Curse of the Lost Miner

About the game

The miner is a small figure who can climb, walk and jump, and the caves are drawn so that every diamond sits just out of easy reach. Ladders cross the cave, rock ledges hang between them, and white spikes grow on the floor and ceiling. The aim in each cave is simple: pick up all the diamonds, then the way on opens. A strip at the bottom of the screen counts your lives and shows what is left to find.

The jumping is the heart of it. The miner can only jump when there is a rock or a ladder beneath his feet, so a jump is a decision you make at the edge of a ledge. Fire with up makes a high jump, and fire with left or right makes a long jump that clears the wide gaps. There are thirteen caves plus a training cave, and a speed setting on the menu if the normal pace is too quick.

The sound is driven by the Raster Music Tracker player, the usual tool for Atari 8-bit chip music, with music on the menu and in the caves.

Playing it here

This is a homebrew game made for the Atari 5200: a new game by an independent developer, not a commercial release. It runs in our build of the a5200 emulator, with a free replacement for the console's system ROM (the AltirraOS), so nothing from Atari is needed. Click Play, and on the menu press Z (fire) to start from cave 1. To begin in a later cave, press left or right first; the game remembers how far you got in the session.

If the jumps feel strange, press up on the menu to open the training screen, which lists the controls, then press fire to start the training cave.

Controls

Key	Controller	Action
Left / right arrows	joystick	walk
Up / down arrows	joystick	climb ladders
Z or Space + up	fire + up	high jump
Z or Space + left / right	fire + left / right	long jump
P	Pause key	pause
0	0 key	give up the life (if you are stuck)
-	* key	back to the menu
Backspace	Reset	reset the game
F2 / F4	—	save / load the emulator state

On a phone or tablet the controller appears on screen under the picture, with a 123 button for the number keys.

Tips

Look before you jump. Spikes sit right where a landing looks natural. Count the gap, and pick the long jump only when the ledge is wide.

Plan the ladders. Many diamonds can only be reached by going down first, because the miner can only jump from rock or a ladder.

Use training. The training cave is the quickest way to learn how far each jump goes before the real caves start to punish you.

Credits and licence

Curse of the Lost Miner was made by BAKTRA Software in 2015 and placed in the public domain by the author. This copy comes from the repository by Steven Hugg (8bitworkshop), who also dedicated his version to the public domain with CC0, and the ROM and source are hosted next to the game. The game's source does not say who composed the music.