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 Brรธderbund.
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Yeah, they did it as a Fathom event in Portland and I went… good stuff. Nice seeing what Fable and Avowed might look like when they come out.
The Internet is already talking about “No Man’s Skyrim”. I’m cautiously optimistic. It seems VERY ambitious. Between ship building, habitat building, space travel, trading, combat, a room full of sandwiches, it’s a lot…
Hi guys.
Thanks for this huge episode! Sadly i know nearly none of the games ๐
I heared about SF6, but you skipped it ๐
You mentioned one Metroidvania game coming, which should look very good, but i did not get the name. It was very early in the episode … could you please tell me the name? I love Metroidvania games ๐
I am playing the hell out of Diablo 4 … and the words i choose were not intended to describe it ๐
And as always some Magic the Gathering. Nesides thsi the ummer is coming and so are the concerts and festivals i enjoy in staed of sitting at my pc or console … i need people around me at the moment -.-
Thanks for your effort and i promise i try to listen to the podcast more often and comment it … as i did the last years <3
Greetings from germany
Ralf