Today I'm leaving here my tiny tribute to the gaming legend Ed Averett, the man I like to call the one-man console generation.

At the dawn of the 80s, the Magnavox company published its new videogame console, the Magnavox Odyssey2. It was the second iteration of the most important console in history: the Magnavox Odyssey, the first gaming console ever.

This time the Odyssey2 had to face a rapidly growing and competitive market, with nowadays legends the caliber of the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision. Despite everything, it managed to became one of the major three home consoles. But how?

In the Halcyon Days project, a collection of classic videogame programmer interviews, James Hague wrote that "Ed Averett basically was the Odyssey 2, writing the entirely library of games, excepting some early releases: twenty-four games in four years."

Wow. Ed Averett, formerly an Intel employee, was asked by Magnavox to basically write a full videogame lineup for its videogame console. That's already incredible but what striked me was the variety of videogame genres he brought up and the incredible creativity behind some of his works.

Along with classic games like Pocket Billiards!, Electronic Table Soccer! and Casino Slot Machine! and game inspired by that year blockbusters like Alien Invaders - Plus! and K.C. Munchkin!, there are even videogame collections like Speedway! / Spin-Out! / Crypto-Logic! and brand new genres, like that War of Nerves!, which is that first Real Time Strategy game in history we talked about in the Planetarian article.

But my favourite one is Pick Axe Pete! for his random success: born as a Donkey Kong replacement for the Odyssey2, it became a major unintended tie-in game success in Brazil (?) since it has been rebranded after the brazilian humorous character Didi Mocó with the title Didi na Mina Encantada, and it had a national competition (?) in the US, the The Pick Axe Pete Pick-Off, at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, which received over 11 million visitors.

The gaming world of 80s-90s was surely a strange and fascinating one, wasn't that?

Plot!

This Wright! game allows a glimpse into the life of that legendary miner Pit and his fabulous gold mines somewhere in the Open Mountains!

Your screen shows a network of tunnels and shafts. It's one of mines where Pit struck it rich, a different mine for each stage.

The actual secret of those Open Mountain mines lies hidden behind three coloured doors: one at the top level, one at the very bottom and the third in the centre. Huge boulders come bursting from those doors at irregular intervals, bouncing through the narrow tunnels. When two boulders collide, they can explode, show a power up or a key for a coloured door!

Watch out! The boulders can squash you, so get ready to dodge them or break them with your pickaxe!

Use LEFT/RIGHT for moving, the A BUTTON for jumping and the DOWN button for crouching down. Use the UP key for climbing the floating ladders. Good luck!

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Install / Add to home View game sources ...or play it online below!