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| Founded By: | Matthew Smith, Alan Maton, Soo Maton |
| Location: | The Bear Brand Complex, Allerton Road, Wootton, Liverpool L25 7SF |
| Year Started: | 1983 |
| Year Wound Up: | 1988 |
| Titles in Database: | 38 |
| Rights Now With: | ? |
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| Software Projects was incorporated by Alan and Soo Maton when they left Bug-Byte Software.
After leaving Bug-Byte as a freelance developer in March 1984, Matthew Smith (Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, etc) was able to take the rights to his recently developed Manic Miner game with him, due to an oversight in his freelance contract. Software Projects was then able to market and publish the ZX Spectrum hit game separately from Bug-Byte. Their logo was a Penrose triangle. |
Titles per Year
Breakdown by Genre
Breakdown by Platform
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The Retro Isle team
Added: 3 Apr 2026
Click here to view a list of titles we have in the database here at Retro Isle. |
Popular Computing Weekly, April 1984
Added: 28 May 2011
Photo and story taken from Popular Computing Weekly, Vol 3, No 14, April 1984.
And pigs will fly . . .
Graham Taylor talks to Matthew Smith and Alan Maton of Software Projects
Matthew and Graham in PCW
Alan Maton is not merely the only man in Liverpool to wear white shoes, as a sideline he manages Software Projects - home of Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. Between them, the two games have been responsible for more terror, anxiety, adrenaline, insanity and (probably) broken relationships than Crossroads.
Legends abound about the author of the Miner programs, many of them very silly indeed - what sort of mind could it be that conceived of the bouncing, beckoning fat ladies, clockwork penguins, moon faced, slightly famous, computer programmers and flying pigs as appropriate obstacles in a computer game. In fact, on close examination, Matthew Smith proves to be not only humanoid, but apparently, perfectly sane.
The story of how Alan Maton came to form Software Projects, with Matthew Smith as part owner and main programmer is, however, suitably odd. As most people know, Manic Miner was originally issued by Bug-Byte, a well respected software house also based in Liverpool. What may be less obvious was the fact that Software Projects was being set up by Matthew Smith and Alan Maton quite independently from Matthew Smith's work on Manic Miner - they never expected to issue it themselves.
"Everyone thought that we had always planned to take Miner away from Bug-Byte, but it wasn't like that at all,", explained Alan. "The idea of Software Projects had been kicking around for a while."
Alan worked at Bug-Byte, in which capacity he met Matthew, whose first program Styx had been accepted for marketing by the company. The original idea for Manic Miner was Alan's. "The name and the basic idea of a miner collecting objects in a series of caves was mine, but I was thinking of something fairly straight - I had not expected Matthew to come up with cases populated with Penguins, Eugenes, kangaroos, and toilet seats. They aren't your standard aliens after all," he added, slightly ruefully.
To no-one's surprise, Bug-Byte accepted the program and within a month of release it was possibly the most highly regarded Spectrum arcade game ever. Manic Miner was successful for dozens of reasons, but two seem particularly important. Firstly, each screen was carefully designed so that there was only one or perhaps two ways of getting through - one false step and you got the boot. Secondly, it was very funny and proved that obstacles didn't have to look macho and threatening to raise the adrenaline (I shake at David Attenborough wildlife films featuring penguins . . . but maybe I always did). Finding a genuine wit within a game was a revelation.
What, in retrospect, appears obvious may not have always seemed so when first released. Manic Miner was just one program in a batch of several - not especially segregated or differentiated from the rest. Indeed, for a long while it didn't even appear first in the adverts. Needless to say, Matthew was not pleased: "I really didn't feel any sensible attempt at marketing the program was taking place at all - the cover of the cassette was pretty awful too."
A few months after it had been released and was beginning to do really well, Software Projects was ready to be launched as a company. Matthew discovered that a clause in his contract with Bug-Byte enabled him to issue the game himself and take it away from them. "Basically, there was a clause which said that should a game be withdrawn from the market upon written request, it would be returned to the programmer - I don't think anyone had expected that a programmer would withdraw his own game!"
Bug-Byte had sufficient reserves of the game to see them over the Christmas period and only recently have Software Project's copies become the more widely circulated - the two games are the same, but for a few changed graphic shapes.
Technically, Manic Miner did several things supposedly impossible on the Spectrum - flicker free sprites, n | Big K Magazine, April 1984
Added: 28 May 2011
Photo and story taken from Big K Magazine, Issue 1, April 1984 written by Paul Walton
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD MATTHEW SMITH has just quit Liverpool's Bug Byte to found his own independent label with a couple of other known- names - as Software Projects. A relatively new Video Star, it was Smith who brought the US video game Miner '49er to the Spectrum et al with his related, Manic Miner just over a year ago.
He's now haggling with Bug Byte for payment of substantial royalties (around 16,000) on the 40,000 copies of Manic Miner they still hold in stock. Matthew's already made that much again from his 5 per cent cut on the first 40,000 copies.
"It's a popular misconception that I worked for Bug Byte and was then lured away. I never did - all they ever did was to manufacture and sell my game for me," said a now older and wiser Matthew Smith. He left Bug Byte together with one of the founders, Alan Maton. He took Manic Miner with him "as a way of getting Software Projects off the ground."
Matthew began playing games on a cheapo-cheapo Tandy TRS 80 model 1. While still 16 he produced his first game, called Styx, but added that it was "quite a flop" for Bug Byte. "But that didn't put me off. I just got down to writing Manic Miner that summer (1982). I realise that Styx was so bad because I had been writing it on the Spectrum, rather than using the TRS 80 for design and then targetting back to the Spectrum.
"It's become a lot easier to write the game which I'm now working on, Jet Set Willy. Since I fixed a hardware fault on the TRS 80 model 4 which I now use," he added. Jet Set Willy is a classic shoot 'em'up speed-freak's game.
And what of fame and fortune? Well, Matthew is well known in the designer world but hasn't yet got the Video Star status he deserves. But will admit to "tens of thousands of pounds" in royalties for eighteen month's work.
This is "the reward of being able to stay freelance", said Matthew, and he added that to save the hassle of starting a company and still get more than a couple of per cent, even he might do things differently.
"If I were starting again and had a good game, I'd offer it around several software houses before accepting the first offer that comes along," said a slightly bitter Matthew. For every pound which he gets from Manic Miner, Bug Byte rake in the other 19 . . . that's 76,000 worth of sales.
And the moral of this story? "Stay freelance, very definitely!"
Photo and story taken from Big K Magazine, Issue 1, April 1984 written by Paul Walton | |
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