''The Manhole'' is an

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...

video game in which the

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who ...

opens a

manhole A manhole (utility hole, maintenance hole, or sewer hole) is an opening to a confined space such as a shaft, utility vault, or large vessel. Manholes are often used as an access point for an underground public utility, allowing inspection, m ...

and reveals a gigantic beanstalk, leading to fantastic worlds.

Summary

The game was first released on floppy disks in 1988 by Cyan, Inc. (now ''Cyan Worlds'') and distributed through mail order. In 1989, it was produced for

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

as a CD-ROM version based on the floppy disk game. This version was the first computer game distributed on CD-ROM (although there had already been two games released in late 1988 in Japan for NEC's PC Engine game console on its CD-ROM² format). It runs in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

on the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

line of computers. It was created using the

HyperTalk HyperTalk is a discontinued high-level, procedural programming language created in 1987 by Dan Winkler and used in conjunction with Apple Computer's HyperCard hypermedia program by Bill Atkinson. Because the main target audience of HyperTalk ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

by brothers

Rand The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finan ...

and

Robyn Miller Robyn Charles Miller (born August 6, 1966) is the co-founder of Cyan Worlds (originally Cyan) with brother Rand Miller. He served as co-designer of the popular computer game ''Myst'', which held the title of best-selling computer game from it ...

, who founded the company Cyan and would go on to produce the best-selling adventure game ''

Myst ''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...

''. ''The Manhole'' was later also released for the

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, thoug ...

and FM Towns. The game was re-released for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

twice, once in 1992 by

as ''The Manhole: New and Enhanced'' (including a Windows 3.1 version) and again in 1995 as ''The Manhole: CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition'' by

Broderbund Broderbund Software, Inc. (stylized as Brøderbund) was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits ''Choplifter'', ''Lode Runner'', ''Karateka'', and '' ...

, which featured the use of

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

s, and some new

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

. Cyan artist

Chuck Carter Charles Michael "Chuck" Carter is a video game and film artist. He and Robyn Miller designed and rendered the environments in the video game ''Myst''. After ''Myst'', he was an artist for Westwood's ''Command & Conquer'' and ''Command & Conquer: ...

designed all of the color graphics in about three months using

StrataVision 3D StrataVision 3D is a comprehensive 3D computer graphics software package developed by Strata. Features include primitives-based modeling with texturising, keyframe animation, raytrace and later radiosity rendering under the name of ''Raydiosit ...

. In 2007, the game was released on

GameTap GameTap was an online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2005. It provided users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content. The service was acquired by French online video game service Met ...

. As of February 2011, the game is available from

GOG.com GOG.com (formerly Good Old Games) is a digital distribution platform for video games and films. It is operated by GOG sp. z o.o., a wholly owned subsidiary of CD Projekt based in Warsaw, Poland. GOG.com delivers DRM-free video games through it ...

, iTunes, and as part of the "Cyan Complete Pack" on Steam. ''The Manhole'' is a notable computer game because, like '' Cosmic Osmo'' and '' Spelunx'', it has no goal and no end; as a software toy the object is simply to explore and have fun.

Reception

Describing ''The Manhole'' as "the first children's software to require a hard disk", '' Macworld'' in March 1989 stated that its "realistic sounds, the fantasy-filled graphics, and the stack construction are truly impressive". The magazine "highly recommended he gamefor young children andit's hard to imagine a playful soul of any age who wouldn't enjoy exploring the mind-tickling world inside The Manhole". ''The Manhole'' won a

Software Publishers Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

Excellence in Software Award in 1989 for Best New Use of a Computer.

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Manhole, The 1988 video games Adventure games Broderbund games Cyan Worlds games Activision games DOS games FM Towns games Classic Mac OS games ScummVM-supported games TurboGrafx-CD games Video games about children Video games about plants Video games scored by Russell Lieblich IOS games Windows games Video games developed in the United States