Back in 1984 in the UK there was an infamous, historic miner’s strike that lasted for over a year and caused hardship for many communities. Rather than sit and spectate, young Peter Harrap wrote a satirical platform game about a mining mole and published it, with all the profits going to help the struggling, striking miners. That game was Wanted: Monty Mole, and it launched Pete Harrap on his career making video games, and also the Monty Mole ‘franchise’. Although I can’t really call it a franchise because it wasn’t. It was simply a series of games.

This first Monty game isn’t a particularly great game overall though. It has its quirks, and its plus points, and graphically it is very nice (especially Monty himself, who is very characterful and well animated), but the gameplay is a bit weird and frustrating – compared to its sequels, which I feel are more refined in terms of gameplay.

Still, Wanted: Monty Mole is an important platform game for its time and should long be remembered.

The Commodore 64 version of Wanted: Monty Mole was written by Tony Crowther and is a considerably different game.

More: Wanted: Monty Mole on Wikipedia
More: Wanted: Monty Mole on World of Spectrum