New game released: Minigun Miner

Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't know this game, and I just looked it up, and it's a really cool idea to have to make the make the trip down the cavern and then back up, as it change the whole gameplay! That could be a very interesting feature too, I'm adding it up to the "idea list"

The comment about obstacles got me thinking another thought... There was an Atari 800 game called Caverns of Mars that was a vertical scroller, forcing you to go down deep into the caverns. Once you navigated all the challenges, you set off a bomb at the bottom of the cavern, and then had to work your way back UP to the surface. At that point all the enemies are gone/destroyed, but it scrolls at double speed on the way back up, so the challenge is in navigating the maze in reverse at double speed.

Thanks a lot for all the gameplay and console suggestions! The idea of adding enemies is great, especially with a localized hit area! I was also thinking of introducing "rocks" that cannot be destroy to force the player to move around them. Regarding consoles, I think it would be cool to port it on a 8 bit machine, but displaying that many sprites will indeed be a real challenge. Maybe the 7800 could be a great candidate as it can display loads of sprites (and this is also a machine I'd like to make something for too). But I'll look into the Atari 400/800 and 5200, if they can do bitmap mode + sprite multiplexing that could be very interesting :)

The movement mechanics reminds me much of Joust. An interesting tangent on the game would be to have moving enemies/targets instead of the gold. Or adding on to the existing game, keep the gold, but have enemies that you can only defeat by hitting them from below (reverse of joust where you hit them from above).

Atari 7800 has a high-res mode as well. And of course either of the main 16 bit platforms (SNES/Genesis) should be able to handle it, but it *feels* like it would be more at home/appropriate on an 8 bit platform.

To get the "carving out" effect, I think you want a platform that has a high res bitmap mode (ie, 320*190 or better). On Atari 800 (or 5200 if you want console), you have that plus players (sprites) for the character. What would be tougher would be the spray of bullets/missiles. That platform has 4 8 bit wide players and 4 2 bit wide "missiles". You can multiplex them via display list interrupts, getting that many per scan line if you multiplex.

Thanks Brian! Regarding the console, I honestly have no idea for now, and I'm open to suggestions. I thought of the GBA (because of its bitmap mode), but the screen might be too tiny. For the 8/16 bits consoles, making the destructible terrain would be a real challenge, but also part of the fun! And of course it could be fun to make it for an earlier or later console generation too. So it's kind of open for now - do you have any suggestions? :)

Oh, you should definitely do a retro console version someday! What console do you think it would be at most home on and/or most fun to do?