See but ghostbusters always crashed on my c64. So it was like the forbidden fruit. I never got to lay more than 5 minutes of it, but in my head it was the best thing ever. Lol. Human brains just suck.

C’mon, weren’t you blown away by the (at the time) novel digitized voice? “He slimed me!”

Of course, escape from Castle Wolfenstein did it even earlier (“was ist los, was ist los” and “ach, mein leben!”).

I checked out Miner 2049er, because I never had an Atari.
I see ladders, the ability to kill the creatures, no keys and no exit.

And the whole fun of manic miner was whatever was going to try and kill you next,
penguins, ball-balancing seals, toilet seats, kangaroos, steaming balls, fluff balls, bunnies, rotary phones, a flying eye, a credit card,
and then you end up in the intro screen as the last level.