Nintendo Classic Games Review: Lode Runner
Lode Runner was developed and designed by Douglas Smith and published by Broderbund.This 150-level game takes us to a gold mine in an entertaining game that poses challenges (some of them with great difficulty) to exercise our intellect. Lode Runner is one of the games that puts you in a position to take on the challenges and no matter how many hours you are playing as it manages to catch you in an incredible way.
Objective
Lode Runner is like I said before a mine in which we have to move to get the golden reefs but we have to be careful with the robots that don't want us to take these reefs.In fact, and it's something that I thought was funny is that they moved and were on the same route that this metal was on, they took it and placed it in another direction.
How to play the game
The moves in the game are basic and simple, what complicates the development of the game is that the robots are chasing us, but in a certain way although they are disoriented they have a plan up their sleeve to catch us.That's why to achieve our goal we must climb up and down the stairs and slide through the hanging bars as we pick up the golden seams and move around the place.
One of the advantages that we have to defend ourselves is that we make holes in some parts of the floor and now I am going to show you how to make these holes: Touching with our control the letter A we make the holes to the right, while with the button B we make them to the left. It should be noted that the robots will fall into our "trap" but they do not die but are suspended for a few seconds and then come back to life.
One thing that made me curious is that robots don't take a specific direction because for example when you go down the stairs and come back, the robots don't follow the same direction but automatically change it to go against you.
Level Creator
One of the features that made this game fascinating was that we could create our own levels and this was one of the elements that gave it the popularity and success it had at the time and that in the new versions still retains. Such was the success that Computer Gaming World magazine organized a contest to award the best level of Lode Runner.
Computing Gaming World
Computer Gaming World magazine praised the level editor for being easy to use and for the strategy of an arcade name, saying, "It's one of the few arcade games that men think about and it was so much so that the creator of the famous Tetris said it was one of his favorite games for a long time. Game Spot said this game was one of the biggest in recent times.
Portability
Lode Runner has migrated to numerous systems we can name: Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, Atari ST, PC-8001, PC-8801, PC-6001, PC-6601, X1, FM-7, SG-1000, Atari 400/800, PC-9801, PC Engine, MS-DOS, IBM PC, Mac OS, NES, Game Boy, BBC Micro, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Virtual Console, Xbox 360 (XBLA) and iPod.
Actuality
The most recent version was released on Steam last year and was developed by Tozai Games and is called "Lode Runner Legacy" which has the same 150 levels as the original one but one of the novelties is that you can edit the character and an FPS camera view and also maintains the editing levels.