We've featured the 1984 Boulder Dash game many times now, from the release of Boulder Dash Junior II The Final Dig, to Boulder Dash Senior and even the more recent version on the VIC20. But now as something slightly different, we've just found out by Saberman, that Vancouver has recovered what could well be the daddy of Boulder Dash games. A game that was lost and recovered and uploaded to AtariMania as Pit-Fall from 1982. To coincide with this news, Saberman was also kind enough to do a video showing the Atari XL/XE game being played.
Here is what the website says about the game "This game was first shown by author Chris Gray to Electronic Playworld, which had Inhome Software as its publishing arm. The Canadian software house was interested in the project but requested a number of changes to fully consider the product. At that time, Peter Liepa was looking for concepts he could program and also approached Inhome Software. This led to both Gray and Liepa working together to create the seminal Boulder Dash released by First Star Software. Many thanks to Canadian user Vancouver for dumping this program!"
Links :1) Source
This game appears to be heavily inspired by the 1982 arcade game "The Pit" which had spaceship arrival, identical digging, diamonds to collect, falling rocks, robot enemies, and a "cave" area (see bottom right corner) with falling hammers.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which was written first, this or Activision's Pitfall! (also from 1982).
ReplyDeleteAny chance to mention Twin Snakes Run on IRN as well?
ReplyDeleteThey helped inspire the later Boulder Dash, as the two lead programmers chased those elements and ideas, fleshed them out further, and eventually gave birth to the almighty Boulder Dash. So sad they later separated, due to issues of porting, licenses, original idea and who did the bulk of the work later on.
ReplyDeleteAs well as inspiration from The Pit, the falling rock mechanic is pretty much 100% Dig Dug. Whether convergent evolution or plagiarism who knows. Not saying Boulderdash ain't a classic, it's fab!
ReplyDeleteHey that 65XE in your video certainly isn't as old as this game! LOL. Thanks for the article though, keep up the super work. You find the retro stories so I don't have to.
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