In a California gold rush setting, two miners compete to pick up a gold nugget, trade it for cash, and deposit the cash into their respective banks, while avoiding pursuing snakes and tumbleweeds. Getting caught or running into something you shouldn't causes you to be paralyzed for two seconds, during which your opponent can steal your gold or cash.

If you are the pink miner, you can drop snake eggs on the ground, which turn pursuing tumbleweeds into snakes that go after the brown miner. Similarly, if you are the brown miner, you can drop tumbleweed seeds, which turn pursuing snakes into tumbleweeds that go after the pink miner. You can shoot the snakes, tumbleweeds, and your opponent. Getting shot means dropping your nugget or cash and spending a few seconds recovering at the hospital.

To download and play the game, go to my Atari 800 Emulator page.

My game development notebook is posted at archive.org.

Game Reviews

This is my most intricate and visually interesting game. However, beginners are easily frustrated by the too-aggressive tumbleweeds and snakes. In retrospect, I should have made the game easier at the start so that beginners as well as experienced players could enjoy it. Casual players and young children will probably prefer Dog Daze Deluxe or Bumpomov's Dogs.

In the Fall 1983  issue of Creative Computing Video and Arcade Games magazine, software reviewer John J. Anderson described Claim Jumper as "humorous ... crisp and stylish." See the Classic Computer Magazine Archive. 

In the July 1983 issue of Compute! magazine, reviewer Fred Pinho describes Claim Jumper as "fascinating" and "hectic."  You can read the review at the Classic Computer Magazine Archive. The article is surrounded by "relevant" Google ads for cowboy stuff, like cowboy boots and shirts.

The following review of Claim Jumper was posted at the Planet Quake Mailbag:

"The most addicting and still perhaps the most fun two player game ever written. Back in the day when it wasn't possible to be about graphics it was about gameplay, pure and simple. Nothing beats the feeling of banking the bullets off of the hospital or killing the green cowboy as he takes his cash from the ASSAY office to his bank. And who could forget the epic battle between the snakes and the tumble weeds?? The pure frustration of being the pink cowboy and running into seeds is immeasurable." -- Eric Stephens

For more comments and reviews, go to my mailbag page.