Lode Runner
Lode Runner is a 2D, fixed-screen platform game video game first published by Broderbund in 1983. Levels in Lode Runner are puzzle-oriented. The player controls one character who must collect all the gold pieces in a level and then get to the end while being chased by a number of enemies. It is one of the first games to include a level editor.
After the original game, a number of remakes, spin-offs and sequels were published in the Lode Runner series for different computers and consoles, and by different developers and publishers. Tozai Games currently holds the copyright and trademark rights.
Development
The prototype of what later became Lode Runner was a game developed by Douglas E. Smith of Renton, Washington, who at the time was an architecture student at the University of Washington. This prototype, called Kong, was written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer limited to one building on the UW campus. Shortly thereafter, Kong was ported to VAX minicomputers, as there were more terminals available on campus. The game was programmed in Fortran and used ASCII character graphics. When Kong was ported to the VAX, some Pascal sections were mixed into the original Fortran code.Over one weekend in 1982, Smith was able to build a crude, playable version in 6502 assembly language on an Apple II+ and renamed the game Miner. Through the end of the year, he refined that version, which was black-and-white with no joystick support. He submitted a rough version to Broderbund around October 1982 and received a one-line rejection letter in response to the effect of "Thank you for submitting your game concept. Unfortunately, it does not fit within our product line."
Miner, like its text-based Kong predecessors, had only very simple animation where characters move across the screen in block increments. It was too primitive for an acceptable commercial product as Broderbund wanted detailed pixel-level movement. Smith's new game would be one of the first to include a level editor, a feature that allows players to create their own levels for the game. According to this article, Smith was given a $10,000 advance by Broderbund to develop the inter-square animation, and to provide 150 levels of play. In a 2010 interview, game designer John Romero claimed that Smith added the level editing function at the request of neighborhood kids he had testing the game, and "a ton" of the levels they designed ended up in the final game. Smith then borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game. Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, now renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and quickly received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Broderbund. He took the deal with Broderbund.
Release and ports
The game was released in mid-1983. The original microcomputer versions were for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, VIC-20, Commodore 64, and IBM PC. The VIC-20 version was released on cartridge, even including the level editor. The Commodore 64 had both a disk and cartridge release, with the latter having only 32 levels. The IBM version was originally on a self-booting disk; it is incompatible with video cards other than CGA. A later PC release appeared in 1986 which runs on any video card.A port for the original 128k Macintosh followed in 1984; it will run on machines up to OS 6 and can also be used on System 7 with a patch. Other versions include those for the Atari ST, Sinclair Spectrum 48K/128K, a licensed version for the MSX computer published by ASCII Corporation, Sega SG-1000, NES, Windows 3.1, Macintosh, and the original Game Boy.
The NES version was released by Hudson Soft in 1984 and became one of the earliest third-party games made for that system. It has 50 levels, scrolling screens, added music, and graphics redone in a more cartoon-like style. In addition, fruits and vegetables randomly appear which may be grabbed for additional points. Although a level editor was included, there is no way to save levels created with it. An arcade game of Lode Runner was produced with some added features like the ability to hang off the ends of ladders and an improved enemy AI.
Broderbund released a special enhanced version, Championship Lode Runner, in 1985. It had only 50 levels, but with a much higher difficulty than the original. The company offered a commemorative certificate to anyone who could submit proof of having beaten the entire game. It was ported to the Apple, Atari, C64, MSX, and PC, as well as the NES.
The Atari 8-bit version of Lode Runner was converted to cartridge and re-released by Atari Corporation in 1987, as one of the series of releases for the Atari XEGS console. This version contains all 150 levels and the level editor, which required a disk drive.
Gameplay
Basics
The player controls a stick figure who must collect all the gold in a level while avoiding guards who try to catch the player. After collecting all the gold, the player must reach the top of the screen to reach the next level. There are 150 levels in the game which progressively challenge players' problem-solving abilities or reaction times.Levels feature a multi-story, brick platform motif, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand bars that offer multiple ways to travel throughout. The player can dig holes into floors to temporarily trap guards and may safely walk atop trapped guards. Should a guard be carrying a bar of gold when he falls into a hole it will be left behind, and can be retrieved by the player. Over time, floors dug into will regenerate, filling in these holes. A trapped guard who cannot escape a hole before it fills is consumed, immediately respawning in a random location at the top of the level. Unlike guards, the player's character may not climb up out of a hole, and will be killed if it fills before he can escape by other means. Floors may also contain trapdoors, through which the player and guards will fall, and bedrock, through which the player cannot dig.
Notably, the player can dig a hole only to the sides, and not directly underneath himself. This introduces an important strategy for when digging a hole x blocks deep, the player must first dig a gap at least x wide to be able to dig through it, as the number of spaces will shrink with each layer, and the player needs at least one free adjacent space to be able to dig. However, exceptions to this rule arise when the player digs from the position of standing on a ladder, or hanging from a hand-to-hand bar, which allows the player to repeatedly dig and descend one row. This kind of digging is involved in solving many of the levels.
The player starts with five lives; each level completion awards an extra life. Should a guard catch the player, one life is subtracted, and the current level restarts. The player's character can fall from arbitrary heights without any injury but cannot jump, and players can trap themselves in pits from which the only escape is to abort the level, costing a life, and begin again.
Enemy AI
The guards do not simply take the shortest path to the player, but also move in counterintuitive ways. Sometimes, when the player and a guard are on the same ladder, for instance, the guard will move away from the player. In general, depending on their exact positioning relative to Lode Runner, the guards sometimes appear to be repelled. Mastering the game involves developing the intuition to predict the movement of the guards.Permitted contact
The player may come into contact with a guard directly from above, with the stick figure's feet touching the guard's head. This is what enables the player to walk over guards who are temporarily stuck in a hole that has been dug. It is also possible to make this contact while both the guard and the player are in free fall, since the player not only runs faster than the guards, but also falls faster; moreover, it is possible to survive the feet-to-head contact while a guard is standing on a platform and begins to move. Both forms of contact are necessary to solve some levels. Sometimes it is necessary to liberate a trapped guard by digging while standing on his head, but then moving rapidly in the opposite direction when the guard begins marching to freedom. In a few levels, it is necessary to use a falling guard as a bridge to reach an otherwise unreachable area. One subtlety is that if a down movement is initiated while standing on a guard's head, or briefly touching the guard's head during free fall, the consequences are fatal.Trapping and using guards
In some levels, guards can be deliberately trapped in various ways. For instance, they can be lured into entering a part of the level from which there is no escape. In some situations, the player can liberate trapped guards by digging them out. In some levels, to collect some gold pieces, the player must exploit the guards into collecting gold pieces, because they are positioned such that whichever figure collects them will become trapped. When the guard collects the piece and becomes trapped, the player can release the guard and then later steal the gold when the guard drops it or falls into a hole.In some levels, there are gold pieces which can be collected only by killing guards by trapping them in dug holes which close up. Deceased guards come back to life from locations near the top of the screen, which may allow them to reach parts of the level that cannot be reached by the player.
Traversal orders
Some levels require careful ordering of traversal, because they are divided into zones connected by passages which are impossible to traverse in the reverse direction. If a gold piece remains in an unreachable zone, the player may have to abort the level to start again, losing a life, unless there is a way to coax a guard into bringing the gold.Timing
Some of the game's puzzles in the advanced levels are time-sensitive. The player must dig in order to penetrate the interior of some cavern to collect gold, and quickly return the same way before the digging repairs itself, enclosing Lode Runner in that cavern with no means of escape.Some puzzles require deliberate timing among the digging actions because Lode Runner must run over previously dug-out tiles that have just repaired themselves, while having enough time to pass through ones which have not yet repaired.
Reception
Lode Runner was very successful. It was Broderbund's second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987, and sales had surpassed 250,000 copies by November 1989. Computer Gaming World held a contest for the best reader-built level.Softline in 1983 praised Lode Runner, calling it "smooth, thoughtful, and quite addictive". The magazine approved of its large number of unique levels, level editor, and emphasis on "wits and strategy" over violence. Computer Gaming World praised Lode Runners unusually easy-to-use level editor and the strategy necessary for an arcade title, describing it as "one of the few thinking men's arcade games". Praises for the introduction of strategy into the "climbing game" genre and for the intuitive level editor were repeated in Video magazine's review of the game as well as praise for its graphics and animation, with the Apple II version being described as "stand out far ahead of the pack".
Ahoy! in 1984 called the game "a top-notch action game that requires both a quick mind and an agile joystick". With the "easy-to-use game generator", the magazine concluded that "Lode Runner is one of the best games available for the C-64. Unconditionally and wholeheartedly recommended". PC Magazine gave the game 16.25 out of 18 points. The magazine called the game "a tour de force of American ingenuity... the first release in a long, long time that can honestly bear the title, 'computer game'... Lode Runner uses the power of the PC to create something much more than a video version of Ping Pong. This game requires thought, too". The magazine praised the IBM PC version's graphics, increasingly difficult level design, and the level editor. The Commodore 64 Home Companion said that "there's lots of education hidden in" the level editor, concluding that Lode Runner "is one of the first of a new breed of computer game that lets the player be a creator".
By 1985, the game was still selling well, with Video magazine reporting that it was the 6th best-selling recreational title in March and April of that year. Zzap!64 called the Commodore 64 version "not one of the most recent games but certainly one of the best... a classic for a long time to come... graphically minuscule and aurally crude, the game's sheer addiction kept my eyes propped open until the owls went to bed".
In 1984, Lode Runner was awarded "1984 Computer Game of the Year" at the 5th annual Arkie Awards. Judges praised its "outstanding design", and described it as "fascinating", "irresistible", and as "the thinking player's climbing conquest". Softline readers named Lode Runner the most popular Apple and fourth most-popular Atari program of 1983. In 1993 the Spectrum version of the game was voted number 37 in the Your Sinclair Official Top 100 Games of All Time. GameSpot named Lode Runner as one of the "Greatest Games of All Time". In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Lode Runner the 80th-best computer game ever released. Time in 2010 rated Lode Runner #1 game in "The 10 Greatest Games for the Apple II" list.
Orson Scott Card wrote in Compute! in 1989 that its editor was the first game that let him and his family express their creativity through gaming. Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov claimed in 2008 that Lode Runner was his favorite puzzle game for many years.
Legacy
Arcade
In 1984, Irem developed an arcade conversion of Lode Runner. It contains 24 remixed levels from the 150 original levels. Irem brought many of its arcade inspired levels to the Famicom Disk System with the names Super Lode Runner and Super Lode Runner II. In Japan, Game Machine listed Lode Runner on their August 1, 1984 issue as being the most-successful table arcade unit of the year. The arcade version has numerous sequels, including these:- Lode Runner: The Bungeling Strikes Back, selecting 30 levels based on the original game developed for the arcade. The gameplay is almost exactly the same and the only heavy modification was the graphics and advancement to a 512 color palette. Game Machine listed Lode Runner: The Bungeling Strikes Back on their March 1, 1985 issue as being the seventh most-successful table arcade unit of the year.
- Lode Runner: Majin No Fukkatsu
- Lode Runner: Teikoku Karano Dasshutsu
- Lode Runner: The Dig Fight
1990s
- Lode Runner: The Lost Labyrinth, 1990 updated version for the Turbografx 16 PC Engine featuring all 150 levels of the 1983 levelset.
- ', a 1994 Sierra incarnation of the original game with enhanced graphics and tools.
- ', the 1995 remake which replaced all the elements of the previous plus new online play.
- Lode Runner 2, Isometric 3D gameplay
- Lode Runner 3-D for the Nintendo 64.
The NES version, developed by Hudson Soft, marked the first appearance of Bombermen as the opposing robots. The end screen to Bomberman for the NES notes that the original White Bomberman has turned human and hints at his appearance in another game, with the Lode Runner behind him. In the Japanese version, the reference is more direct: "Congratulations - Bomber Man becomes Runner - See you again in Lode Runner."
In Japan, the Famicom version of Lode Runner allows editing and creating levels to share with friends using a Famicom Data Recorder.
Hudson Soft also announced a version of Lode Runner for the Nintendo DS and released in 2006.
An unreleased version of the game for the Atari Lynx was discovered in 2008 on an old Atari Corp. hard drive.