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 boy 🙂 …
I have absolutely no idea how to comment that.
The first thing that came into my mind were those B or C movies where the main (female) character, dressed almost in bikinis would beat the living shit out of 120 kg bouncers.
This game somehow captures and purifies that down to the essence: almost naked girls, weird screams and fighting.
How did it sell? 🙂
Oh boy 🙂 …
I have absolutely no idea how to comment that.
The first thing that came into my mind were those B or C movies where the main (female) character, dressed almost in bikinis would beat the living shit out of 120 kg bouncers.
This game somehow captures and purifies that down to the essence: almost naked girls, weird screams and fighting.
How did it sell? 🙂
Wow, Derrick finally makes a non-podcast post. Used to be, he’d make sure there was at least one article between ‘casts. 🙂
Wow, Derrick finally makes a non-podcast post. Used to be, he’d make sure there was at least one article between ‘casts. 🙂
@Herr_Alien : I’m not sure how it sold but I know it’s still on their website selling in a bundle with the “making of” style DVD.
@Jonah : I used to post when I used to have time to post. With two-to-three audio shows a week, 7 cocktail video’s and a 40+ hour a week job it gets challenging. I also like to spend time with the kids between show notes, posting video content, updating recipe wiki and managing the day-to-day for five or so websites.
@Herr_Alien : I’m not sure how it sold but I know it’s still on their website selling in a bundle with the “making of” style DVD.
@Jonah : I used to post when I used to have time to post. With two-to-three audio shows a week, 7 cocktail video’s and a 40+ hour a week job it gets challenging. I also like to spend time with the kids between show notes, posting video content, updating recipe wiki and managing the day-to-day for five or so websites.