|
This repository is a tribute to the classic video game Lode Runner, the Presage/Sierra variants in particular published in 1990's.
Twin goals: showcasing uniqueness and beauty of LR levels, and providing the fan community with gold (pun intended!) data on officially released game levels. |
 Where have I seen this level...? Wonder no more! |
WHAT:
Screenshots of individual levels, data points (origin, 1-player vs. 2-player, "world" information, and title), trivia, pointers to walkthroughs. Essentially a catalog of official LR levels.
WHY:
What makes Lode Runner so awesome is ingeniousness of individual levels, each of which constitutes a puzzle to solve, yet there hasn't been an easy "internet way" to reference them. With this repository, I finally can!
Here is Level 024 entitled "Think Ahead", which mystifies me every single time.
How about this one aptly named "Monk Rain", or a secret Easter-egg level that paid homage to an even more classic puzzle.
HOW:
Screenshots were taken on Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (1994) and Lode Runner Online: Mad Monks' Revenge (1995), emulated and patched to run on Windows 10.
Apart from LR_TLR, all screenshots were taken on Lode Runner Online (1995), including on the level packs originally published on a different platform (PlayStation, etc.). They were produced using LRO-compatible .pzlcopies, which were ported by fan community. Screenshots for such packs therefore may deviate from their original, "native" forms.
Level titles and other additional information were scraped or keyed in by myself.
Level trivia was sourced from fan sites (Jason Summers, etc.) and more.
It had 150 one-player levels. They were later included in LRO_MMR_1P (listed below) which added 37 more levels.
- Two-player level pack (
2P, 30 levels; browse all levels here)
The pinnacle of Presage's Lode Runner!
- Two-player level pack (
2P, 150 levels; browse all levels here) - One-player level pack (
1P, 187 levels; browse all levels here) - Secret Easter-egg levels (
EE1P, 5 levels; browse all levels here)
Originally released on PlayStation with all-new levels. Not for beginners!
- One-player level pack (
1P, 110 levels; browse all levels here) - Two-player level pack (
2P, 20 levels; browse all levels here) - Bonus levels (
BN1P, 6 levels; also called "FORTEST"; browse all levels here)
Originally released on PlayStation as a budget-edition (only ¥1500!) reissue of LR_EXTRA. It reprised all of LR_EXTRA levels plus some new ones.
- One-player level pack (
1P, 23 additional levels after 110 fromLR_EXTRA_1P) - Two-player level pack (
2P, 3 additional levels after 20 fromLR_EXTRA_2P) - THANKS pack (
THxP, 66 mostly one-player levels)
Each level pack comes with most/all of the following data files (LRO_MMR_1P as example):
| file/directory | content |
|---|---|
index.md |
A flat web page showcasing all levels |
level_data.tsv |
4 columns: pack ID, level #, world ID, title |
level_data_SUPPL.tsv |
Contains supplementary information on levels. Currently 3 columns: trivia, two walkthrough sources. |
pngs/ |
Level images in png format: 001.png, 172.png, etc. |
pngs_labeled/ |
Images are labeled with level-identifying info at the bottom and have a long, descriptive name: LRO_MMR_1P - 172 - REEF - CAN YOU FIND A SHORTCUT.png (Special characters ?!<>" and trailing punctuation such as ... are stripped.) |
pngs_schema/ |
Schematics of each level, named 001_s.png, 172_s.png, etc. |
World ID code:
There are 12 of them:
MOSS (Moss world), FUNG (Fungus world), ANCI (Ancient world), CRYS (Crystal world), ICEW (Ice world), FOSS (Fossil world), LAVA (Lava world), PHOS (Phosphorus world), DARK (Dark world), INDU (Industrial world), ASTR (Astral world), REEF (Reef world). Plus, there's the occasional 'classic' theme seen in Easter-egg levels: CLSC (Classic theme).
All of these puzzle packs are bundled with Quark Robot's excellent re-implementation, Mad Monks' Revenge: Definitive Edition. This is a faithful remake of the game that installs and runs natively on all modern operating systems (Windows, OS X, and Linux). Enjoy!
Thanks to...
Disclaim, disclaim...