The Wright! project started from a simple idea: not only games but gamers and the videogames (software, probably?) industry of 80s/90s too were drastically different from now. Probably Bug-Byte's Manic Miner (1983), which won a number of prizes, is the most emblematic title for a very large number of reasons.

At a first look, It's your typical old-school single-screen frustrating platformer, got old fast and badly like any of the early ZX Spectrum games. But the devil is in the detail.

First. Willy, the main character, have to explore 20 caves full of aliens, penguins, ostriches and - obviously - toilets. Cave names are pretty crazy too: 'Processing plant' hosts long-legged Pac-Mans and tiny ghosts, 'Attack of the Mutant Telephones' speaks for itself. What I've found disturbing in games like that, Blagger (1983), Henry's House (1984) and many other platformers of these years were the lack of context in mostly anything: a so grave and disorienting design mistake we used to accept that is quite extinct.

Second. Manic Miner was the first ZX Spectrum game to have background music and sound effects, on a machine that - as coders knew few months after the machine release - was able to draw something on the screen OR playing a tone. It literally was miracle of coding, despite its stuttering music is just annoying today.

Third. Most of the ports of the game on the other platforms featured a number of relevant differences, like 40 new caves for the SAM Coupe' version, modified stages in the BBC Micro one, renamed (?) caves for the Amstrad CPC version and a rushed bad and nearly unplayable version for the Commodore 16. Just think about the role of contents exclusivity, ports differences and rushed software on nowadays videogames and videogame industry.

Last. Remember that 8-bit home computers used to ask you to code something when booted up? The ZX Spectrum version of Manic Miner manual closes with this sentence: 'Think you can write a better game than this? We'd love to see it. Send a copy of the cassette to (Bug-Byte's mailbox)'. Simply stunning: were a relevant part of gamers into game development that Bug-Byte decided to 'hire' some of them from a game manual? Were gamers more technological aware, despite we've internet today? A portrtait of a generation in a single title!

Plot!

Santa is in trouble and only YOU can help him! Collect all of the keys and reach the exit before the time runs out but don't hit anything pointy or moving and don't fall from too high! Use LEFT/RIGHT for moving and UP for jumping. And, since we're in November... happy holidays!

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