Lode Runner

Apple II screenshot

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.[8]

Levels have a multi-story, brick platform motif, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand bars that offer multiple ways to travel. Guards can pick up gold bars by running over them, but any individual guard may carry no more than one bar at a time. The player can dig holes into floors to temporarily trap guards and may safely walk atop any who have fallen into holes. Should a guard be carrying a bar of gold when he falls into a hole, he will drop it and the player can pick it up. Holes dug by the player fill themselves in after a short delay. 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 he will be killed if it fills before he can escape by other means. Floors may contain trapdoors, through which the player and guards will fall, and bedrock, through which the player cannot dig.

The player can dig a hole only to either side of his position and may not dig directly beneath his own feet. In order to dig through multiple layers of bricks, the player must create a gap whose width is at least equal to the number of layers. 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

While the player's character's position changes, enemies tend to move alternatively, moving away from Lode Runner.

The guards do not always take the shortest path to the player and can 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.

Around late 1980, high school student James Bratsanos heard from a friend about a new arcade video game, Space Panic by Universal, which involves climbing platforms and ladders while digging holes to trap monsters. Bratsanos was intrigued by his friend's description of the concept, and he wanted to develop it further. He began writing a Commodore PET program, called Suicide, using simple text-based graphics. Due to his lack of programming experience, there were no pre-programmed levels, but he instead built "an engine that could interpret a game level and then run a processing loop on the monsters". This novel design later evolved into the concept of a level editor.[9][10]

At the University of Washington in 1981, Bratsanos met two other students, architecture student Douglas E. Smith and Tracy Steinbeck. Following the release of Nintendo's arcade platformer Donkey Kong that year, the three students began working on a program called Kong, which evolved the concepts of Suicide. Bratsanos later left the project to pursue his studies, and Smith continued to develop Kong[10][9] into the prototype of what later became Lode Runner.[11] Kong was written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer limited to one building on the UW campus. Kong was soon ported to VAX minicomputers, which had more terminals available on campus. The game was programmed in Fortran using ASCII character graphics. When Kong was ported to the VAX, some Pascal sections were mixed into the original Fortran code.[12]

Over one weekend in 1982, Smith recreated 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."[11]

Miner, like its text-based Kong predecessors, had only 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.[13] Smith's new game would be one of the first to include a level editor for user generated content, allowing players to create levels for the game.[14] 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.[14] Smith borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game. Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Broderbund. He took the deal with Broderbund.

Lode Runner was originally released on June 23, 1983.[2] The original microcomputer versions were for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, VIC-20, Commodore 64, IBM PC.[15] The VIC-20 version was released on cartridge, including the level editor. The Commodore 64 had both a disk and cartridge release, with the latter having 32 levels. The IBM PC port was originally on a self-booting disk and is incompatible with video cards other than CGA. A 1986 MS-DOS release runs on any video card.

The Famicom version was released by Hudson Soft in 1984 (North American NES release in 1986) 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. A level editor was included, which in Japan used the Famicom's Family BASIC tape drive to save one's work; however, as with many US localisations, the NES lacked the tape drive and thus there is no way to save levels created with the US release. 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.

A port for the Macintosh 128K followed in January 1985;[16] it runs on machines up to OS 6 and can be used on System 7 with a patch. Other versions include those for the Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, a licensed version for MSX published by ASCII Corporation, SG-1000, Windows 3.1x, and Game Boy.

Broderbund released an enhanced version, Championship Lode Runner, in 1985, with 50 levels and a higher difficulty. The company offered a commemorative certificate to anyone who could submit proof of having beaten the game (and submitted proof of purchase to show that their copy of the game was not pirated). It was ported to the Apple, Atari, C64, MSX, and IBM PC, as well as the NES (although that version did not reach North America).

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 requires a disk drive.

Lode Runner was very successful. It was Broderbund's second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987,[17] and sales had surpassed 300,000 copies by August 1984.[18] Computer Gaming World held a contest for the best reader-built level.[19]

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 ("the possibilities are astounding"), and emphasis on "wits and strategy" over violence.[20] Computer Gaming World praised Lode Runner's 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".[21] 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[ing] out far ahead of the pack".[22]^: 39

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".[23] 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.[24] 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".[25]

By 1985, the game was still selling well, with Video magazine reporting that it was the 6th best-selling recreational title in March[26]^: 35 and April of that year.[27]^: 43 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".[28]

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".[29]^: 28 Softline readers named Lode Runner the most popular Apple and fourth most-popular Atari program of 1983.[30] In 1993 the Spectrum version of the game was voted number 37 in the Your Sinclair Official Top 100 Games of All Time.[31] GameSpot named Lode Runner as one of the "Greatest Games of All Time".[32] In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared Lode Runner the 80th-best computer game ever released.[33] Time in 2010 rated Lode Runner #1 game in "The 10 Greatest Games for the Apple II" list.[34] Game Informer placed the game 52nd on their top 100 video games of all time in 2001.[35]

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.[36] Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov stated in 2008 that Lode Runner was his favorite puzzle game for many years.[37]

• Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory (1984)
• Ultimate Wizard (1984)
• Ladder (video game) (1982)

• Lode Runner series at MobyGames
• Lode Runner at the Killer List of Videogames
• Lode Runner can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive
• Lode Runner can be played for free in the browser
• The Lode Runner Museum