A recent article on Interceptor Software in Retro Gamer magazine (April 2013) states that there was another version of China Miner that should have been released.
It was the very same game by Ian Gray, but also had the inclusion of speech (like Tales of the Arabian Nights did). Richard Jones had gone to Holland to meet with a young coder who had claimed to have written some speech code for the C64. Impressed with the code, Interceptor put it into China Miner and paid the developer a significant sum.
The game had been out there for approximately 2 months before a cease and desist was made from a company in the US, who said it owned the algorithm. As a result the game was temporarily pulled and replaced with the version we all know well.
But what is significant is the 2 month shelf life of the game, and yet there seems to be no version of it online at present with the speech intact. Maybe you have a rare copy of the game? Let us know if you do and if you can make a dump of the game.
It seems that this is another Chiller V1 sort of game – just a piece of preservation to try and make. Maybe you
Contributions: Graeme Mason
Absolutely brilliant find! I’m off to check my version of the game. Fingers crossed!
Sadly I haven’t got the game – I thought I had! Down to you guys now to find it! :)