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Mine Storm
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Developer(s) John Hall?
Publishers GCE
Release Date 1983?
Genre Multi-directional shooter
Flight Simulation
Mode(s) 1-2 players alternating?
Media Cartridge

Mine Storm is the built-in game that came with every Vectrex unit. It was also released in a 3-D version that required the use of the Vectrex 3D Imager and as a bug-free replacement cartridge called Mine Storm 2 (see Notes section).

Mine Storm III, however, could very well be a one-time only cartridge with some differences from the original Mine Storm (in the Notes section).

Gameplay

Gameplay is similar to the arcade game Asteroids. The player moves around the screen shooting at star-shaped Mines of various sizes that have various mannerisms. All the dots on a screen can potentially turn into Mines; once a mine is shot, two dots on the screen will turn into medium-sized Mines, which will then turn into two small Mines when shot (note: for the most part; sometimes, perhaps due to a glitch, a medium-sized Mine will just hatch one small Mine). When all dots have been turned into Mines on a screen the Minelayer will come out, laying Mines in it's wake until the player destroys it.

Making contact with any Mine, fireball, space dust, alien force or Minelayer will destroy the player's ship and the game will end once there are no more reserve ships left. Extra ships are earned after every four levels are cleared. The Escape function acts as Hyperspace, which moves the player's ship to a random area on the screen.

Notes

  • There are at least three versions of the original Mine Storm; with the infamous level 13 bug on the original version, the game would crash and end if a player is able to clear out this level. An extra printed sheet was added to the instructions of one of the U. S. versions (which is assumed to be the second version of the game) advising players to press the reset button if their Vectrex screen went blank after clearing this level. Also, a Mine Storm 2 cartridge was made available for free upon request for Vectrex owners who wrote to GCE, which was bug-free. This is one of the most rare and sought after Vectrex cartridges nowadays.
  • In addition to the above glitch, another version allows a player to make it past level 13, although the game behaves strangely, as there is a brief cinematic bit at the end of every level where the player's ship is sucked up from whatever area of the screen it is at to the middle while stars seemingly project from it (perhaps it is hitting warp to jump to the next level). If the player stays as close to the center as possible at the end of every level after 13, they will continue to advance; however, there are many times when a level skips several numbers for some reason. Also, if the player presses Escape or Thrust after they shoot the last Mine or piece of space dust, that could cause the game to end and take the player to the menu screen. This version truly ends on level 89, as there are several extra dots on this screen that will never hatch into Mines. There is also something that looks like a fireball that will not turn into smaller fireballs when shot. The player is either stuck here forever if they shoot all the Mines and space dust or they sacrifice whatever remaining ships they have by running into Mines or space dust particles. Presumably the third version is for the later Vectrexes that were released overseas, having a bit of code cleanup. There are no reports of the game crashing, Magnetic Mines appear on Mine Field 2, rather than Fireball Mines, and there have been posts online in regards to people making it to Mine Field 90. It is currently unknown for how much longer these games can continue past that level.
  • There is a similarly-named modern day hack called Minestorm 3, eliminating the level 13 bug. Also, the first 13 levels comprise one "stage", which the Mines will start blinking on and off. The further the player gets into a game, the longer the Mines will blink off, as with every 13 levels the player can make their way through, that will count as more "stages" that are completed.
  • This version supposedly has hundreds of levels (one must assume it was a bug-fixed version that would not crash) and only had a handmade label made. Gamer Robert Van den Heuvel toured the Vectrex Los Angeles factory as a child and was awarded the cartridge[1], which, if only one was made, could make it the rarest Vectrex game out there, even more rare than Mr. Boston.

References


This article uses material from the Mine Storm article and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

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