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Lost Dutchman Mine

Amiga game review, ADF downloads, screenshots, ratings and insights
Lost Dutchman Mine is a pretty fun simulation game with a very creative premise: control an "old-timer" gold miner in the Old West and, ultimately, find the Lost Dutchman’s Mine. If you aren’t familiar with the legend, that’s worth a quick read to get the juices flowing.

You need to use both the mouse and joystick to navigate the game, which can be a tad cumbersome at first, but you get over it soon enough.

In the beginning you’re mainly figuring out the little town, buying necessary supplies for panning, mining and surviving the elements as well as bandits. And damned if it ain’t hot as hell out in the desert, and your tired old body ain’t what it once was when you were a youngin'. So get lots of canteens! And a fish hook (lots of free food swims in the nearby rivers).

The graphics are decent, and out of all the various versions the Amiga definitely got the best effort. They aren’t Cinemaware quality but they do get the job done. You get fun animation for the miner, impressive closeup shots during the card games, and a workable if basic map view. In addition, the user interface is extremely easy to understand and use although it has a strange Windows 3 feel to it at times. The music is typical for the plinky-plink style piano tunes you might expect to hear for a game set in the wild west. But the sound effects on the other hand are surprisingly poor and seem merely glommed on for some sort of user feedback (or weren’t enhanced much if this was a DOS or Atari ST port, although information on the development company is virtually non-existent.

Once you figure out the key tactics for playing the game, it can be a rather enjoyable way to pass the time over the course of a quiet afternoon. Replay value might be on the lower side once you figure things out, but the journey to that “first time” can be rewarding.

Back of the box:

The Lost Dutchman Mine...

Tales whispered in the saloons of the Old West told of a fortune in gold just waiting to be rediscovered. It was said an old prospector had found the motherload in '42, where veins of gold seemed to light the earth. He died before he could file a claim, but rumors surfaced that he had drawn a map to what is now called the Lost Dutchman Mine. Many have searched and all have failed, but your journey has just begun...

An Eventful Passage...

  • Play poker, down a drink or purchase a burro - Visit Goldfield's livery stable, saloon, assay office, newspaper, bank and jail.

  • Explore the caves, mountains and rivers of the desert and surrounding countryside to find the lost treasure.

  • Fight heat, hunger and thirst - and Indians rattlesnakes and claim jumpers - as you make your way across the burning desert!

  • Pan for gold in the river, pick for gold in the mines, capture a wanted bandit, or cast a line to try and catch your dinner.


An Exceptional Graphic Adventure...

  • Real-time, animated game play with time and temperature changes and day/night variations.

  • Never the same game twice - play a different scenario whenever you start a new game!

  • Brilliant graphics, realistic sound effects - you'll think you can smell a campfire's smoke and hear its crackle!

  • More than 100 caves and mines!
4
5 total votes

Screenshots

Comments

User avatar
Shot97

Thu Jun 16, 2016 1:17 am

I'll always love the sheer uniqueness of this game. Showed everyone how strangely fun mining can be long before a certain quite popular game... This is one where I'd love to know more about the company who designed it. Since all the sites seem to list it as being a port from DOS, and how the DOS version is obviously not as pretty; it would be interesting to hear their motivations and technique for making the Amiga version better... Or, perhaps, we might even find out the Amiga was what it was made on. This exactly the type of game where regardless of your personal feelings on how good it is, it needs to be shown far more often than it is. It's hard for me to fathom how certain Euro budget titles (sold for less than $5) seem to have never ending coverage but this unique gem of an American game that would have taken you some time to complete, thrust you into the very soul of true role playing (thinking of yourself as another person in another era) and is a game I believe is hard to forget even if you don't care for it... It's always been hard for me to grasp this is the type of game that's in danger of being forgotten. I did one of my most heartfelt reviews for this one, tearing up a bit. I can't describe just how great of a feeling it was for me as a 10/11 year old kid playing this game for years without winning but thinking I'd seen everything there was to see... Then seeing that mine which started like so many others, but ended oh so different. There's no feeling quite like beating a game you've wrapped so much time into legitimately. Without walkthroughs, without cheating... I was so excited I had to grab my father to come watch the end with me. A well deserved 5 in my book; The graphics are good, the style was a first, the journey was long and rewarding, and the Amiga version was the best. The only thing that lets it down is the sound (lack of) but of course that was not uncommon from these types of games of that era, so I won't penalize it for that. I have to say the little music provided is always a nice uplifting event and will have you singing along. Simply an unforgettable game in my eyes and I thank you for giving it a little light and showing it as it was intended to be seen.
User avatar
intric8

Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:05 pm

@Shot - Not sure if you'll see this comment (since I don't have alerts for them yet) but I, too, wish I could find out more about the company that made this little gem of a game. It was so "out there" in terms of theme. For a debut title to be at this level, then "poof!" the company is nowhere to be found. I wanted to try and hunt down someone from that company and ask a few questions, too, but it's like they were erased From the Matrix, so to speak. Very odd indeed. And a real shame. I can find folks who were part of Innerprise, but not Magnetic Images.
User avatar
Shot97

Sat Jun 18, 2016 3:33 am

Perhaps someone from Innerprise knows someone from Magnetic Images? Or can shed light on its story... I was thinking about another feature in this game that screams to me this might have been an Amiga original... You know my last topic where I delved into, of many things, how American's wanted the Amiga to be "taken advantage of" VS how Europeans wanted it? In Europe, bypass AmigaDOS, extra resources - Do that in America and it was a sin in our eyes, we wanted games on hard drives. Make a game that cooperates with AmigaDOS and Europeans thought American's didn't know what they were doing with that machine. Enter Lost Dutchman Mine, which features its own unique, in their words, "pause", feature. In their own documentation they note how you can "pause" your current LDM game, essentially closing the game but keeping it in memory - So you can dooooo.... Whatever the hell you want to do... They said you could even load up another game of LDM while the other one was still in memory! Now, I can understand Europeans who might roll their eyes, when would anyone use that? - I don't know - But it's freaking cool! Stupid useless nerdy stuff is a huge part of the fun for creative power users, the Amiga had plenty of those in America... Port from DOS? But DOS used VGA graphics and the Amiga still looked better... ST Port? The ST is clearly closer to the DOS graphics (slightly better than DOS though), but the Amiga is the best version... And no way the ST would have had that "pause" feature... Best graphics and a hell of a weird Amiga Workbench feature? Required 1mb of RAM on the Amiga, 512k for the ST... As you said, very hard to track down information, can't find release months, all versions came out in 1989... I do a see a credit for the "Amiga Version" being by Jim Biggs... So? There's also a separate credit for the IBM version via Robert Friele.. Ah oh, but the ST version does not have a special credit for it... BUT, it does have completely different special thanks credits including another company, 2-bit systems where the Amiga has special thanks to individuals and the DOS version has no special thanks at all... What a strange thing we have here... I wouldn't say the credits help us, can't find release dates... I'm going to say all versions of this game were done in house and worked on at the same time, most likely... Which would sort of make all of them the original version... You can't have a "port" unless one came before the rest - I think they're all the original game, and such things did happen occasionally. IF it was in-house and if they were all being done at the same time - It would be easier to call the version that looks the best (Amiga) what was likely to have been intended. It's either an Amiga original game OR Jim Biggs was an awesome and unknown magic worker that knew how to make the Amiga not only shine against VGA, but also had time to implement strange workbench memory features... That guy needs to be found!
User avatar
Shot97

Sat Jun 18, 2016 4:21 am

I did some slight digging... Yeah, these people have not only vanished, seems like they never existed.... Except... David Lindsley also has a credit for the other Magnetic Images game, Gold of the Realm from 1988. Never heard of it, seems to have bad reviews (so did Lost Dutchman from European eyes though...) but it looks like it's going after The Fairy Tale Adventure in its design... Problem is looking into that game leaves you with the same blank spaces... Ben Fuller is the only person I could find a bit of history for. He's given a "special thanks" in the LDM credits. What exactly did that incumace? Who knows, because he's also given a "special magic" credit for Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the Amiga - Which, according to what I'm reading, he re-wrote from the BOTTOM UP himself... Wow, you re-write something from the bottom up and you're given a special credit, not a main credit. Ha! So that LDM special thanks credit could mean more than just a thanks... Sadly, Ben died in 2002. He's the only one I could find sizable info from the original LDM credits... But we have a "possible" lead... If Ben re-wrote Roger Rabbit from the ground up, it's "possible" Jim Sachs might recall who he is... Because Jim did the artwork for Roger Rabbit... He probably wouldn't have know much about Magnetic Images, but it feels like our only shot, and what are the chances of all possible connections, it would be Jim? Think he's had enough of us, yet? :D
User avatar
clpe04

Tue Apr 11, 2017 1:46 pm

I made som digging too and fund the ceo of Innerprise Software, Who published the game. I have written him a e-mail hoping hej have som information in Magnetic Images, organisationer the developers.
User avatar
Doma

Tue Sep 19, 2017 5:10 am

I still have not been able to beat this! Cant find that damn lost mine!

Write a comment

4
5 total votes
Developer:
Magnetic Images
Publisher:
Innerprise
Designer:
David Lindsley, Steve Marshall
Programmer:
Jim Biggs
Genre:
Adventure, Simulation
Perspective:
Top-down
Theme:
Gold Miners
Player mode:
Single-player
Origin:
USA
Release date:
1989

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