Lode Runner, a game many of us logged hundreds of hours upon. Lode Runner has a great deal of replay value thanks to its great map editor. The game was first published by Broderbund in 1983, but was first prototyped by Douglas Smith, an architecture student at the University of Washington.
The Lode Runner prototype was called Kong and was originally written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer on campus, but shortly after it was ported to the VAX minicomputer. Originally programmed in FORTRAN and utilized only ASCII character graphics (the most basic of characters).
In September of 1982 Smith was able to port it to the Apple II+ (in assembly language) and renamed it to Miner. In October of that same year he submitted a rough copy to Broderbund and he’s said to have received a one-line rejection letter, “Sorry, your game doesn’t fit into our product line; please feel free to submit future products.”
The original title had no joystick support and was developed in full black and white…not exactly exciting. So, 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 Brøderbund.
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…. Oh yeah my answer to ur question is below 8}
Well a lot of major game developers are where they are today because of making great original games and software. But much like the kernel, he’s gonna keep selling chicken till no wants it no more. Investors don’t like risk. In a financial prospective its probably wiser for a successful developer for example bungie and Activision to keep developing in games they know will sell like Halo and call of duty and leave there next innovative idea for a raining day. Maybe they wanna keep bleeding the well dry til the next generation of consoles. I hope the passion and pace of making new and better games in the industry doesn’t slow down cuz I think the history of gaming since the 80s is amazing. Btw Could you 3 make a time line presentation of what you think were the most epic stages/changes in gaming history.
Thanks for casting
cheers
Our answers to the scary question were in the forum – and you didn’t read mine.
As soon as I heard you saying the dog ate Krud’s post, it occurred to be that none of the posts that were put up in response BEFORE you made the scary game question of the week in a new post.
If you search for the original post by me you should see the responses.
-About the Question of the Week
Short answer, yes. Although, in their defense if it isn’t broke why fix it? Nintendo is living off it’s 20 year old IPs, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, ect. It seems that Mario continues to bring new elements to the table, but c’mon I’m gonna call a spade a spade; it’s a platformer as it has been from day one.
I do think the nail has been hit squarely on the head though; games are a business just as much as they are art, so when the investors start clamoring new IPs will be developed
—-
Not about the question of the week
What does everyone think about the price cut of the wii, and rumors ( i think they’re rumors) about the upgraded Wii in 2011?
Unreal Tournament, the original 1999 game. I loved it 🙂
http://gamingpodcast.net/forum/suggestions/gaming-flashback-unreal-tournament/#p801