There have been many re-imaginings of Lode Runner, the platform title initially released way back in 1983. The game was brought to the Xbox Live Arcade earlier this year. Now Tozai Games has announced that the XBLA version of Lode Runner is available on Xbox Live at a hugely discounted rate (33 percent off) as part of the Deal of the Week promotion. The Deal of the Week is for Xbox Live Gold members who will be able to find notices for the promotion on the Xbox 360’s dashboard.
“Lode Runner for Xbox Live Arcade is our premier product,” stated Sheila Boughten, President of Tozai Games. “We acquired the Lode Runner property a few years ago, and we feel honored to carry its wonderful legacy forward to the franchise’s many fans as well as to a whole new generation of gamers. Everyone at Tozai Games was a huge fan of the original, so to us Lode Runner for Xbox Live truly represents a labor of love. We are thrilled to have Lode Runner featured as Deal of the Week and believe the opportunity to own this title for only 800 Microsoft Points is a huge value for Xbox Live Gold members.”
“This isn’t just a port of the original Lode Runner that so many people remember,” said Scott Tsumura, Tozai’s co-founder. “We focused on maintaining the integrity of the incredibly fun 2D game play, but added all-new levels, hi-res graphics, multiplayer online options, puzzles, co-op modes and much more.”
Brett Ballow, who worked on the game’s design and its huge collection of 272 levels, said, “The game features exceptional breadth. The six modes include a single-player adventure, which we call Journey mode, a two-player co-op Journey that adds an entirely new level of strategy, single-player puzzles and two-player co-op puzzles, single-player Hang On mode (a survival challenge) and two-to-four player Last Man mode, in which up to four players compete to be the last Runner standing. And if you die in Last Man, you’ll immediately return as one of the enemies so you can avenge yourself.”
Lode Runner was one of the first game franchises to include a level editor, so that fans could build their own levels, creating their own challenges. And Tozai Games delivered an easy-to-use Level Editor, plus provided community sharing of user generated content.
“Microsoft really wanted us to build in a Lode Runner Community, where players and level designers can swap and play their own custom creations,” Brett Ballow added. “It took us months of extra work, but in the end it was definitely worth the effort. We’ve seen some really amazing level designs from the game’s early purchasers.”
Lode Runner for the XBLA is available all of this week, till September 20, 2009 for just 800 Microsoft Points from the Xbox Live Marketplace.