Some friends and I are going to play games from our earliest days of game playing. I can’t remember what this game was that I used to play on PC and it’s killing me…probably from around 1989-1993? My first thought was to check all the Apogee Software games since I associate this with our random collection of shareware stuff (Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Raptor: Call of the Shadows, etc.)
From what I recall, you are digging through the ground trying to collect things (?) and there are these terrifying spirals/suns that lie in wait in little pockets and then prowl the paths you’ve created once they’ve been freed.
I know for certain there was a western level that was called (or at least had a sign reading) “Boot Hill”. I think the player character looked like a cowboy but I’m not sure if that was level specific.
I made a pretty crude (probably not very accurate) mock-up… And that’s all I’ve got!
Oh man, drawing that has triggered some more memories. You could dig under boulders and they would fall down and if they were piled up, it would create a chain reaction and alter the map quite a bit. Pretty sure you could get crushed to death very easily by these rock slides (the game probably has way more boulders than I drew).
I’ve no idea what actual version of Boulder Dash this is in the video just that it’s one of several versions that shows up when I search “msdos boulder dash” on youtube.
Hmm yeah the genre here originated I believe from Dig Dug, and a lot of them have rocks that fall on you if you dig under them. I was able to turn up about 10 of them for DOS on google image search, but none of them looks like the one you described
I’m sure someone else will answer you within a few hours, but in the meantime, some modern roguelites descended from the same premise you might enjoy are Spelunky, Dig Dog and Noita. The new Frog Fractions’s largest minigame is also a variant of this
When I first saw Dig Dug years and years ago I thought about this little game lol didn’t think about reversing things and searching for clones of that (and Boulder Dash) I think that’s the ticket!
Yeah I was really into it, one of my first “action” games when I was like 5 years old? It was kind of terrifying (those erratic bread-winged butterflies!) I mean look at that grotesque death animation at 4:50 in the video @_@ (it’s a pizza to the face but I definitely read that (subconsciously?) as pummeled flesh as a kid)
I didn’t know that there was a DOS version of Rockford. I had it on my Commodore 64.
Rockford introduced some fun new elements and variety (I liked that there was an outer space level and a blood and guts level), but I always found myself going back to the “purity” of Boulder Dash.
I think as a kid it always bothered me that you could move like a top-down perspective game, but the boulders acted as though it was a side on perspective. I guess it’s supposed to be like a slope or something
My aunt just sent me a load of letters I mailed her as a child* which is kinda cool because I had/have a compulsion to destroy anything I make after a couple years and lo and behold there’s ol’ Rockford on the shelf alongside Raptor: Call of Shadows, Commander Keen and Epic Pinball.
We were only allowed shareware games at this point (DOOM is not on the shelf because it was precious secret contraband) and this Jurassic Park game was I think the first video game I was allowed to buy and call my own?
Months later my dad would buy a 27" TV (!) and a Sega Genesis with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Vectorman and Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball with his bonus thus blowing our minds.
A few more months later, my brother and I pooled our birthday money together and bought an N64, much to my dad’s chagrin. It’s been all downhill from there.
*The ample evidence is clear, I was obsessed with dinosaurs/JP, Earth Day/recycling and NIKE NIKE NIKE from ages 7 to 11.
