| Pickaxe Pete (Europe) Pick Axe Pete! (US) | |
| Publisher: | Philips Magnavox |
| Designer: | Ed Averett |
| Released: | 1982 |
| Genre: | Platform |
| Platforms: | Philips Videopac (EU) Magnavox Odyssey² (US) |
Pickaxe Pete is a video game released in 1982 as cartridge number 43 for the Philips Videopac console. It was published in North America for the Magnavox Odyssey² as Pick Axe Pete!. In Brazil, it was re-branded as Didi na Mina Encantada (Didi in the Enchanted Mine) for the Odyssey.[1] Pickaxe Pete is a platform game that followed in the wake of Donkey Kong before the term existed; a 1982 issue of Joystik magazine labeled it a "climbing game". It was designed and programmed by Ed Averett, who wrote the majority of the games for the system.
A U.S. national competition, "The Pick Axe Pete Pick-Off," was held at the World's Fair in October 1982.[2] [3]
The player controls a miner named Pickaxe Pete who starts in the middle of the screen with a pick-axe. There are three doors from which boulders are coming, bouncing down the mine-shafts; every time Pete destroys one of these he gains 3 points, although the axe wears out after a while and disappears. When two boulders collide, they explode, and out comes either a pick-axe which floats to the bottom of the screen, a key which floats to the top, or nothing. If Pete has no axe, the player can either jump over boulders (gaining him 1 point), or get to the bottom of the mine to retrieve a new axe (gaining a 5-point bonus). If Pete collects a key then he can enter the doors, which lead him to the next level.[2]
In a December 1982 review, US magazine Joystik called the game "Odyssey's new entry in the Donkey Kong lookalike contest". The reviewer gave it a 3/10 for graphics and 7/10 for gameplay and concluded: