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Lode Runner

aka: Kong, LR, Lode Runner Classic, Lode Runner for WonderSwan, Miner
Moby ID: 243
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Description official descriptions

The Bungeling Empire has stolen a huge cache of gold from its rightful owners, and your mission is to infiltrate its treasury and recapture it. This entails progressing through 150 screens of platforms, ladders and ropes.

The Empire has sent robotic guards down to protect the gold, and contact with any of these will cost you a life. Your method of escaping them is to press fire to dig a hole in their line of movement, thus causing them to fall in briefly, allowing you to move across the gap safely. Once all the gold has been collected, a ladder allowing you to move onto the next screen is added. Completing these screens often requires forward planning and precision.

This was one of the earliest games to include a level editor, allowing the creation of new level designs with no programming skill.

Spellings

  • ロードランナー - Japanese spelling
  • 淘金者 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PC Booter version)

Original Version
PC Conversion
Cover Artwork

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 29 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 221 ratings with 6 reviews)

Landmark game in video game history!

The Good
This is the first game I can remember playing that successfully combined action and puzzle solving into a compelling experience. Some levels took seconds to solve, later ones minutes. Some I never solved more than once.

But most importantly, this game allowed users--kids like me--to create their own levels. Never before was such a facility included with a computer game before. It included the first true level editor, so players could create and play their own experiences. With the exception of Pinball Construction Set, I can remember no early home computer era game that allowed such a feature.

But even without the level editor, the game provided an addictive challenge despite the limitations of the early home computers.

The Bad
Some of the levels I thought were just too darn hard, especially so early on. The Apple II controls were a bit tricky to get the hang of, but they really couldn't have been implemented better. The Apple II joysticks just weren't great.

The Bottom Line
An addictive rush of treasure grabbing! Puzzle solving and action combined in an early game with lots of polish.

Apple II · by Frecklefoot (188) · 2007

An updated version of a classic puzzle-oriented game

The Good
Lode Runner was a platform game created by Doug E. Smith in 1983. Whereas most platform games at the time relied on precision jumps and movement, Lode Runner was puzzle-oriented. It was also one of the first games to be ported to the arcade after having received numerous home computer ports, courtesy of Irem who licensed the game from Brøderbund Software. This version of the game features 24 remixed levels out of the original game’s 150 levels.

If you are not familiar with the game’s concept, the objective is to get a certain number of gold nuggets while trying to avoid enemies that chase you around the screen. You are equipped with a laser that is used to vaporize any brick walls adjacent to the player, creating holes for anyone to fall through, including yourself.

This is much similar to what the player has to do in Apple Panic, another Brøderbund game; except in that game you have to dig the hole back up. In fact, vaporizing brick walls is essential considering that some enemies will steal gold and you have to get it back to complete the level. One of the enemies will flash to let you know who stole it. You have to complete a level in a certain amount of time, and a warning beep will sound if you are running out.

There are 255 levels you can play through, but once you have finished 24 levels, the game loops back to level one, but at this point the game’s level is still 25. If you manage to complete all 255 levels, the game will crash after that. This is similar to what happens in Pac-Man, but that game glitches out instead. You may be thinking that this information should have been placed in “The Bad” section, but why would you want to play the same levels over and over again?

The enemies come in various forms such as cavemen, spiders, slinkies, and even the robot from Drol. A cut-scene is triggered every three levels and shows the player entering what looks like a huge safe. The game also lets you know what kind of enemies you’ll be up against. The graphics and animations are good. The same transitions that occur between levels make a return, and the enemies behave the same way. I liked watching you climb across the rungs like a monkey, as well as the dance both characters perform when they fall down holes.

Unlike the majority of computer ports, there is background music while you play, and it is the same no matter what level you’re on. It is memorable, and it blends with the overall theme of the game. Apart from that, another piece is heard while the cut-scene plays.

The Bad
There is nothing bad about this game.

The Bottom Line
Lode Runner is one of the few games out there that made its debut on home systems before making its way into the arcades. As a result, this version of the game is much better in terms of quality. The game mechanics are still intact, but the 24 levels of the original game are remixed, background music has been added, and cut-scenes are introduced. In my opinion, this is a version worth playing. It must have been a success, because there are three arcade sequels.

Arcade · by Katakis | カタキス (43102) · 2019

Another variant of the "ladder" theme with customizable levels.

The Good
Action was at the center of this game. While Big Top had a slow and dull pace, this one was more satisfying as you were able to fool the bad guys at will by trapping them in the holes you burned in the ground. Thus, instead of simply fleeing them, you were able to trap them. The action was fast enough considering the speed the good old 4.77 Mhz PC was able to offer.

Although a "ladder" game was nothing original back then, there was one special thing this game had: customizable levels. If you ever found that the 150 standard levels were not good enough, you were able to edit your own levels and save them on disk. This might not sound so hot today, but it was the first graphic game that I've personnaly been able to edit myself. This added a lot of pleasure and value.

The Bad
Alhough the game was not bad, it was yet another one based on ladders and small men running everywhere. As it has been the case with 3D shooters for many years now, this style of game have been used ad nauseam in the early 80s and it was harder and harder to be original. No wonder Pac-Man has been such a hit not long afterwards.

The Bottom Line
A traditionnal ladder-and-layer game where you must flee or trap bad guys coming to get you while collecting items that will let you enter the next level. What is particular with this one is the ability to "modify" the layers by burning holes through them (thus avoiding the ladders) and creating your own levels.

Sierra published a remake a few years ago which had full-blown graphics and music. I tried the demo and it was not bad, although I would have waited for the game to be in a bargain bin before buying it.

PC Booter · by Olivier Masse (443) · 1999

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
RIP Douglas Smith! Pseudo_Intellectual (66194) Sep 14th, 2014

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Lode Runner appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Arcade version

The original Lode Runner proved so popular a coin-op version was commissioned and appeared in 1984 housed in its own cabinet and complete with artwork. However it contained only 99 levels instead of original 150 levels.

Bungelings

While they both spawned strings of sequels to lead series of their own, Lode Runner and Choplifter can be considered to share not just human sprite animation, but a "game world" along with Will Wright's Raid on Bungeling Bay. All three games (all published by Brøderbund) ultimately featured the militaristic denizens of the Bungeling Empire as the primary antagonists.

Cancelled ports

  • Lode Runner was being ported to the Atari Lynx but was abandoned while in a fairly advanced state.
  • An Amiga version is mentioned in the French manual, ported by Loriciels' Annecy studio, but beyond that, no information of an official Amiga port exists.
  • A Dragon 32 port is advertised as "coming soon" in an ad in C&VG magazine. Presumably, it was cancelled at a late stage, since programmer Roy Coates, who converted Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy for Software Projects, later came out with Beanstalker on his own label.

Competition

One of the biggest ever Lode Runner competitions took place during Japan's World Fair in August 1985. Gameplay was shown on a massive Sony Jumbotron (then the world's largest television at 80x150 feet). Over 3,000 people entered from across Japan and only 50 were selected to try their luck at achieving the highest score within three minutes. 12 year old Yasutaka Fujii was proclaimed the winner.

Development

The development started in 1980 on Commodore PET with ASCII graphics. In 1981 the Doug Smith joined the University of Washington which had VAX computers in their lab, so he continued development there (together with James Steinbeck). When they decided to make it a commercial project, they used Smith's nephew as playtester. Because of his nagging, Smith ported to the game to Apple II; the platform it was eventually released first. Then Smith changed the name to Miner and bought off Steinbeck who could not afford the time for project anymore.

After a rejection by Brøderbund, he continued working on the game on his own money. He especially worked on refining the graphics and the controls. Then he offered it to four companies, Electronic Arts, Epyx, Sirius Software, and Brøderbund. Brøderbund offered him $10,000 and 23% of future profits and he actually rejected an offer of $100,000 without royalties.

When Brøderbund bought the game they demanded that it contain 150 levels. The creative solution Smith came up with was to give the kids in his neighbourhood the level designer, promising to pay each kid who make a good level. One of them was Daron Stinnett, the executive producer of several LucasArts games including Dark Forces and Outlaws.

Message

Strings found in the game code:

If the original MASTER disk fails to run, return it to Broderbund for replacement. COPIES WILL NOT WORK. Thanks for the run. See ya' next time.

Version differences

Lode Runner was enhanced for the Apple Macintosh (and packaged as such). It remains the only 16-bit version of the first game and has possibly the highest resolution at 512x342 pixels on a crisp monochrome display. This version also features added mouse support for in-game configuration within windows, pull-down menus, pop-up dialogue boxes, and level creation. The game itself is played using the keyboard.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #80 on the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #52 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll

Information also contributed by Игги Друге, Erez Schaz, Garcia, John Romero, PCGamer77 and FatherJack

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Related Games

Lode Runner: Lost Labyrinth
Released 1990 on TurboGrafx-16
Lode Runner: Golden Labyrinth
Released 1985 on Arcade
Hyper Lode Runner
Released 1989 on Game Boy
Lode Runner 2
Released 1998 on Windows, Macintosh
Lode Runner Extra
Released 1997 on PlayStation, SEGA Saturn
Lode Runner: Legacy
Released 2017 on Windows, 2018 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
Championship Lode Runner
Released 1984 on PC Booter, Commodore 64, NES...
Hozonban Lode Runner
Released 1989 on PC-98
Maze Runner
Released 1986 on DOS

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 243
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by demonlord.

BBC Micro added by POMAH. Commodore 64, NES added by PCGamer77. Wii U added by Michael Cassidy. PC-8000, PC-6001, PC-98, Sharp MZ-80K/700/800/1500 added by Infernos. Apple II added by KnockStump. Atari ST added by PAO. SG-1000 added by Sciere. J2ME added by Hervé Piton. iPhone, Windows Phone, ZX Spectrum, WonderSwan, Android, Sharp X1 added by Kabushi. Atari 8-bit added by Martin Smith. Wii added by gamewarrior. Arcade added by Pseudo_Intellectual. Antstream added by lights out party. PC-88, FM-7 added by Terok Nor. Amstrad CPC, VIC-20 added by Servo. MSX added by koffiepad. DOS added by wanner jean christophe. Macintosh added by Garcia.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Unicorn Lynx, POMAH, Alaka, Opipeuter, Martin Smith, Pseudo_Intellectual, Игги Друге, Parf, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, mailmanppa, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack, ZeTomes.

Game added August 23rd, 1999. Last modified November 30th, 2023.