Minesweeper
This game was two player only, you must have a real live person to play against, or else the other players boat will head directly for the bottom wall, which doesn't make for a very interesting game. Each player moves their little boat around leaving a solid line of mines behind them. All moves are made on an invisible grid, so you can only turn at 90 degree angles. To win you must last longer than your opponent before hitting something (first person to hit something loses). One good strategy is to try and box your opponent in to a small section of the screen, and then just move carefully until they crash. Pushing backwards on the stick will cause you to crash into your own mines, so avoid that at all cost.
The game was controlled with buttons rather than joysticks (this was cheaper to produce, and most of the other similar games of the time used buttons as well). Inserting a coin started the game at once. Both players got to play for a single coin. The game ended after one player chalked up six wins, but this was operator adjustable down to as low as three. The operator can also turn the sound on and off with internal switches as well.
The game was controlled with buttons rather than joysticks (this was cheaper to produce, and most of the other similar games of the time used buttons as well). Inserting a coin started the game at once. Both players got to play for a single coin. The game ended after one player chalked up six wins, but this was operator adjustable down to as low as three. The operator can also turn the sound on and off with internal switches as well.
Technical
CPU
- maincpu 8080 (@ 2 Mhz)
Chipset
- DISCRETE
Display
- Orientation Yoko
- Resolution 255 x 224
- Frequency 60 Hz
Controlers
- Number of players 2
- Number of buttons 0
- Kind of controler joy (4 ways)
Clones of Minesweeper
If you liked Minesweeper
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Minesweeper and M.A.M.E.
0.54 [Frank Palazzolo]
Samples required (Blockade)
WIP:
- 0.133u1: Changed 'Minesweeper (4-Player)' from a parent set to a clone of 'Minesweeper'. Renamed (minesw4p) to (mineswpr4).
- 0.92: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper (4-Player) (Amutech 1977). Sound in Minesweeper driver [Frank Palazzolo]. Added discrete sound. Fixed cpu1/gfx1 rom loading.
- 1st February 2005: Frank Palazzolo - Well, I got a PCB from eBay. As suspected, it is an exact clone of the Gremlin blockade hardware, except for the connectors. The program roms are the same as our existing set, but the graphics are slightly different. (The scores can be displayed in four different directions). So, it turns out that fixing the port settings in Blockade driver enables 4 player mode. I did this, along with some general cleanup. I'll submit the updated driver soon, but I'd like to try and add some sound first.
- 0.54: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper (Amutech 1977).
- 21st August 2001: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper to the Blockade driver.
- 26th February 1999: Dumped Minesweeper.
Romset: 3 kb / 4 files / 1.53 zip
Samples required (Blockade)
WIP:
- 0.133u1: Changed 'Minesweeper (4-Player)' from a parent set to a clone of 'Minesweeper'. Renamed (minesw4p) to (mineswpr4).
- 0.92: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper (4-Player) (Amutech 1977). Sound in Minesweeper driver [Frank Palazzolo]. Added discrete sound. Fixed cpu1/gfx1 rom loading.
- 1st February 2005: Frank Palazzolo - Well, I got a PCB from eBay. As suspected, it is an exact clone of the Gremlin blockade hardware, except for the connectors. The program roms are the same as our existing set, but the graphics are slightly different. (The scores can be displayed in four different directions). So, it turns out that fixing the port settings in Blockade driver enables 4 player mode. I did this, along with some general cleanup. I'll submit the updated driver soon, but I'd like to try and add some sound first.
- 0.54: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper (Amutech 1977).
- 21st August 2001: Frank Palazzolo added Minesweeper to the Blockade driver.
- 26th February 1999: Dumped Minesweeper.
Romset: 3 kb / 4 files / 1.53 zip