Lately I haven't really had any interest in improving Digger, but I still occasionally think it might be fun to write a sequel. "Digger 2" or "Digger's Adventure" would have a 2D continuously scrolling playfield, impenetrable walls, new monsters, bosses, new items to collect, more weapons, shields, warps, speed-boosters, and maybe the possibility to dig to the surface where it would be possible to jump.
You know for the longest time (a year or more after I started playing back in 1986-7) I didn't know you had the ability to shoot. I played through the games first 5 or 6 levels before someone told me that digger could shoot.
Yeah it took me a while to figure that out too - it's not very discoverable!
Shooting is something that came naturally with any new game that got on our hands way back in the 80's - you just load the game and start pressing every key to see what they do.
And, oh I have been playing the remake since I found it way back in 2006 or 2007-ish... it's now 08/2024 and I've burned an astonishing number of hours playing Digger on and off work, at home, when on vacation trip, you name it.
There still a bug on Windows, when loading a level, it will mess up the scores by shifting to the left and putting a 5 at the end......
So... I'd love to have a how-to compile it using Visual Studio 2022 - it's what I have... what I don't have is previous experience with VS ... I come from the time where makefiles where still the rage (yeah, they still enrage me to this day).
Gonna try to use MS copilot to guide me through the ropes where I have failed before.....