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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I’m rather puzzled by the hardware failures already at PS4/Xbone, seems like a lack of foresight to make sure their peripherals to work.
Jordan the Prince of Persia games are Platformers, not adventure.
QotW: My favorite Adventure game has to be Gabriel Knight, each game in the series was a dark thrilling mystery and the main characters were great to follow.
Speaking of which Activision is licensing out the GK IP to Jane Jensen for a remake. Thanks in part to the Kickstart project Moebius that Jane got funded. Along with other Adventure game projects inspired someone at Activision who had a passion for the GK series to convince the company to license out the series to Jane. What has me excited is seeing Adventure games get more notice as a viable product again by game companies, especially Activision.
@Xbox and PS headsets
Personally I don’t see this as a problem. As long as they provide a pack-in headset so that I can discuss my numerous relationships with my oponents mothers on Battlefield I will be fine. I can see how it is a problem for rich folk who blasted loads of cash on some shelled reptilian headset. But I am indifferent to the opinions if others. I fully support Democracy and believe that the opinions of few should be overlooked and they should all be quietly shot.
@Oh can you hear what the Rockstar is cooking?
As long as it’s not ONI 2 I will be glad to play anything Rockstar makes. To me they proved their development ability time and time again. I am curious what it will be. I am guessing it’s Bully 2 but it could be Red Dead as well. Redemption was voted as the best game of last decade so I would expect Rockstar to indulge us with as sequel.
@QOTW
Across my gaming life I played quite a few adventure games. But I don’t remember most of them. Broken Sword 3 was good. Recently I played Anna but had to quit because of lighting issues on my laptop. But my highlight was Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. I know that the prequel was better (never played it) but I quite enjoyed it. Another highlight was Beavis and Buthead game on Mega Drive. It was funny because the Beavis and Buthead IP was aimed at retarded adolescent teens but the game itself was hard as nails. It had puzzles so difficult that you would need a degree in critucal thinking to get to the end.