Matthew Smith is a British computer game developer. He was born in 1966. He is best known for his creation of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy for ZX Spectrum.
The game was released in 1983 and 1984.
In 1988, Smith left and moved to the Netherlands. Since then, he has worked on some other games, appeared at various conventions and in documentaries.Programming began in 1979 on a TRS-80 computer that he received as a Christmas present.
His first commercial game was a clone of the Galaxian game for the TRS-80 and it was called Delta Tower One.
He later produced Monster Munchen on a VIC-20 computer.
He said Monster Munchen finished the game in 3 hours.
He received ZX Spectrum as a loan from Bug-Byte Software Ltd in exchange for writing 3 games. The first of these games was Styx in 1983 and Matthew received $ 3,000 on it.Manic Miner wrote in 8 weeks using the Model III Tandy. It was the first game on the ZX Spectrum in which you had backing music while playing.
The sequel to Jet Set Willy has been written for much longer. Both games were commercially very successful.
Matthew said he enjoyed making Manic Miner until Jet Set Willy was “seven shades of hell”.After completing Jet Set Willy began working on The Mega Tree better known as Willy Meets The Taxman for his firm Software Projects.
The game was not made for the ZX Spectrum but for the Commodore 64. However, the project never came to life and was discontinued after three months of operation.
The floppy disks containing part of the game and graphics were sold at a charity auction in 2004.
In 1987, a new game Attack of the Mutan Zombie Flesh Eating Chickens From Mars was announced, signed by Matthew.However Matthew was not happy with the final product and never realized the game.Matthew Smith closed his firm, Software Pojects, in 1988 without making any programs.
He lived in the Dutch community around 1995 but was soon deported from the Netherlands in 1997 and returned to Britain for not regularly arranging his paperwork for survival in the Netherlands.
