Game 4: Junior Boulderdash (1986)

The game begins. The player character is that weirdly grinning blob down at the left.

Germany
Released 1986
Genre: Platformer, Arcade, Puzzle
Developer: Klaus Kramer
Date Started: 22 June 2025
Date Ended: 22 June 2025
Total Hours: 1
Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (4/5)
Final Rating: 14

The next game I’m talking about is Junior Boulderdash (sometimes also listed as Jr. Boulderdash). As you might have already guessed, this is a clone of the classic Boulder Dash game, which was released in 1984 by First Star Software, originally on the C64 but later ported to many other platforms. It spawned a whole series of sequels which still see releases today. And as typical for successful games of that type, it also inspired a number of clones in the non-commercial scene.

Junior Boulderdash is not a particularly inventive clone, you’ve got the typical gameplay elements: You have to collect all gems on a screen (or this time things that look like toxic bales of hay) while dealing with rocks that can fall on you and sometimes have to be cleverly moved around to clear your path. A tiny aesthetic twist is your main character, which isn’t a flimsy minor kind of guy, but rather some kind of green blob with large eyes and a giant grinning mouth with some teeth knocked out, which makes him look a bit like grotesque and on some kind of drug. Also there seems to be some slight palette randomization going on when you enter a new screen or restart a screen, which is a bit weird but also a nice touch, I guess.

After each screen, the game tells you how long you spent on it and how much your total time is, probably to encourage you to try and beat your own time or the time of your pal. Noteworthy is the game gives you 10 lives, which feels quite generous, but if you are as bad at this game as I am, you will run out of them quickly.

This was written in AmigaBASIC, and it shows in terms of performance. While the controls initially feel responsive, the game gets laggy as soon as more stuff is happening on the screen, and as soon as rocks start to move, you have to wait until they stop (often killing you in the process if you happen to be in a bad spot), turning this almost into what feels like a turn-based game. Also the screen takes a while to be drawn tile by tile when you start a level, though that might be intended.

Programming:
Okay for a BASIC game but the slow speed is noticable. 3/10

Controls:
Basically responsive, but too laggy when things get moving. 2/10

Vibe:
Your basic Boulder Dash clone with at least a few aesthetic touches. 3/10

Graphics:
Okay for a BASIC game but nothing special. 3/10

Story:
None. 0/10

Audio:
Very basic sounds for collecting stuff and moving around. The death sound is annoying and sounds like your Amiga turning in to ZX Spectrum. 1/10

Fun:
There is some potential there, but the laggy controls hold it back and there nothing special going on. 2/10

Final Rating: 14

Overall:
I think I’ve touched all the important points already, nothing special really.

The author, Klaus Kramer, seems to have been pretty active in the Amiga Public Domain scene. For 1987, an updated version of the game written in C was release as StoneAge, as well as Cogans Run, a 2D platformer, and there is also Move which is Rubik's Cube clone, probably from 1989.