Minigun Miner
A downloadable game
It's Time to Hunt for Treasures!
Armed with a minigun, fire at will to begin digging holes! Your goal? To unearth coins, diamonds, rubies and other treasures! But beware, there are also very dangerous beasts living underground, and death comes quickly to reckless miners.
Your excavator is a powerful minigun, but you'll find it is quite fragile and explosive when colliding with walls or the bottom of your mine. Your left and right thrusters will work fine when avoiding the walls, but, sadly, your minigun is lacking a vertical thruster. To keep from colliding with the bottom of your mine, you'll have to take advantage of the gun's recoil when you shoot. Each downward shot forces your mighty minigun upwards, allowing you those precious moments of free fall to expand your mine.
Great riches await the skilled Minigun Miner. Are you up to the task?
Gameplay
Holding Fire causes you to shoot to dig holes and will push you in the opposite direction of your shots. Move the joystick while holding down the Fire button to aim in any direction.
Move the joystick Left and Right while the Fire button is released to move left and right.
There are items to collect (earning you points), and enemies to avoid (to not lose a life). Some enemies can be shot before they touch you, while others are invincible and must be avoided.
You start the game with three lives, displayed as "small squares" in the bottom left corner of the screen, next to the score. In Arcade and Contest modes, you can earn extra lives when your score reaches 100, 300, 600 and 1,000 points.
Game Features
- 3 Game Modes: Arcade, Challenge, and Contest.
- AtariVox/SaveKey support for saving scores in Arcade and Contest modes, and levels completed in Challenge mode.
- Pause game with Game Select switch.
- Select between NTSC, PAL and SECAM modes (a single ROM for all TV types).
Game Modes:
- Arcade: aim for the high score in an infinite and randomly generated level.
- Challenge: clear a set of 16 finite levels of increasing difficulty. You score will start at a high number, and will decrease each time you earn points. Reach a score of 0 to complete the current level.
- Contest: aim for the high score in a single, infinite and non-random level. This is the perfect mode to challenge your friends!
An actual Atari 2600 game
This game is an actual new game for the Atari 2600 console. You can get the ROM version from this page, but it's also available as a gorgeous physical cartridge with box and manual from publisher AtariAge.
Looking for challenge?
My best score in the contest mode is 186 points, can you beat it?
About
This game started as a Jam entry for the Retro Platform Jam #6, back in 2023. I've then spent 2 years to extend, enhance and improve this prototype to create the current "full version" that you can buy from here in digital format (ROM), or in physical edition from AtariAge.
A free demo version of the game is also available below. It comes with the full Arcade and Contest modes, but only 4 of the 16 levels available in Challenge mode. Your progress / highscores saved through AtariVox / Savekey will be kept from the demo version if you decide to buy the full version afterwards, as they use the same save slot on the device.
I hope you'll enjoy this game, and don't hesitate to ask me if you have any question.
Enjoy!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- Minigun Miner released for Atari 260083 days ago
Comments
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This is really fun! BTW would you happen to have access to a PNG of the awesome box art I can use for my thumbnail? I can only find 3D versions. If not, no worries!
Hi, thanks a lot for the video! It's a great pleasure for me to see players enjoying the game, thanks for making and sharing the video :)
Here are some answers / comments to questions asked during your video:
- During the "Arcade" and "Contest mode, your score increases and you must make the best score. Each treasure earn you a defined amount of points: 3 points for a coin, 4 points for a diamond, 5 points for a ruby. And hitting and killing skulls earns you even more points (10 for a regular skull, 35 for a boss).
- In the "Levels" mode, you must collect a defined number of treasures / kill a fixed amount of enemies to clear the level. So in this mode the score decreases each time you "earn points". When you reach zero you clear the level, like you did in the video.
- The levels all looks the same (there is a single "brown" area), but each level has a different layout (type and place of treasures and enemies). Each level is hand-tailored to offer a slightly more difficult challenge each time you progress in the game.
- You should definitively try the level 4, you're in for a "big" surprise that you haven't discovered yet in the video.
- The "digging power" of the minigun does not vary over time, you have the same power whether you are playing level 1 or level 16 - only the challenge you face becomes harder :).
- The "TV" setting in the main menu allows you to configure your TV type when playing on real hardware to have the game look right on every machine region. When played on a PAL console (so Europe and Australia) the game will look strange on startup, as it'll be configured as a NTSC game. But selecting the "TV: PAL" setting will make the game look as good on PAL machines as on NTSC consoles. The Stella emulator that you use runs in NTSC mode by default. And the SECAM TV type will display colors when played on an actual SECAM version of the 2600 (exclusive to France, can display only 8 colors instead of the 100+ colors of NTSC and PAL versions). But the "SECAM" setting doubles as a "Black & White" mode when played on a NTSC or PAL machine.
- There are a lot of other Atari 2600 homebrew for you to try if you like the console, the scene is very active since a very long time. The best place to find them are the AtariAge forums. For example, James from the ZeroPageHomebrew Twitch show is keeping track of all homebrew released each year, for all Atari consoles. Here is the Atari 2600 list of homebrew released in 2025: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/378304-atari-2600-homebrew-games-releasedcompl...
- And as requested, here is the front cover art, drawn by the wonderful William Thorup (commissioned by AtariAge, who published the physical release). It's not the final-final version (it lacks the copyright info in the bottom right) but the image is the final one :).
Thank you for sharing all of that information. I just completed Level 4!
You put a lot of thought and effort into your game. The PAL/NTSC filter is very useful for those playing on real hardware. I'm new to Atari games and wanted to check out some homebrews and I spotted your game on the homepage of AtariAge! The list of homebrews you shared will keep me busy.
Thank you also for sharing the cover art. William Thorup has designed other covers I've noticed and they are all very good! My next game queued up is Axercise!
Very nice game with cool game idea. Our German-language review of the WIP Demo can be found at 07:57:34. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
Does the cart work on the 7800+?
Hi! Yes, the game cart does work on a 7800+. I've tested it on a never updated 7800+, so on still on firmware 2.0 (so like any 7800+ coming straight of a brand new box).
Awesome! Thanks for the confirmation.