That Brøderbund triple crown never fails to bring me back to the half-underground computer software shop on the Main Street in my town some time in the early 1990s. I would read about upcoming games in PC Magazine, and visit almost daily when a new game came out to see if they had it in stock yet.<p>Either that shop was pretty casual about staying on the cutting edge, or release dates were fuzzier back then, because it would often be months of agonized visits before the game showed up on shelves. By then, of course, I’d have gotten another PCMag, and my attention had leapt to a different — clearly far more advanced and interesting — game that was “only days” from launch.<p>Anyway, during one of my Saturday morning visits to the musty-smelling and over-dehumidified shop, I ended up idly browsing through the Borland section and a Turbo C box caught my eye. My dad was incredibly pumped that I was showing an interest in something that could actually be productive and creative, so he bought it for me.<p>Unfortunately, nine-year-old me did not turn out to be a natural prodigy. My dad’s coding experience stopped somewhere south of FORTRAN (he had juggled some accounting systems for ABC in the early 1980s) so he tried his best but couldn’t really make it click for me.<p>So Turbo C went back on the shelf. Dark Forces was coming out next month, and I didn’t have time for twiddling with incomprehensible runes when there were stormtroopers to kill.<p>What could have been.
I haven't played the original, but <i>Lode Runner: The Legend Returns</i> is one of my favorite games of all time. The later levels can be very challenging and I don't remember ever reaching the final stage but it was an addicting experience. You can download a faithful remake of Legend Returns here: <a href="https://mmr.quarkrobot.com/" rel="nofollow">https://mmr.quarkrobot.com/</a>. Highly recommended!
Lode Runner was the first game to impress me with its play mechanics and its level builder. It was really an elegant little game. I don’t think it would make my all time top 10 today but it would probably make a “top 10 to date of release”.
The original loaded pretty much instantly. Software of that era didn't have minutes long "Loading ... Please Wait" screens for everything.<p>Also, the original didn't <s>try to data collect</s> ask to enter a name. For some odd reason, it took a while to get past this annoying dialog box on this web game.<p>On the original, the player would keep running whereas this new game is laborious in that you need to hold down keys to keep moving. The original keyboard layout is:<p><pre><code> UIO = dig up dig
JKL = left down right</code></pre>
I spent many hours as a child playing load runner (the legend returns) but I have no idea where we got it.<p>I think our Compaq Presario at the time must have come packaged with a sierra disk.
I remember going quite deep on lode runner’s level editor in school with friends. I think there were a variety of edge cases that (almost like exploits) that allowed our levels to be incredibly complex and harder than any of the pre built level. A great reminder that giving people tools is almost always a creative boon.
This is pretty great, I used to love this game as a kid. I played it on a PC in the late 80s. Besides being a fun game, it was probably the first game I've played where you could design your own levels, which was awesome, we used to challenge each other to custom levels in our school's computer lab.
Great memories. Was our favorite game on my Macintosh 128K. My nephew brought my Mac back to Italy with him just so he could continue playing. I don't think I've played it on any other computer since.
This brings back so much memories of playing the original on my Apple IIe.<p>Glad to have found about Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, Lode Runner Online: The Mad Monks' Revenge, and its remakes from the comments here. There goes my weekend...<p>Another very good and free remake (which doesn't even include ads!) for mobile platforms is/was Lode Runner 1 by Nexon. It appears it's no longer on Google Play, but it can be found on APKMirror. I still play it from time to time.<p>Review:
<a href="https://toucharcade.com/2017/05/19/lode-runner-1-is-a-well-made-adaptation-of-lode-runner-and-completely-free" rel="nofollow">https://toucharcade.com/2017/05/19/lode-runner-1-is-a-well-m...</a>
Damn, got 30 levels in, 7 men left, and it reset when I went to the bathroom.<p>I wasted so much time on this as a kid, and this is the most faithful to the //e version that I've ever seen.
I remember spending a lot of time playing this game. Even my mom liked it, and she never played video games. I wonder if she'll want to play this version. Great to see it again!
I don't remember playing Lode Runner back in the day, although it was quite famous. Back then my favorite games in the same league were Pharaohs Curse and Montezuma's Revenge.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBSW6r9-lQo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBSW6r9-lQo</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq7xwDrKwBs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq7xwDrKwBs</a>
I played this as a kid on a Franklin PC, an Apple II clone. It was more interesting than Pac-Man at the time and IIRC you could design your own levels.
It goes without saying that I could easily Google this myself, but I’ll ask anyway for those who are also wondering: what is the significance of HTML5 for this implementation? I’m not a web guy have gotten by with simple html css js and occasional templating when needed. Is HTML5 supporting some native programming?
See also xscavenger, old-school X11 Lode Runner clone: <a href="https://www.linuxmotors.com/linux/scavenger/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.linuxmotors.com/linux/scavenger/index.html</a><p>Enjoy it now, while X11 is still quasi-relevant and runnable on today's computers!
Always love seeing Apple II related stuff on HN.<p>The first game I got with my Apple //c was Championship LodeRunner - <a href="http://www.oldcomputerstuff.com/championship-lode-runner-certificate/" rel="nofollow">http://www.oldcomputerstuff.com/championship-lode-runner-cer...</a>
<a href="https://okgamer.ru/dendi-igry-onlayn/2356-lode-runner.html" rel="nofollow">https://okgamer.ru/dendi-igry-onlayn/2356-lode-runner.html</a> took five seconds to boot, whereas on this web site it took ten seconds to get to 25% after which I have up waiting.<p>HN hug of love?
Ahhh I remember many (well... maybe not so many compared to current games) hours playing Lode Runner on a Mac Plus when I was 3 years old. I remember editing the maps and my dad thinking I was editing a locked floppy disk... when really I just figured out how to unlock it and re-lock it afterward.
There's a modern version on Steam: <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/628660/Lode_Runner_Legacy/" rel="nofollow">https://store.steampowered.com/app/628660/Lode_Runner_Legacy...</a>
Anyone else find that pressing a key while another key is pressed causes the game to forget that the first key is still being pressed? I don't remember this being a problem in the original. Browser limitation, or bug?
Seeing and playing this for the first time and... it's really very interesting game.<p>Is there a value in a total remake (different graphics, art style) of this game? I'm sure many already exist.
This looks and plays great!<p>My favorite version of this game runs on the Apple ][ and I am going to fire mine up and have a go this evening to hear the goofy 1 bit sounds.<p>To play on Android, I had to connect a keyboard.