Monty Mole first shot to fame in 1984 in the game Wanted: Monty Mole by Gremlin Graphics. The game was a flick screen platformer for the Spectrum and Commodore 64 in the style of Jet Set Willy, and is unusual for the time in that it made quite a stir in UK news paper and television. In those days, computer games were rarely (if ever) in the public eye to such a great extent, and the reason for it was because it contained a charicature of Arthur Scargill, who used to be the coal miner’s union boss, back when the UK had a coal mining industry!

The story to the game went as follows. It had been a cold winter, so Monty Mole breaks into a South Yorkshire pit to grab some coal to keep himself warm. After overcoming picket lines, coal crushers, drills and man-eating fish (Yorkshire is famed for it’s man-eating fish!) he emerges into Arthur’s castle. Still with us? Here he seizes his chance to topple Arthur infiltrating the heavily protected castle and stealing some ballot papers. And that’s exactly how the UK coal miner’s strike happened

Monty’s first outing proved very popular, and the sequel Monty on the Run was released the following year. This was a much bigger game, with loads more rooms. Monty is wanted by the police for his antics in the previous game, and so is trying to make his way to Gibraltar to evade capture. An addition to this game was that Monty could also choose 5 objects from a set of 21 to help him on his quest. The game was quite harsh though, and some of the objects were totally useless, so you had to choose wisely. The Commodore 64 version particularly is fondly remembered for it’s incredibly long Rob Hubbard tune. Rob was a hero to many in those days, and it was not unusual for people to by games purely because Rob had created the music in it!

Anyway, back to Monty Mole. Auf Wiedersehen Monty was the next game in the series, and guess what, it was yet another platformer. This time, Intermole have tracked Monty down, so he must travel around Europe collecting money so he can buy his own island and escape from the police once and for all. In order to speed up travel between countries, Monty could find airline tickets, which allowed him to skip sections of the game in his quest for cash.

The series of games ended with Impossamole, and unfortunately ended on a bad note. The biggest change was that the game landscape now scrolled rather than being a flick screen affair, but gameplay wise it was pretty tired. Monty did have one little known further adventure, in Moley Christmas, a game given away on the cover tape of Your Sinclair magazine. Here, Monty’s job was to convert code into a game, put it onto a tape, then get the tape onto a magazine and finally the magazine into the shops. It was a simple, short game, but nice to have as a freebie.

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