I doubt there are many people who have heard or still remember this game, but for me Miner 2049er will always be “there” since it was the first ever game I had played. So that’s where we’re going today – a long trip back in time, in the late eighties, when I first played Miner 2049er, a title like no other…

I remember playing it on my Commodore 64 – my father had just purchased it for me and Miner was the only game I had back then: it was amazing and I never felt the need to play anything else. Actually, I was so young that I doubt I ever knew there were more games, but that’s another story…

The game was set in a futuristic mine and the player’s job was to conquer all its levels by stepping on each path and “claming” it. It was a platformer, a title released well before Mario was born but one that had no luck in becoming a mainstream gaming icon. And Bounty Bob (the Miner’s name) doesn’t sound bad at all…

One thing I remember about this great title is the difficulty level: huge! I was just starting my “trip” into the gaming world and Miner 2049er was not making things easier for me, on the contrary. Now I know the game had 10 levels, but I never managed to complete it – I think the farthest I managed to go was level 8 (or 7, or something).

Of course, it was frustrating every now and then: the Bob’s overall speed was insanely low, he could not jump over obstacles and whenever you lose a life, you have to start everything over, since your progress was never saved. These things sound like atrocities today, but if you have in mind that Miner 2049 was developed in 1982, things change a little.

Still, it was a great experience and the great memories will never die. And it’s also great to look back from time to time and realize just how much gaming has improved over the years: Miner 2049er was the game that started it all for me, the game which got me hooked but honestly, if I were to play it once again today, I doubt I could. Especially because today’s games are easier than the games in the past – today they mainly bring us content, thanks to basically limitless storage space, in the past the games brought us challenge, basically because of the lack of storage space: they just had to do games difficult, otherwise we would’ve finished them in 10 minutes. Things change indeed…