This article was published in issue 9 of Komoda & Amiga Plus.
Ow snap! 28 years I have been waiting for a moment when the blood from Brø- derbund will flow in my TED’s veins. I was already losing hope, I was losing my senses until one day…
Long or short, it’s not important. Most importantly, that big hit from the first half of the 80s – Lode Runner finally appeared on the Plus/4. What a great feeling! It’s like asking Mom now to bake a delicious plum cake that she used to make when we were little kids.
I recall that Lode Runner is an arcade game that was released by Brøderbund Software in 1983, on many systems including Commodore 64. The player’s job is to recover the stolen gold that was placed in crates in a huge labyrinth patrolled by the guards. Players most likely associate this game with the way in which the protagonist defends himself, he is digging holes in the ground to stop the guards running in his direction. The most important element here is the great playability, which was totally amaz- ing, resulting in a wide range of admirers of this title.
In 2011, the Hungarian group – Assassins created a very similar Lode Runner conversion to Commodore Plus / 4. Why “similar”? First of all, it’s about graphics, all its elements look like they are from the good old times. Of course this is not the end, because sound effects are almost identical and they sound just like in the C64 version. The levels have also been created with care in reproducing the original and we have all 150 of them here.
I do not need to encourage you to play this successful conversion, which will probably be a great delight for every retro gamer. Bring your friends and remember the old times, and tell the younger generation how it used to be in the world of computer games.
PS. Finally, it is worth mentioning the very interesting conversion of Lode Runner called Acid Runner, published by the Polish company LK Avalon in 1993. The game has a different, but similar graphics, cool music and it will also give you a lot of fun.