Miner 2049er

D
MS-DOS 0 subscribers

55K plays 1982 #Action#Platform

Miner 2049er is a platform game developed by Big Five Software and published in December 1982 for the Atari 8-bit computers. The player controls Mountie Bounty Bob through multiple levels of a mine, with the goal of traversing all of the platforms in each level all while avoiding enemies and within a set amount of time. Miner 2049er was widely ported, being released on a total of 22 different systems. Video magazine's editors commented on the game's popularity in January 1984, declaring it "the most widely played home electronic game of all time" and that "no home-arcade title has had the impact" that Miner 2049er had.

Programmer Bill Hogue blended ideas from popular arcade games, specifically Pac-Man (1980) and Donkey Kong (1981). It was the first game he developed for the Atari 8-bit computers. His previous games were monochromatic, and Hogue was excited at the opportunity to make the games in color for the system and wanted to surpass Donkey Kong. The resulting game has ten stages, most of them with unique gameplay elements. Big Five Software developed a custom 16 kilobyte ROM cartridge for the game compared to the standard 8 kilobyte cart for the Atari computers.

From Wikipedia's article Miner 2049er, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Pixel Verdict

Miner 2049erDOS

5.0 Outstanding!

AllGame 4.5/5 · 1 review

What the reviews talk about

Key wordscreativeoriginalfunchallengingaddictivefluid

What the critics said

  • Owen Linzmayer of Creative Computing found the game did not use the Atari computers full graphic potential, but the game included "one of the most dazzling visual effects" on the computer system, with the animation of Bounty Bob dematerializing on the elevators.

    — Creative Computing (Owen Linzmayer)

  • For the gameplay, Deborah Burns of Antic and Boaz commented on the difficulty of the game, with Burns stating it was more difficult than it appears and Boaz saying the game to be a "gourmet's delight that offers many, many levels of challenge."

    — Antic (Deborah Burns)

  • Margot Comstock Tommervik of Softalk (1983) concluded that the game "might recall other games; but no-rip-off here-the pieces come together in a way that's new and fresh, challenging and addictive; and delightful."

    — Softalk (Margot Comstock Tommervik)

  • Levi Buchanan of IGN declared the mobile version to be "a pixel-perfect recreation of the original", finding the controls responsive for a mobile game.

    — IGN (Levi Buchanan)

  • Richard Stanton, author of A Brief History of Video Games (2015), described that Miner 2049er was "forgotten" following the release of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. (1985), a game that he described as making the 1982 game "look like a fossil".

    — Video Games (Brief History)

  • In his review of the ColecoVision version of the game, George Kopp of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games "The struggle to get to the eleventh level is definitely worth it. The floating platforms here give the game all the grace and tension of a trapeze act in the Big Top."

    — Electronic Fun with Computers & Games (George Kopp)· about another version

From the Reception section of Wikipedia's Miner 2049er article, under CC BY-SA 4.0. The words are the critics'; their full reviews are on the publishers' pages.

Scores

  • Arcade Express Apple II: 10/10 (other versions)
  • Electronic Fun with Computers & Games CV: 4/4 (other versions)
  • Electronic Games
  • AllGame 4.5/5 (Atari 5200)
  • Computer and Video Games 82% (Colecovision) (other versions)
  • IGN 8/10 (Mobile) (other versions)
  • Pocket Gamer 2/5 (Mobile) (other versions)

From the review table of Wikipedia's article. The face takes, first that applies: the Metascore for this platform, GameRankings' archived average, our average of the critics (one number per publication, a panel averaged), one review alone, the players' rating. Critics and players are never mixed.

Players' rating: 60/100 · 86 votes

Full reviews

Face key

  1. 1.00+
  2. 1.540+
  3. 2.050+
  4. 2.560+
  5. 3.068+
  6. 3.575+
  7. 4.080+
  8. 4.585+
  9. 5.090+

5.0 Outstanding! · 4.0 Great job! · 3.0 Good job · 2.0 Could be better · 1.0 Wake me up when it's over · A thumbs-up adds half a point. Our own drawings, in the spirit of the faces GamePro magazine used in the '90s.

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