TWZ: I mainly want to chat with you about the Crystal Mines games, as well as a tiny bit about Color Dreams. That is of course if you don't mind.

You did the original Crystal Mines 2 for the Lynx didn't you? How do you feel about producing the only licensed Color Dreams game?

KB: Yes, I wrote Crystal Mines for the NES (my first game), then later did CM 2 for the Lynx. Color Dreams decided not to continue with Lynx games, and I ended up making a deal with them - they took a small part of the royalty from Atari, and I got the rest (directly from Atari). Color Dreams had paid for the development system (which was an Amiga - funny since it was in competition with Atari's ST machines at the time, this was because Atari bought the Lynx from Epyx). I was happy that I could go to the mall and see CM2 in the stores with my name on it. It never occurred to me that this was Color Dreams' only licensed game, but you're right.

TWZ: Did Crystal Mines ever appear on other platforms besides Nintendo and Atari Lynx? Were there ever any plans for a Windows version of Crystal Mines, did it ever come out?

KB: No. Years later (around 1995, I finished CM2 in late 1991) I decided to port the game to Windows. I was going to re-write it in C++, but ended up deciding to port the assembly. It took surprisingly little effort to do this. I first ported to 16-bit assembly, then 32-bit running with a DOS extender, then got it working in Windows using WinG (replaced later with Direct X). I added high score & other support dialogs. I started working on a new set of higher resolution graphics, but never finished the project :-( The game runs on windows, but with the graphics done for Lynx, which are small and only 16 colors. The minimum that I need to finish and make a shareware version is to add sound effects and music, and I really should at least upgrade it to use Direct X instead of WinG. The final step would be a new set of graphics (probably 32x32 pixel objects instead of the 13x13 used for the Lynx). I think seriously about doing this from time to time, including just recently, but I remain too busy to get it done. Plus, I really need to find somebody with some talent to do new music and graphics. CM2 always got very good ratings for game play, but not so fantastic for music, sound, and graphics - that's because I did most of that work myself, and I'm not that talented in those areas ;-)

I used NinDraw to create a level-designer for the CM2 game, which friends of mine used to create the levels. A little known fact: I was so busy writing the game and coming up with the objects and behaviors, that I never got to actually design my own levels for the game. I helped others to design them, and also did a lot of testing.

TWZ: The recent Crystal Mines game for the Lynx, what's the story with it? Is it the Nintendo and original Lynx versions combined?

KB: An old friend who worked on the Lynx game, Scott Davis, got together with Carl and made new levels for the Lynx game. This "add-on" makes use of a feature that we used for testing. It allows you to download a new level into the Lynx using the COM-Lynx port. So, it's actually a bunch (I think 50?) of brand new levels. The catch is, you have to buy a cable to hook a PC to the Lynx to play them. If I can finish the Windows version, it would be a lot easier for a lot of people to play both the original 181 Lynx levels, plus the new ones that Scott & Carl did. Neither this new "Buried Treasure" offering or the Lynx game have any levels in common, and they're also both completely different than the original NES game.

TWZ: What is your future plan with Crystal Mines? Will us gamers ever see it for Gameboy Color? Advance? That was a really fun game, I would like to see it on more systems.

KB: I'd LOVE to see it running on the Gameboy Color, but I doubt that I would get it ported myself. If somebody else wanted to do it, I'd be happy to work out a deal. However, I did also consider porting the Lynx version to the Sega Game Gear (back in 1992), and it wasn't possible because I took to much advantage of the Lynx's hardware capabilities for some of the game objects, and couldn't port them all. Removing some of the objects would break many of the levels, and making new ones would be a great deal of work. The Gameboy Color may well be advanced enough to handle the game (I'd hope!), but I haven't looked into it.

TWZ: Well thanks for everything Ken. I was a Crystal Mines/ Color Dreams fan for awhile now and it has been a pleasure talking to you. Talk to you soon.

KB: Glad to hear from a fan! I sure hope someday I can at least get a Windows version of the game out so that the game can be exposed to a much bigger audience than has been so far. I think the game would be especially cool on Pocket PCs running Windows CE.