E! True ZX Games Story: Lode Runner

Eighties was the marvelous time of innovative game concepts, and this is what we at ZX Games (http://www.zxgames.com) really love and have passion for. We are not really sure what that time was all about, but somehow a single person could come up with a brilliant idea and turn it into a game selling millions of copies.

Developing a game today is a whole different thing. We really do not welcome the idea of having a huge team of developers and writers and animators and etc to create one complex game that will need some time to grow on you and yet will not be original. Simplicity and minimalism is what distinguishes a good game; ingenious thinking is what marks a bright mind.

Today's featured game is Lode Runner. Released in 1983, it's amazing that the game still sells and people buy it everyday. Can you imagine this? Not a day passes by without having at least one person interested in purchasing Lode Runner...

* Game Inventor: Douglas E. Smith
* Occupation at the time of invention: student, major in Physics
* Location at the time of invention: University of Washington, Seattle

Douglas Smith lived in Renton, Washington before going to Seattle to get into the Computer Science Department at the University. However, as irony would have it, the future inventor of Lode Runner failed twice to qualify for Computer Sciences and had to settle on Physics major. Eventually Douglas dropped out of the University in the wake of Lode Runners success and became a millionaire.

The earliest version of Lode Runner was written in Fortran on the Universitys VAX 1. It was called Kong because of its similarities to Donkey Kong. Since developing video games was not authorized use of the Universitys resources, the game was known as graph until its completion. Running graph on the University machine required the user entering a secret password. This password became common knowledge among students, and soon it was reported that around 80 of the total man-hours to the development of the Fortran version and 0 royalties on gross sales. One of the others offered him $100,000 flat. He made the right choice and picked Broderbund. Later Douglas blamed Sirius for leaking a copy of Miner, which was widely distributed in southern California.

Broderbund gave him the advance with no strings attached other than he could not market it elsewhere. To get the royalties, Douglas would have to complete the game with four major points:

1. Animation
2. Sound Effects
3. New Title Page
4. 150 Levels

With new incentive, Douglas worked around the clock, dropping his classes for the quarter (Spring, 1983). At that time he only had about 30 levels and it is said that he was not creative enough to think of another 120. So he let the neighborhood kids come over and design new levels with Douglas' screen editor. He paid the kids on a per level basis for every one that ended up in the final release.

Broderbund had an ex-Walt Disney animator working in-house. For a cut of the profits, he would design a nice title page. Douglas took him up on his offer.

The game's snakes were tuned into running stick figures, because Douglas could not come up with proper animation and simply borrowed the four-frame running man sequence from Broderbund's Choplifter game (hence, the name Bungelings).

The game was ready by Summer of 1983 under the Lode Runner title.

Douglas offered James Bratsanos a flat payment for his role in the development of the Fortran version. James was surprised to receive anything at all, and accepted.

Douglas' royalties started pouring in. He broke Choplifter's Broderbund record of $77,000 in one month royalties. Rumors go around that Douglas grossed $2 millions in total royalties. Although he had to pay a substantial part of the income as taxes to the government, with the net profit he was able to buy a Porche 911 Carrera, a Bayliner Speedboat and a house in Issaquah, Washington.

However, soon with the money going out fast, Douglas realized that he did not have enough to retire on. He started his own company called QAD. The name stood for Quick And Dirty. Unfortunately we do not know what the company was about. What we know is that Douglas did not have much luck with it. So, soon he undertook a new venture named Ralph. Ralph was to become a new video game for the Apple II microcomputer. However the project quickly became overdue and eventually failed. Douglas decided to go back doing what he was best at, and that is making new and improved versions of Lode Runner.

If you have any idea where Douglas E. Smith is now and what he is up to these days, please share this information with us at mail@zxgames.com. As a reward, we will give you any of our games free of charge...

..or just play our remake of Lode Runner (http://www.zxgames.com/en/loderunner.shtml), which is as close to the original as possible and needs no emulators to run.

Mikhail Zhilkin of ZX Games (Sales, Support and Public Relations). Apart from being ZX Games founder, Mikhail is doing his post-graduate study in Physics, lives in Tokyo, Japan and expresses his extreme pacifism by not doing compulsory military service in his home country. Mikhail enjoys playing soccer and ZX Spectrum games.

Bird Cages A Home For Your Feathered Friends

The practise of keeping birds goes back throughout human history. People have long wanted to keep the beautiful creatures as pets, but since they can fly, cages were needed to keep the birds contained.

Bird cages are common in many households. They are traditionally a tall brass cage, made from several pieces of wire bound together with a solid base and a door. The way that the horizontal and vertical bars create a mesh gives the bird a surface to climb with its agile hook-like feet. The traditional cage has one perch in the centre, a simple crossbar that the bird can sit on, and the floor of the cage is lined with something like sandpaper that can be easily changed due to the fact that birds shed a lot of feathers and create mess.

There are a variety of modern bird cages, some very large in size. They usually have one or more perches and are easily portable. The larger cages can be several feet tall and wide, with platforms, ladders and ornate designs. They will sometimes come with a built in seed and water holder that can be easily refilled, but these can be bought separately.

You will probably want to furnish a cage with a variety of toys to keep your avian friend happy. There is a huge range available; ropes that come in various lengths and knots, acrylic shapes, mobiles, balls and bells. This is important for the more intelligent species of birds like parrots as they get bored easily.

Some feel that bird cages are inhumane, trapping a creature in a small confine, effectively jailing it. This is the root of metaphors that compare bird cages to prisons. An option that gives the birds far more freedom is a aviary, essentially a very large cage the size of a shed or even as large as a house. Aviaries are usually used by zoos and can contain several species of bird, plants, trees and insects, creating a kind of natural environment and plenty of room for the birds to fly.

John Gibb is the owner of bird-cage-sources3k.info, for more information on Bird Cages please check out http://www.bird-cage-sources3k.info

Cheap Secured Loans: Borrow Money At Cheap Rates

Assets are our solutions to live life respectably whenever we are faced with a difficult situation. In times of a financial crunch, we can bank upon these assets to help us get money. While availing a loan, assets can help us get very low rates of interest through cheap secured loans. How? Let us read the article to know this.

Cheap secured loans, as already mentioned, need an asset to be placed as collateral for the loan. An asset like real estate, property or home, or a car etc can be placed as collateral. The collateral acts as a security for the loan. Thus the lender is assured of the repayment of the loan. In return he offers a very low rate of interest to the borrower.

With cheap secured loans, an amount of 5000 to 75000 can be borrowed. The repayment term for cheap secured loans is 5-25 years. With very low rate of interest, the repayment of the loan becomes very easy and the asset of the borrower is practically safe and risk-free when the repayment of the loan is made on a timely basis.

Cheap secured loans can be used for any purpose of the borrower like home improvement, debt consolidation, car purchase, an exotic vacation, etc.

Borrowers having bad credit can also avail cheap secured loans. Since the loan is secured with the collateral, the lender is tension-free about the retrieval of his money and thus has no problems offering the loan to the bad credit borrowers.

Online search for cheap secured loans can help the borrowers get the most suitable deal for them. They can ask for free quotes from numerous lenders. These quotes can be compared and the best deal with lowest rates can be chosen.

Cheap secured loans provide an opportunity to utilize the equity in their asset for solving the problem of monetary need. The low rates and good terms of the loan make it a suitable choice for all borrowers.

Simon Peyton has done his masters in finance from CPIT. He is engaged in providing free, professional, and independent advice to the residents of the UK. He works for the Loans Fiesta. For any type of loans as Cheap secured loans, unsecured debt consolidation loan, secured loan uk,secured homeowner loan in uk,unsecured debt consolidation loans please visit http://www.loansfiesta.co.uk