Making Of Miner 2049er
Interviews
Bill Hogue speaks with Magmic's Wes Tam
Wes Tam, lead developer of the new Miner 2049er for mobile put a call in to Bill Hogue, the game's original creator. Here's what these era- splitting developers had to say to each other ...
Read the full interview or listen to the MP3.
Wes Tam: Hey Bill, it's Wes Tam. I'm just sitting here at Magmic Games in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Where are you at?
Bill Hogue: Hey Wes. I'm just sitting at home here, in a small town just outside LA.
WT: L.A. - nice. The weather must be good.
BH: Yeah, it's warming up. I've been cleaning up the pool this week. We converted to salt water and it's completely awesome. I'm thinking of doing solar heating, too. If you ever make the trip here from Ottawa, come for a swim.
WT: Cool. Swimming with Bill Hogue and his entourage.
BH: (Laughs) Not much of an entourage to speak of. But my dog, Kiki, will be around. And I could call Jeff Konyu - the other guy who worked on the original Miner 2049er.
WT: You and Jeff still hang out?
BH: Yeah, we've been lifelong friends. Ever since I met him while I was working at Radio Shack, when he came in to buy some transistors or something.
WT: A friendship that started in a Radio Shack ... and then transformed into a video game partnership that changed the industry.
BH: Well, at the time, we wouldn't have known it. I was into making games for home computers, ones based on games that were in arcades at the time. Whenever there were no customers at Radio Shack, I'd be programming a new game. My first one was called Coneheads. It was based on a popular Saturday Night Live skit.
WT: Coneheads?
BH: Yeah, Coneheads.
WT: I can't believe there's a Coneheads game! That's with Dan Aykroyd, right? He's Canadian ...
BH: Heh. I didn't know that. Yeah.
WT: Remarkable. A Coneheads game. (Laughing)
Bill vs. Wes MP3
Bill Hogue discovers that he may have invented the Binary Sort. Wes suggests patenting it.
Interviews with the Original Miner Team
Interview with Scott Ross, who did all of the creative artwork used in the Miner 2049er packaging and advertising.
Find out why Bounty Bob has a wide brimmed hat in the original game, yet in the artwork he is wearing a miner's hard hat with a light. Also, discover why Bob's trusty mule appears in the sales materials but never appears in the game.
Interview with Barry Friedman, who founded International Computer Group (ICG). ICG represented more than 4,000 different games. Barry handled worldwide negotiations for over 350 publishers and developers.
Find out why the Apple II version of Miner 2049er got to market before the original Atari version ... and learn which video game company burned Bill on royalties.
Interview with Bill Kunkel, who literally started video game journalism, and was the executive editor for Electonic Games Magazine.
Find out why he thinks Bill Hogue "disappeared" from the video game industry after his Miner 2049er fame.
Interview with Mike Livesay, programmer of the Apple II and Colecovision versions of Miner 2049er, and creator of the "unofficial" sequel, Miner II for the Apple II.
Find out about Bill Hogue's sportscar and which hit movie inspired him to buy a helicopter of his very own.
