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Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy creator returns to game development

Manic Miner

Matthew Smith was one of the great, primary-coloured lights of the early UK games industry. He made the ZX Spectrum a very bright place to be in the mid-eighties, before going dark for a very long time, bar a brief resurgence at the turn of the century. Now he’s back, producing and publishing a game in tandem with fellow arcade veterans Elite Systems.

There’s no word yet on the nature of the project, but Elite have spent the last two and a half years republishing Smith’s early output for various mobile devices. Perhaps there would be a good place to start looking for pointers.

Elite are recognised as one of the oldest computer game companies still existent in Britain, having being co-founded in 1984 by Steve and Richard Wilcox and their father, Brian.

The last released game Smith led development on was Jet Set Willy, 29 years ago. What would you like to see him produce now, in a developmental landscape very different to 1984’s? Is it possible that, via the last decade’s indie boom, it’s become a somewhat fitting place for a man weaned on the Brighton arcades to hang his hat?