Manic miner

Manic Miner is a platforming game originally created by Matthew Smith and released for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 . The game was the first in a series about the miner Willy and one of the first games in the platforming genre. The game was later ported to a number of other home computers and game consoles. The next games in the series are Jet Set Willy (1984) and Jet Set Willy II (1985). The creation of the game was influenced by the game Miner 2049er (1982) for Atari 400/800 .

For that time, the game was very distinguished by the presence of music and effects during the game, excellent playability and well-developed color graphics adapted to the limitations of the ZX Spectrum graphics mode .

This was the first game on the ZX Spectrum with beeper music played directly during the game - playing sound required constant attention from the processor, so this was considered impossible. In Manic Miner, this was achieved by the fact that the processor constantly switched between music and gameplay, and sometimes the intensity of the game influenced the musical rhythm. During the game, the tune “ In the Cave of the Mountain King ” by Edward Grieg played; for the title screen played a variation on the theme " On the beautiful blue Danube " by Johann Strauss.