Mineshaft Gap
A downloadable game
After decades of a grinding and devastating cold war, the conflict with our enemies finally got hot. We had no other option but to strike first with our full nuclear arsenal. Retaliation was to be expected, and it came, leaving the earth’s surface in a desolated state, thus giving the cockroaches their chance of dominance, they had been waiting for.
To save our great nation from total annihilation, we put our best into hibernation pods in a system of underground shelters, to be ready to rebuild the world, once the conditions had improved.
As our leader, your brain got extracted from your body and placed into a stationary control center, to watch over them, monitor the outside conditions and oversee the rebuilding. Unfortunately after several millennia of playing mine sweeper and solitaire, you got so bored, that you began to wake up the bunker dwellers, and start the civilization underground.
It is possible that our enemy had similar plans, so we have to make sure that they will neither outbuild nor outbreed us, we must not allow a mineshaft gap.
Mineshaft Gap is a real-time strategy game for the C64 where you control up to 32 independent bunker dwellers in their strive for a less radioactive better future.
The game has been tested with C64, C128, TheC64 and emulators. It is intended for PAL mode. A disk drive 8 or 9 is required for saving.
Download
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Development log
- Source Code for Mineshaft Gap released11 days ago
- Fix for sticking info windowAug 03, 2024
Comments
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Dear MortalWombat I want to express my sincere admiration. I just happen to love all your games. This one took me a while to get started, but I can feel now this can be really immersive. It's a pity these days the majority of C64 gamers will stick to simple platformers and won't give this a try.
Please keep up the good work!
I try to cover a wide spread from simple to complex, from easy to hard, from fighting to puzzle, but usually I have to have at least one technical challenge in it for me to program.
For some reason this doesn't work on my C64 Maxi device. I click to start the game and it just freezes on 'loading'. Anybody know why?
It works fine on my C128 and on Vice in true drive and iec mode, but I can reproduce the issue on my TheC64. I will let you know, once I find the problem.
The game requires true drive emulation on the TheC64. Just rename the file to "mineshaftgap_AD.d64" and the emulator will use this mode. The downside is, that the game load times are much longer. You can solve this problem by saving a game state on the intro page, and for all future runs just load this game state.
Hi
OK great. I shall give that a try
I like the graphics on this one.
I really appreciate a game for the C64 that's not the usual jump'n'run or shoot 'em up.
However, I don't understand how to play the game, a manual that explains how the interface works and what's required to get things working would be appreciated.
You may notice that there is a .pdf as a downloadable item ;)
Sorry, my bad. I did notice the PDF, but somehow my viewer only showed me the first page. Yes, that's exactly what I was hoping for, I'll give it another go tomorrow.
Excellent game with great music, thank you. I also added it to my new "Gameplay of New C64 Games from August 2024" video.
Love the Kubrick inspired name
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, according to the instructions, I'm trying to build a generator but I can't. I select BILD, then in Workbench I display the TEAM option and give one of the two ASIGN, and nothing. In the field where I want to build the generator I also try ASIGN but my employee just stands there and looks at me.
I made a little gif that should show the process of getting those lazy guys into gear:
Thank you very much! I've tried it on an emulator now and yes it works, I'm going to reconnect my C64 and check it again on classic hardware :-)
I have not even attempted to play this game yet but I already love the reference to Dr. Strangelove.
Nice idea, but for me the game is not intuitive enough.
I have started to play it and sometimes I am able to build things like the generator and the hydro but I have no idea why I can't build a mine and the game does not really tells me.
If you can't build a mine, you have run out of metal. The building menu shows the resources required for each building. If the building is shown in red, you have a lack of resources, if it is blue you have not researched it yet.
Hi, I'd like to translate your game into Brazilian Portuguese on a voluntary basis.
I plan to release the source code in the comming weeks on github. As soon as I finished documenting them.
Smart move. Thanks.
my game frezze :(
Nice game! Our German-language preview can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 00:21:08. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
Awesome game! Been trying to make my way through and am so close. I wanted to note a couple things that aren't necessarily problems, but could be bugs or improvements. When restarting the game, the oxygen level graphics don't get reset for the lower floors. Also, on restart, the menu selections should reset to the first item like, the build menu, or the team menu. If I have a bunch of things researched and the last thing I built was the rocket, but then die, when it restarts the selection in the build menu is down on the last thing I built which is not visible on restart since it needs to be researched first. Same with Team, it should reset back to Mike on restart.
One thing that may be a bug or possibly me not understanding correctly, is if I am on the 10th level and mining, the oxygen meter graphic for the 9th level goes down and not the 10th level. Is that supposed to be that way or is it off by one due to tables starting at 0 and not 1?
The top floor has infinite oxygen, so the oxygen meter starts with the second floor. Thank you for the bug report, I will look into the menu reset issues later to day.
New Bunker Control System 2.5 with the restart fixes is deployed.
Wow, Awesome. Thanks.
Just a question on the manual in the Overseer section paragraph 4, a study is mentioned to train dwellers brains 🧠 but the manual doesn’t show the study and the game BLD menu doesn’t show an option to build a study. So I just wondered if the study is in the game or if I haven’t got far enough to see it.
Next question. Is there a reason you can’t place a building or mine at the end of a tunnel. I have to dig two tunnel extensions to build on the penultimate tunnel. This stops you from placing a mine to the far left/right edge of the map where there is coal and metal deposits.
This is now my favourite c64 game but boy it’s rock hard for me. Those darn creatures are a pain in the butt, lol. I never seem to be able to mine enough coal to build a ventilator and when I have managed it the next coal seem is to far away I can’t build another as the seem is to low and my dweller dies getting there, (catch 22). I guess I will figure it out, I hope. 😁
One request: Can we have an option in the menu to select a different cursor colour. I find the white on white difficult to see, old eyes.
One thought: Add an option to allow destroying a building. It’s a bummer when you accidentally put a ladder on a coal seem I guess I have learn to be more accurate. But if you do add the function you could remove the SAV option as the OPT option has save. Just a thought.
You may acquire more blueprints by radio transmissions, but you have to get the radio into gear for this.
You can only build into full rooms, this is just the way it is.
I will take a look into the colour issue.
Ah right o.
Thought so. So a room is two square in length might be worth adding to manual.
Ok thanks.
Changed the color scheme of the various menues.
That looks so much nicer and much easier to read.
Thank you.
Any thoughts on changing the Map/Room selection box to green as well? (The box moved around the map when in map mode).
I think it would look nice as well.
Great game !
Am I missing something?
I have built 10 quarters which should give me a total of 20 dwellers but when I look in TEM option I only see a total of 12, that includes the dead. I have full power and hydro. So I am not sure why I am note getting any extra dwellers. Have I done something incorrectly?
I can send the disk image with save if you want.
Update: Darn the save was corrupt
Looks like you ran out of pickled people ... you might need to attract more dwellers with some addtional installations.
I am so far unable to reproduce the save problem.
Ah ok.
Wondering if the save issue is just on the Miyoo Mini. I will test it on my pc and let you know.
Doh! It’s Jiffydos!
I forgot the Miyoo Mini auto saves and loads a save State. Turning the auto load/load state off then turning off jiffydos and resetting, the game loads from the c64 blue screen,(slowly lol). Then the save game works correctly. Switching jiffydos back on and resetting loads the c64 blue screen but save function fails intermittently, but quite offen.
Again this is on the Miyoo Mini Plus my primary device for playing on so I don’t know if jiffydos causes an issue on windows pc, just haven’t had time to test.
ps. The jiffydos roms I am using have the correct Hash value, I checked as to make sure the roms weren’t corrupt.
Save Bug.
Bunker System Control V2.3
There’s still an intermittent save bug. If you don’t notice the “file not found error”, and you try to Load the save, it’s corrupted and the game starts from scratch. This seems to happen rarely but it does happen.
The best way I found to get the error more quickly is to first create a save point. Then:-
1. Select Restart from the vice menu. This reboots the emulator and loads the game.
2. At the Title Screen Menu I select option 3. Save to disk, by pressing the fire button.
Then hold the fire button and select OPT and select save. If you don’t get the error go to OPT and select save again. If after selecting save 4-5 times in a row and you haven’t had the error, use Vice Restart option and repeat the above.
I understand the above is not a normal thing the player is likely to do but it’s the only method I have found that should show the error does happen, (the error does happen whilst playing normally).
This happens on my Miyoo Mini Plus, I have not had time to test on my windows pc. But I will.
Reading the manual, (yes I did), the manual states to build a Generator first then build A Hydro plant but the game tells you to first build the Hydro plant then build the Generator. I think the game should tell you to build the Generator as per the manual as building the Hydro plant first makes it harder to understand why you are not creating any water, (no power). Can you swap the first system messages around as I think this will make more sense for a noob.
On the Mini Miyoo Plus I have noticed that moving the selection cursor is a bit quick. I hold the fire button and tap left or right and the cursor shoots right 2-3 options at a time. I have to tap left or right very quickly to move only one option. This makes the menu a bit fiddly. I would rather hold fire and press left or right and only move the cursor one place until next direction press. I guess I am saying can the auto repeat on the menu be disabled. Or a longer time be set before auto repeat kicks in.
Thanks for fixing the window issue I can get passed day 6 now! 😀
Menu Bug using Fire Button instead of space.
Press OPT to bring up the menu press space changes the options etc. This works as I would expect.
If I press fire instead the fire button only works reliably on option numbers 2 and 6. If you press fire on save you can get “62, file not found,00,00” this seems related to selecting OPT then selecting Restart, Continue then selecting save. Or select Continue then Restart then save seems to change. This only happens when using the fire button.
Removed the repeat cursor movement with joystick with bunker control system v2.2, give it a try.
That’s better for controls I find. Thanks
This is a great looking game but I have a couple of issues, I wonder if any one else has this problem?
1. If you dont build the hydro you die, thats correct but then you get the message Shutting Off 3..2..1.. then this message just repeats. I can not get to the OPT function to select the menu to select Restart.
2. Same issue day 6 when you have to build the Laboratory, the meassage pops up but I can not clear the message.
As far as I can see you can not hold fire and move the selector to select OPT when a message is on the screen. I cannot find away to clear the message.
PC, VICE 3.8 (GTK3 3.24.39, GLib 2.78.3, Cairo 1.18.0, Pango 1.50.14)
and Mini Myioo Plus (Onion OS 4.3.1-1)
Tried Jiffy DOS, Enabled and Disabled. Did not help
Update: If the red selector is on OPT when you die, if you press space and then quickly press fire button the menu will appear.
Fixed version uploaded (should show "BUNKER CONTROL SYSTEM V2.1" in the option menu).
Awesome idea !
Very nicely done, only problem I see is hard way to control things. I know you can do it with joystick and with keyboard, I've read the manual, and I still don't know if something I tried to do actually does something or not...
I've managed to build couple things, but still don't know how to build a mine etc...
Love it anyway :)
Dig a tunnel and then select a tunnel that is Not at then end of a tunnel, then build the mine or other Building. It appears you can not build at the end of a tunnel. Not sure if this correct or a bug.
Interesting game!
Awesome! https://c64universe.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/mineshaft-gap-2024-drmortalwombat/