm a legend". Beautiful.

Back in the early 80s, anyone at my school who could actually complete Manic Miner was treated with awe and reverence (and rightly so). Personally, I never got past Skylab Landing Bay. Of all the games in existence, this is the one that I remember most fondly.

These deep dives into the bedroom devs are inspiring, your presentation, editing and production are top notch - well done.

As a wannabee from the same era I remember taking his Z80 code apart to see what made his games tick. I was not disappointed. Every operation consumes clock cycles and while 3.5 million cycles per second might sound like a lot you have to divide that by your desired frame rate which could put you as low as 70,000 if you were going for 50 fps. He had the knack of using instructions with a low cycle count and applying them in such a way they replaced their higher cycle count cousins. So SET would be used to adjust pointers and addresses rather than loading a whole value. Four clock cycles doing the work of fifteen and he repeated this trick again and again. While he could be downright wasteful in the way he used memory it inevitably served one goal. Speed. Which translated to being able to have multiple animations on screen at the same time complete with a looping soundtrack, collision detection and keyboard input. I never saw faster Z80 code and I doubt I ever will.

Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner were two most memorable games from my early childhood. Matthew Smith, I salute you.....

Great work as always. Matt is truly a legend from the golden age of British game development. A fascinating and enigmatic character. I always regarded him as the coding equivalent of Syd Barrett and I wasn't surprised to see you draw the same parallel. There were so many amazing characters in the scene back then. The games they made were so packed with personality and creativity. The good old days before it all went so corporate.

Matthew Smith. Legend to the era of spotty young Adrian Moles. Chewed up and spat out but the time he was twenty. Fucking legend. Well worth his own feature length Doc. Nice one, Kim.

Solo game-dev me and this feels like a cautionary tale that leaves me with a slight feeling of dread. Excellent documentary, Kim

I completed manic miner as a kid, I loved that game. I can still remember the day when I completed it. Great documentary such a shame he went off the rails. Hope he is OK.

Matthew Smith, many thanks for the hours my friends and I enjoyed in the 80s playing Jet Set Willy & Manic Miner into the early hours, especially during the school holidays.

I had the and honour of exchanging a few emails with Matthew when he first re-emerged in the early 2000's. I'd been showing kids at the school where I worked Manic Miner on an emulator, and they got into playing it themselves. He seemed thrilled that children still enjoyed his games. Legend. And if Brian Wilson could complete SMiLE (spoiler, he did), then maybe Matt can deliver another game. But whatever he does, I hope he's happy. Matt, if you read this....just know that you inspired thousands if not millions of people.

Wow. I actually suggested you do a docu on Matty Smith a few months back. My wish has been granted. Totally blown away. Fantastic work. Thanks kim

The idea of programming on a TRS-80 and sending the program with a cable to the Spectrum for testing was pretty intelligent.

I’m in heaven. Thank you for this beautiful retrospective, and thank you Matthew for your brilliance

Another superb documentary. A great way to spend a bank holiday morning. Matthew Smith's story is always one tinged with sadness. When we had a stall at the first CGE in Croydon in 2004, (where the stand up interview you showed was filmed), we spent a fair amount of time with him the night before at Pizza Hut. Seemed such an alert and sharp minded kind of guy, very knowledgable, and above all, a really happy and easy person to get on with, despite not having the easiest of lives, and having been exploited and ripped off in the past. Seems a little bit distant these days from the Manchester footage. Was in contact with him briefly 6 months ago over gaining permission to release the newly written Vic 20 version of Manic Miner, but unfortunately couldn't happen (at least at the moment).

I had Jet Set Willy on the Commodore Plus 4, and found a cool bug. If you jumped off the edge of a screen, so that you landed just into the next one, you would skip that screen and appear in the one after. This was interesting when there wasn't one after, because you'd find yourself coming into another screen far away.

"The Syd Barrett of computer gaming". Pure poetry. Besides if I may nerd a bit. That black and white image of Matthew by the computer (top down) is eerily to some of Mick Rocks images of Syd.

What a detective work to put that documentary out ! Very impressive. I didn't know Manic Miner's author was such a strong personnality. Now I will have a look at your other videos, they seem super interesting

That DIE MORTAL screen must have scared many kids shitless I'm amazed I've never seen anyone mention it anywhere, this is the first time I've seen it

I love that BBC documentary (6:49) about Ocean etc .. and was saddened to hear of the passing of David Ward.

Awesome vid mate, one of your best yet. It brought back a lot of memories...when I was a lad in the 80's , I had this friend who's dad "worked" with computers, and he had a Spectrum+ at home, we played Manic Miner to death on it. So a year or so later, when I convinced my grandma that this was the future, she bought me a 48k Speccy with the rubber keys (somewhere around '86 or '87). needless to say she didn't know anything about it, so she gave the money to my friend's dad to get everything and set it up at her house. His "surprise" for me, was a copy of Manic Miner, which he hacked and he changed the loading screen into Speedy Mike (which is what they called me, for being a hyperactive child). Obviously I was very happy with it, but it also got me to think...if he could do it, then so could I. So I started reading everything there was to read on programming (which wasn't a lot ;) ) in our local library, and got to work. The first things I did was trying to combine different sets of code from those books, to see where it got me, when that appeared to be easy as pie, I finally decided to do something like my friend's dad. So I broke into Thro' The Wall, a Breakout clone that came with one of the Psion instruction tapes, and changed all the graphics: bricks turned into aliens, the paddle became a space ship, and the ball was a laser beam.ball of fire...it took me days to draw it all out on graph paper. Then started the tiresome process of adding it all to the game & I started testing it...I remember being so happy to see it running, and let all my mates play it, just to show off...I was 13 or 14 at the time, and was sure I'd become a programmer & was going to design videogames...it never happened though...still those were awesome times. :)

Mathew has that rare talent. The ability to make a game that gave you that “one more go” feeling. It’s intangible in the most practical of art forms

I am back to watch this again! Thank you Matt Smith, JSW is one of my fondest memories of childhood. Thanks for making this, brilliant!

Kim, you make the most amazing documentaries. Never pulling punches, but yet utterly sympathetic and understanding. Some biographers seem to forget they are dealing with real people, but certainly not you. Matthew is one of the greats for me, the first big name in games software, and one of those elements that made the early 1980s such an incredible time for those of us growing up around then. Much that I would like to see Matthew back and producing a new indie game, I suspect that would just be my own selfishness, and may not be the road to happiness for him. Still, hope springs eternal. Every time the actor Matt Smith's name is mentioned on TV, I can't help looking up, expecting to find the original and definitive Matt Smith. For there can only be one. For now, I can only send wishes for good health and happiness.

Jesus Christ, I got emotional at the end there. Very powerful words, Kim, and once again some of the best content on RU-vid.

From 24:24 to 24:50 is a pure work of art. Thank you very much Kim for this wonderful content you always drop. EDIT: As an italian I'm stumped by the connection of Matthew coming to Italy and being inspired by Florence to design tiles, and also Sorrentino did a short movie about him :O

Brilliant, thanks KJ! Quite the definitive subject this, and you've done a stellar job - am about to rewind and watch it again :)

As always, another amazing doc. Nobody does this as easily or as well as you do, Kim!

Superbly researched - thank you for this fascinating programme.

My friends Dad killed the family Spectrum one night after what was probably his 1000th attempt to finish JSW. I was sleeping over at their house, and we heard a loud "SMASH" followed by an even louder "FUCK OFF!", before his Dad came up the stairs and told us he was sorry and he would replace the Spectrum at the weekend. That was an infuriating, captivating and magical game. I'd finish it in 2009 with a CPC emulator, about 40 ish saved states and two very long nights. I know it's cheating but after 20 years of failure, I needed to just see what happens when you finally complete the game. Back in the late 80's, on a good day I could make it to Space, collecting eveything on the way, before losing all my lives. Massive respect to Matthew Smith for making one of the best games of all time.

Manic Miner was definitely the most fun for the least money I ever had on the Spectrum. And no, I never did quite beat that Solar Power Generator.

Great vid. Just realised towards the end that playing manic miner on my sister’s msx is my first gaming memory, and how my preschool mind was marvelled by it.

What a lovely tribute, thanks for the awesome video Kim!

As a life-long stoner, part time pillhead, and occasional astronaut, I can tell that is a man who has taken a LOT of drugs and had a few breakdowns. I feel bad for the guy honestly, he looks like he really did himself some damage. You can really f*ck yourself up if you push it too far. I'm glad he's still around and no matter what he's an icon and made a game I still love to this day. I hope he's doing okay x

If Mathew ever makes another game for speccy I’ll buy it and I got a feeling that a lot of people would too. So Mathew, we are waiting for one more, one last game!!!! Keep the legend alive! Ps: Finally Mathew got a decent documentary, I grew up with Manic and JetSet and every once a while when I turn my spectrum on I always have a go, it brings me back 35 years in a second, what an amazing feeling, thanks Mathew. Great documentary!

Absolutely brilliant documentary style video, I’ve always wondered what happened with Matthew Smith, The Miner Willy games have always held a special place in my heart since I was very young. Superb work.

Matt From Earth is a legend. Thanks Kim.

Fantastic upload. Thoroughly enjoyed it start to finish.. The banyan tree still haunts me to this day 🤦🏻‍♂️

You really should crowd fund videos like this. I don’t do Patreon but I would have happily supported this.

Another well written, produced and delivered hour of fact and entertainment; on someone who deserved so much more - but lost their way.

Great video about the living legend himself. It takes me back, MM and JSW. The strangeness of the atmosphere those games put you in and the never ending playability of them. Well put together as ever. Thanks Kim. :)

Absolutely incredible video, Kim. I really hope Matthew can find some solace in the fact that he brought so much joy to so many people. Outstanding work from the both of you.

wtf, the timing of this - literally lastnight I was thinking it would be great if you did a video on Matt smith because I was re-watching some old retro stuff on here and he appeared. This is crazy.

Beautiful video about the author of the best game of my childhood, Jet Set Willy. Thank you!

What an amazing story and really well put together. Thank you for this wonderful documentary. This took some serious time and work to put together! Wow.

I’m really enjoying your long play doccos. Very grateful I found you in my suggested videos. Keep up the great work Kim

Thankyou so much for this, cant wait to sit back and enjoy. Love your retro documentaries and loved Manic Miner and JSW so this will be an awsome watch! 😍

The ultimate Jet Set Willy documentary - great watch!

Wonderful documentary, thank you. I was really shocked by this, I had no idea he was a teenager when he wrote these games or what happened to him afterwards. I first played JSW and MM at a friend's house when I was 8 and it was like a bomb going off in my brain. I immediately nagged my parents for a Spectrum, taught myself to code, wrote my own 8-bit games and have been a professional programmer for the last 27 years. It brought back a lot of happy memories seeing these games again.

Superb documentary Kim! Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were such amazing games for the time, shame Matt didn't seem to have as much fun as we all did with his games. You did an excellent job.

A legend, paid full respect in this great video. Ending with Rob Hubbard's masterpiece JSW tune on the Atari. Perfect Kim!

Just simply fantastic - well balanced and extraordinarily researched. Thank you for completing my knowledge on the subject.

Another really interesting look at gaming history. I do love when a new Kim Justice video comes out.

Well done Kim up there with your very best. Enjoyed this so much - watched all in one sitting.

I didn't play Manic Miner but enjoyed the c64 knock off, Blagger. Jet Set Willy brings back a lot of fond memories for me even though I was never skilled enough to get far.

number of subscribers at time of watching - 48K ;-)

This... story Is FASCINATING. I hate that I'm so late to your Channel... but I'm also so glad that I'm just finding it now after I feel like I've seen the same stories over and over for 10 years I'm so invested that I haven't fallen asleep ...as planned.

OMG Kim that was awesome, your best video yet. Very honest yet respectful. I still remember the sheer joy of discovering new levels of Manic Miner and JSW. I remember plotting, in pencil on graph paper, the map to JSW as I uncovered it in my grandparents' house. I didn't know you couldn't finish it, no chance of getting that far! So many good trivia points I never knew. I nostalgically and instantly recall some of those Crash covers I read to death as a kid but haven't seen for decades. I forgot that video games used to get rated on "Instructions"! Some of the imitators are so close to JSW but deemed as homage while people are worried about Nintendo suing for that warped alien Kong level - not even like they can claim the word "Kong"! Matt won't sue, he is just extremely flattered. The stark difference between bedroom enthusiasts and big corporations I guess. Matt if you are watching or reading this, I salute you sir. You are a massive part of my childhood.

These documentaries are on another level now Kim. These should be shown to our younger generation as part of a history lesson.

Such a wonderful and very respectful account of Matthew Smith and his games, fantastic video! I would like it twice if I could.

The most Willy I've seen for 30yrs. Fond memories

A delightful walk down memory lane, sir! I remember as a kid playing miner and willy on the Amstrad in the mid-late 80's. It was thanks to my Uncle, a fellow of the University of Manchester throughout that time. I guess I was lucky to be able to play it then. Really really fond memories, and it was great for kids. Oh boy it was hard too! An integral part of my childhood, Jet set willy got me started on my journey through computer gaming :) I'm SO glad I didn't get into gaming any later, because I can appreciate gaming, thanks to the past. (Millennials call us PC elitists, but I know who we really are).

Kim. As always a top quality video! The research is amazing! Thanks!

Kim, you are on proper mad form!!! Yet another incredible hour plus documentary, you are truly spoiling us!!!

Minit and Downwell, damn those games are so good. This was really great Kim, I'm a Canadian, and was born in '87, so, none of this is much of anything I'm experienced with, but, its fascinating to learn about. Thanks for taking the time to put this all together!

Spent many hours and hours on MM, JSW + JSWII Would just love to say thanks for many happy memories

Just arrived at the lake District for a nice relaxing holiday, and this popped up. Awesome. I'll kick back and watch this later on with a glass. I owe Matthew Smith so much, he's responsible for many childhood happy memories and sense of adventure and wonder for me. Cheers Kim.

Fab. Matty Smith was my Hero in the 80s. Made me enthused to take up coding, (Programming back then). A true Legend. Thanks Matthew. Hope you realise what a massive impact you had on us young hopefuls 🤣 I coded 'Star-Car' for the Spectrum when I was 12. It was an amazing time. That was what you would now call a PORT. I just re wrote it. (Moon-Buggy) Clones are good, if you're gonna make it available to more peeps.

Fantastic! Always love the depth and breadth of your bios.

A new Kim Justice video on my birthday! Best present! :D

Master piece Kim. Documentaries like this are what makes you stand out from the crowd. My hats of to you. Brilliant!!!!!!! ps I am from Australia and have never played any of the games mentioned so my opinion is not clouded by nostalgia

Did I hear the music from Starglider 128 in the mix there? Great nostalgia; thank you. ☺️

Awesome as always, Kim. Biggest thing I took from this though was the whole "Most games were dark due to protecting CRT screens from imageburn". I always just assumed it was about the colours popping on a blank black background and detailed BG's weren't really a thing as yet.

Fabulous work Kim - thank you so much for doing this for those of us of a certain age and certain dispositions. Manic Miner is still my favourite game ever and not just from nostalgia. It plays amazingly and every screen is like a piece of art - in fact I think it's the only game I would describe as also being art! And this at 17 - wow, ultimate respect Matthew.

Me and my mate used to just randomly put pokes in for games and one caused the end sequence of Jet Set Willy to happen. We saw him sprint to the toilet an ram his head in but of course had no idea how many bottles were needed. I really liked this piece. I think it has a gentle melancholy for some of us. Thanks.

Fascinating. Thank you for making this documentary.

Brilliant and a comprehensive documentary. Thank you sir.

48:54 oh look at that, 2ltr Coke at 69p we'll never see that again :-(

What an amazing video.. many thanks for taking the time and researching something and someone who were truly influential in gaming and home computing in general. Brilliant.

Lol. Too right, MS is a fecking legend. I was born in '74 and got a speccy for xmas '82. So when Manic Miner, and then JSW were released I was reading Speccy mags and experiencing the hype around them. I remember poking for infinite lives. The games were huge. And that sodding bit of paper for the copy protection was a right pain, until I used a cartridge to stop the programme so I could save it to a microdrive at that particular point (after the copy protection bit (like I did with Elite, after the lenslock )).

Even though I’m only 24, with my childhood memories of gaming being formed largely by the PS2, with a smattering of PS1 and game boy colour, my dad passed down a deep love for his favourite game, manic miner on the spectrum- the game makes me nostalgic for an era that I never experienced

What a absolutely fantastic video. As a gamer who is now in his mid 40's and grew up with the ZX spectrum, I remember those jet set and manic miner days, very well indeed. I hope that Mat Smith gets the recognition and rewards he so rightly deserves. Anyhoo, well done on a fascinating video (you also get bonus points for adding the theme music from Star glider. I played that music constantly!!). I have recently subscribed and I am now hooked on your videos. Informative and very witty indeed. I wish you and your channel, the very best for the future.😀👍👍

was hoping you'd cover Matthew one day, great stuff. inspired me a lot as a child. similarly, i'd love to see some in depth stuff about other Spectrum / C64 legends, in particular Mike Singleton, Peter Harrap & Tony Crowther (about whom there is very little material out there). keep up the good work! :)

Playing this today. Enjoying it as much as I did aged 10.

Thanks for this documentary on Matthew,he is one of those people who had a massive impact on my gaming life as a young child with a 48k spectrum! It does upset me though to see him in his physical manner these days 😢

Me and my brother were at that event in Manchester. He even answered my question about what inspired him to create the characters in the games! I felt deeply honoured...😌

Brilliant documentary, brings back Manic Miner memories - and laughed when I saw Kenz in the background of one of the first closeup Matt photos shown! viva la c64 too!!

This video is gold! Matthew smith created a legendary game(s). Thank you so much for making this. I miss those rubber keys

Loved this. On the the JSW modding scene I think you left out an important detail regarding April Showers. This was the very first screen mod for JSW, it was touted as a secret room which requires you to write a long bit of code but was in fact a complete screen mod. I think it was in Crash magazine in 84.

Another great video. You do such an amazing job telling these stories.

Not sure how I ended up here, but as a child of that era I enjoyed this! Nicely done

Fantastic video mate , beautifully put together 👍👍

Fantastic video, well documented piece of video game history presented with affection and sincerity.

Very interesting. I played many hours of Manic Miner but never heard of Jet Set Willy.

Effing brilliant Kim, just watched this again as saw it not long after it came out and have been going through your archive watching the few brilliant docs you have made that i hadn't already watched, been through them all now, excellent content, just criminal you dont have more subs, i know its a fantastic channel and content as i have a touch of sadness in me that i have nothing else to watch on here now, thanks so much for all your great work, look forward to the next one .... bye for now :-)

I remember being blown away by these games. I couldnt fathom how they coded something so complex. Seeing the assembler and debugger adverts answers some questions. I was coding on paper. Dry running and debugging by staring at the code very hard!