Sewer Sam is a 1983 action game created by Interphase, recorded here on MSX computers with Toshiba-EMI as publisher. As the name gives away, the hero Sam travels through sewers — a maze of underground passages full of hazards to dodge or dispatch.

From a history standpoint, 1983 is a notable date: the MSX standard was just arriving, Japan's collective attempt to unify the fragmented world of home computers. Software companies were hunting for titles to fill the new platform, and both conversions from other machines and original works appeared at a rapid pace.

Sewer Sam is a typical citizen of its time in genre terms too: a simple premise, a side view, platform-style movement and gameplay built on repeatedly improving your own performance. Games of this era did not tell stories — they handed the player a space, rules and a score counter. Support for multiple players in alternating turns was part of the package; comparing results in front of one screen was the main social dimension of early-eighties gaming.

Toshiba-EMI, a joint venture between an electronics giant and a music label, was among the companies shaping early software distribution in Japan — another slice of history this game's record quietly documents.

Sewer Sam does not run in the browser on OldGame.cz; its page offers the year, the company names and screenshots from the underground.