Manic Miner is a platform game written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith. It was published by Bug-Byte in 1983, then later the same year by Software Projects. The first game in the Miner Willy series, the design was inspired by Miner 2049er (1982) for the Atari 8-bit computers. Retro Gamer called Manic Miner one of the most influential platform games of all time, and it has been ported to numerous home computers, video game consoles, and mobile phones.

A platformer is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels with uneven terrain and suspended platforms of varying height that require jumping and climbing to traverse. Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay, such as swinging from vines or grappling hooks, jumping off walls, gliding through the air, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines.