Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

144

8/3/2015

0 Comments

 
Best Games - Miner 2049er


I have never finished Miner 2049er. Even now, when emulation, level select codes, and other digital wankery, would make completing the last level of this game trivial, I still haven't finished it. I don't think that I want to.

I first played Miner 2049er on an Atari 800 computer. I knew that it existed on other computers, because I would paw over all the game boxes at the local computer store compulsively. What I didn't know at the time, was that it had actually been written on the Atari 800. Like a lot of games from that era, it was ported to every object with a processor in it, but many of them have system specific changes, or concessions. The Atari computer version was created with such focused intent, that it's difficult for me to imagine the game any other way.

At first blush, Miner 2049er looks like a Donkey Kong ripoff. There are platforms to walk and jump on. There are ladders to climb. A bulbous, hat wearing, protagonist is tasked with scaling navigating an impossible structure, one screen at a time. There are amorphous baddies that mindlessly march a set pattern and don’t actively assail the player character. All pretty damning stuff. Really though, Miner 2049er and Donkey Kong are nothing alike.

Donkey Kong is a sort of dexterity challenge. The players goal and path to that goal are perfectly clear, but navigating the games obstacles required fast reactions and quick thinking. Miner 2049er is a set of 10 puzzles. There is a time limit, but it is fairly generous. For the most part you can take your time and figure out how best to complete the variety of challenges on offer. Each level presents a different novelty from teleporters, to vats of radioactive waste, to scissor lifts, to cannons packed with TNT. The catch to these puzzles is that you must step on every platform tile in every level to win. Some levels have platforms that can only be reached by following a very particular path making the entire level a sort of navigation puzzle. Of course the main difference is that when Mario dies, he spins around and falls over, but when Bounty Bob dies he crumples into his hat like Super Dave Osborne. Now that’s comedy.

When I played Miner 2049er I had no manual and no one I knew played the game. There was no internet, so there was literally no way to ask someone what I was supposed to do on each level. If let’s plays existed they were probably recorded on betamax taped and placed lovingly in shoebox under someones bed. I have only just yesterday learned that there was a code that could start you on any level that you wanted. I just played the game over and over until each level was etched somewhere in the reptilian portion of my brainstem. I reached the 10th level, the one with the cannon you load with TNT, several times, but I could never quite put it together. I didn’t know at the time how close I was to finishing Miner 2049er, or I may have been enticed to complete it. I have held on to that as some strange mark of shame for all these years. It was a game I was good at, but one that I could never defeat. A low priority white whale.

Now, decades since, I know that I could go back and finish it. I have seen videos of the game being completed. It would be so very easy. I think I would rather not. I think that one level I never beat makes this game a little more special. A tiny nagging memory of joy. It’s small, simple and trivial, but it’s mine.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact