Gilligan’s Mine

Plot

Some games have epic storylines that see you saving the planet, exploring fantasy landscapes or cleaning up a mansion full of items after an epic night on the sauce. What we have here however dispenses with all that backstory nonsense and plonks you straight into the action. Gilligan’s Mine sees you play the role of a chap in a mine called Gilligan. Our hero’s singular task is to snaffle all the bags of gold while dealing with bandits and runaway carts.

Gilligan’s Mine is a remake of Ocean Software’s Gilligan’s Gold, which in turn was a knock-off ahem I mean inspired by Valadon Automation’s 1982 arcade game Bagman.

Author Chris Owen is a relative newcomer to the Speccy homebrew scene, having recently pulled off the near impossible feat of somehow making a fun game out of obscure 1985 budget clunker “Smudge and the Moonees”, has he struck gold with this one? Read on to find out.

Gameplay

Gilligan’s Gold and the coin-op that inspired it are games that completely passed me by at the time. I only discovered the Speccy version recently when I played it on Twitch with my son and it was an enjoyable but frustrating caper. There was a decent stab at an in-game beeper tune and the graphics were functional, but the controls were fiddly which made it tricky to navigate. This remake sets out to right these wrongs and does so with some serious panache.

The idea of the game is as straightforward as it’s plot, avoid baddies, collect all the gold & deposit it in a wheelbarrow. As you might imagine however that’s much easier said than done. This is a game that requires a serious amount of careful planning to negotiate it’s bandits, timed lifts and runaway mine carts. If you just plough ahead grabbing the nearest gold bag willy nilly, there’s every chance you’ll come a cropper getting cornered, flattened by a cart, or killed by a bandit while waiting for a lift.

You may well find the first few goes to be a little frustrating as you get used to the enemy patterns, but your persistence is rewarded with a feeling of satisfaction when you do finally clear a screen of gold. There are four levels in total, each consisting of three screens but you will need some serious skills to see all four, even on the “easy” level.

Keep at it though and you will soon get the hang of techniques like using the hooks to leap into and ride the mine carts (it’s so satisfying the first time you pull this off), plonking bags of gold or pickaxes on the bandits heads from on high (again, satisfying) and timing your rides in the lifts.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in this game really pop, the characters are super cute, the backdrops are extremely well defined and there’s great use of the Spectrum’s colour palate.

The slickness of the graphics is matched by the quality of the music and effects. Lee Bee is making a real name for himself on the Speccy scene and this just further cements his reputation. There’s a jaunty AY remix of the original’s beeper tune on the first level that’ll have you bopping along and each level has it’s own unique toe tapper that rewards your progress through this tough game.

Verdict

There is a lot to love about Gilligan’s Mine, it is an extremely polished update that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the top tier games currently being released on the ZX Spectrum.

If you’re up for the challenge, give it a spin & remember to drop the author a couple of gold nuggets to encourage him to keep making these accomplished titles.

Info

Release Date: 31 December 2024
Original Publisher: Clebin Games
Machine Type: ZX Spectrum 128K
Price: Pay What You Want
Available from: https://clebingames.itch.io/gilligans-mine