Here's another game that I seem to have downloaded years ago that I haven't tried out until recently, it's called Goldfin, made by simpleGUIDE, but checking on https://www.simpleguide.net/sg/impressum.jsf - it seems the person who made it is Michael Eberlein; this is also mentioned when starting up the game.
You can find the game from https://www.simpleguide.net/sg/goldfin.jsf - there's 2 versions, the original DOS version named Goldfin, and the more accessible version using Java Runtime called Goldfin Reloaded, which has a .jar and .exe version; I used the .jar version.
Before starting up the game, you're greeted to this: I can't really read something that's in another language other than English, so it's a bit of a stumbling block. Navigate the choices using the Up and Down keyboard buttons and pressing the Enter keyboard button to confirm your choice. When you open the game the first time, the first or second choice it's just the same as starting a new game. However, the choice between the two makes a difference when pressing 'Esc' or dying and losing all lives in a current level, since the second choice starts a new game, and the first game actually loads the game.
A bit saddening, according to the website, there's supposed to be a level editor, but checking all the three choices, with the last choice just closing the game, there's no level editor. Awwn...
- There's 10 levels in the game, and I didn't find out how many until I had to complete the game through; the dimensions for all the levels are 45 tiles horizontally and 23 tiles vertically; as all the levels are on a single whole screen, no scrolling needed!
- Each level you need 50 gold pieces for exit to open to be able to advance to the next level; quite a curious one since I thought the amount of gold pieces needed would vary.
- You have 3 lives when starting a new game, with 0 lives counting as a life. When you die, the level doesn't start over as you continue where you left off, respawning at where you began in the level. There are yellow life totems that you can collect that adds an extra life. However, being able to respawn without having to start over the level has a downside in where if you get stuck or block your way towards finishing the level, you'll have to press the 'Esc' and reset the current level.
- The game doesn't use any audio, no sound effects or music.
- There is no smooth movement like in Emerald Mine or Supaplex, as this movement style jumping from one tile to another is more akin to Boulder Dash's way of movement.
- The game's speed, oof, it's not rate limited to something to something more fair, basically all the stuff zips around pretty fast, and that includes the player, making it difficult to control. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it makes the game much more difficult than it's supposed to be.
- The arrow keys are for movement, and pressing the 'Esc' keyboard key quits the level and sends you back to the main menu. You don't really have a 'snap' move where you can dig dirt or collecting gold pieces while staying in place.
- Regarding Boulder Dash-likes on object or obstacle types: there's the usual empty space, green dirt, boulders, gold pieces, brown indestructible walls, and an exit.
- There's only one enemy type, a pink bat; they move in a straight direction, and changes direction to the left upon hitting a wall; if it can't move to the left, it will move to the right, and if not, it will move back to the opposite direction (although the movement is a bit erratic). Pink bats can be hit by either a boulder or a gold piece and turn into a gold piece itself; this also happens when colliding at the player. Interestingly, unlike a boulder, gold pieces do not get destroyed if used to hit a gold bat.
- Regarding score point stuff: Collecting a gold piece earns you 10 score points; finishing a level earns you 500 score points; hitting pink bats or collecting life totems do not earn you any score points.
- Pressing 'Esc' or dying and losing all of your lives will save your progress, so you can select the first choice to resume playing where you left off without starting over at level 1. However, be careful of pressing 'Esc' since not only it saves your level position, it saves with the amount of lives left. However, the latter can provide an opportunity for cheating, as you can stock up lives in the existing level in the first level, by getting to the easiest life totem at the right, just mind the basically luck-based pink bat that circles around you at where you first spawned.
- As for the level design, while it's hard to tell if the game's speed is intentional, what I can say is because of the implementation of getting extra lives during the session, there are various sections where getting an extra totem is just a complete trap and . There are some sections where you have to spend your lives just going through it since you can't collect or dig stuff while doing it in place.
- Despite those iffyness above, not mind those, the types of levels are varied despite having only 10 levels and the objects being just the player, empty space, green dirt, gold pieces, boulders, pink bats, and an exit. Just sucks that again, there's no built-in level editor as far as I know.
- I just discovered this earlier as I was writing up this, pressing the Q keyboard button makes you drop a gold piece and teleports back to where you spawned in the beginning of the level; this will not work if you have 1 life left on the HUD (even though 0 lives is considered a life) or if you're standing on the spawn area. The consequence is that the amount of gold piece needed to finish a level goes up by 1. It's a different way from snapping, but this seems useless and I finished all the levels without knowing this at all! Warning, if you use this function while the gold piece is settled on where the player spawns at the beginning of the level, the gold piece doesn't get collected and is destroyed instead; the only other time you can destroy gold pieces is if the player is hit by one! Careful!
- Another one, pressing the M keyboard button pauses the game and lets you rotate what color you can use for the wall from left to right.
- ...Oh my goodness, I found the the speed keyboard keys, pressing the plus number pad keyboard key increases the speed, and pressing the minus number pad keyboard key decreases the speed; it looks like the slowest speed possible makes the game much more manageable and fun because now it's not hectic and maddening now. Woo!
Again, you can find the game on https://www.simpleguide.net/sg/goldfin.jsf - curiously, they didn't say when the original was made, or even the 'Reloaded' versions, now that I think about it.