I thought about Lode Runner this morning.
One of the first great video games for a home computer, Lode Runner was a game I positively loved as a kid in the mid-80s. It was fast-paced but easy to learn, and the levels could be deceptively complex; I don’t know that I was aware of it at the time, but I think now that it was this brain-flexing quality that I liked best. And, as an added bonus, the game came with a level editor — for a long time the only such game editor I knew about.
Anyway, I’m not sure what I’ve been doing lately to make me think about the game this morning, but visions of burying robots “alive” by digging holes in the ground with a laser were nevertheless in my mind when I sat down for office hours today.
So I did a Google search.
To my joy (and slight surprise), Lode Runner actually has an article on Wikipedia. Even better, there are at least two sites where you can download copies of the old games: here and here.
I’m not saying I’ve downloaded them, and I’m not saying you should, but … it’s Lode Runner!