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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Hey guys, I missed the last two episode comment cycles (vacation, yeah!) so maybe I’ll start with the QOTW from the previous episode, if you don’t mind.
Preorders: Up to this point I only preordered one game, which was The Last of Us. The hype around it was so enormous that I knew that if I didn’t play it, it would get spoiled immediately. It was scheduled to be released on a Friday and I got an e-mail from my local store to come by and pay for the game (there was no preorder fee) on a Wednesday. To my surprise, the man behind the counter reached behind him and gave me the game two days before the official release date. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay up all night playing since I had to go teach a class the next morning.
That’s why I decided to preorder my PS4 there as well. This is your typical BestBuy-like store so they don’t know much about consoles specifically so maybe they release the console a couple of days before as well.
@PS Vita price drop – That’s great news. As we discussed previously, it all comes down to what you expect from your handheld console. If you don’t want only exclusive AAA Vita titles but you’re happy with ports, cross-buy games or indie titles, this is the device to get. The games look great, they play really well, and if you’re a PS+ subscriber you don’t really have to pay much for games since the European PS+ collection lineup is pretty good. I would love it if they also did bundles with a card and a game or a PS+ subscription cheaper. This is the way to go to sell the system. Best case scenario – make the memory card specs open so that other manufacturers can make them as well, reducing the prices.
Speaking of Vita, I recently ‘platinumed’ Rayman Origins and NFS:Most Wanted. I’m currently playing Gucamelle and all those game were great fun. Just reiterating my point that this handheld is great 😉
@Ridiculous indie games.
I find the idea of such games interesting and funny but I’m not compelled to play them at all. I could maybe watch somebody else play it or watch a YT gameplay video… I just don’t feel like devoting my time to such a title while there are other games I’d rather be playing. Granted, I played QWOP for an hour or two (did you finally play it, Jonah?), I also finished Frog Fractions but it is an hour-long game at most. I tried the farming simulator game on the Vita and I didn’t get it, I had no idea what to do and I closed it rather quickly. Maybe if I was a PC gamer I would pay more attention to those quirky titles.
@Gamstop lawsuits: Doesn’t it say on the box that the game requires an online pass to play… online? Or does it say ‘Online pass included’? Anyway, I know it’s different there across the pond but it feels obvious to me that an informed gamer should know that game like the ones you mentioned require an additional purchase. Also, the person at the counter should tell the buyer that this is the case. To make a lawsuit out of it seems a bit over the top.
I always tend to investigate things in detail when I decide to buy something used. Do I need some additional components? Are all the cables included? Do the codes work, etc. It’s on me to find this out although it’s always nice to be informed about it by the seller – just makes the life easier.
@QOTW Currently, I’m pretty much exclusively a console gamer. I only own a crappy laptop computer I work on and I don’t feel like buying a gaming machine. That’s how I divide my electronic devices at home – PC = work; console = games. I used to be a PC gamer some 10 years ago. I didn’t own a console between the NES and the PS3. It was the pirate-boom era in Poland when everybody knew a ‘game dealer’ who would make ‘compilation CDs’ of games with audio stripped out and video cutscenes deleted, etc. You could get a CD with 10-20 games for an equivalent of maybe $5-$10. I quickly decided that this was not the perfect way to experience games and I preferred buying games less often but with higher ‘production value’. Ultimately, I got tired of trying to keep up with the hardware, I found I had less time to game with other things on my mind such as studies, friends, girlfriend, so I drifted away from all of it. I came back to gaming with Fallout 3 (the best RPG series of all time, as I already mentioned) and switched to PS3 then.