Emerald Mine
Emerald Mine is a video game series by Kingsoft for Home Computers. The series follows mines filled with various gems, such as emeralds. Section::::"Emerald Mine". "Emerald Mine" was released in 1987 for the Amiga and converted in 1988 for the Commodore 64. Reviews. "Emerald Mine" received mixed critical reception. Ottfried Schmidt of German magazine "Aktueller Software Markt" cited the game's high difficulty; saying "If you liked well-programmed, tricky games, then Emerald Mine would be exactly the right thing for you. Richard Löwenstein of "Amiga Joker" magazine commented on the game's appeal, saying "It's the  playing fun that counts", and that the design was well received: "Nobody offers such a good control and inventively designed levels". Section::::"Emerald Mine 2". In 1988, Kingsoft published "Emerald Mine 2" with 100 new levels. A level editor was included which triggered the creation of thousands of levels by players. Section::::"Emerald Mine 3 Professional". In 1990, Kingsoft published a selection of levels created by players. Reviews. "Emerald Mine 3: Professional" was panned by critics, citing the game being lazy, with Martin Gaksch of Power Play magazine saying "[The third part] has been cobbled too unlovingly. No question, the game mechanics  and elements are still fine invented, but they should have removed the dust layer lying on it." Carsten Borgmeier of "Amiga Joker" was also highly critical of the game's presentation commenting; "There's no change on graphics and sound […], all technical details like animation and scrolling appear substantially dated." Section::::"Emerald Mines". In 1994, "Almathera" published a collection of 14160 levels on Compact Disk over 80 disks. Reviews. Emerald Mines received a better critical reception than that of EM3, with Amiga Games commenting that the gameplay was as good as ever, "This Boulder Dash clone doesn't come up with  spectacular graphics, but the addicting game principle and over 10,000 levels should guarantee playing fun for months." Max Magenauer of "Amiga Joker" also commented on the gameplay; "The game elements are in such an abundance and variants that variety is presented truly in the whole lot. [... But since it is imbalanced] it is more a CD for fans [...]