Original C64 Lode Runner Source Code
14 comments
·October 19, 2025krajzeg
cogman10
ehh, for these old games that's pretty close to the same thing.
A lot of old games were written in assembly. The difference between the disassembled and assembled code is/was pretty minimal.
What you ultimately lose out on is the comments and perhaps jump location names depending on the assembler.
Luc
This can't be the original source code.
https://github.com/Piddewitt/Loderunner/blob/main/Lode%20Run...
Original source, I imagine, would be very tersely commented, if only to fit in memory / floppy, and would have very short variable and subroutine names, and lots of mess and commented-out lines from experiments.
This looks like a very lovingly done disassembly.
bluedino
I don't think I ever played an actual 'Lode Runner', just Steve Moraff's version (DOS shareware?)
Whatever happened to that guy?
hackthemack
For anyone curious, the draw a circle code in Circle.asm appears to use Bresenham's circle drawing algorithm.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c/bresenhams-circle-drawing-al...
The secret is to draw 1 arc of a 45 degree angle and the reflect it (redraw it with different coordinates).
evereverever
I just went to a talk at Portland Retro Game Festival by the dutch guy that made an official Atari Lode Runner port. He said he found a japanese book that had the C source in it and got the enemy AI from that.
This is pretty cool.
rileytg
this is a great remake of the Load Runner follow up, Mad Monks Revenge. it works amazing on a modern macOS!
emmelaich
I'd love to play a LodeRunner with the same feel as the original. No version I've tried has the right feel. It's subtle.
Is this good? I downloaded but Virustotal said 1/66 vendors gave > "MaxSecure Trojan.Malware.300983.susgen Acronis (Static ML) Undetected"
Probably a false positive but enough for me not to try it.
kenjackson
I love how well structured these old 8bit asm games always seem to be.
rhyperior
oh my, they used my favorite solution for the how to draw a circle interview question
phendrenad2
Aaaaah it's one 21k assembly file (including data in hex format). Step #1 for anyone trying to port this to another platform will be to split it up into smaller files, no doubt.
snvzz
A license is not present, as to enable derivatives.
It will still be a while until copyright expires, unfortunately.
Pannoniae
fortunately, you don't have to care about those details, just go and do it ;) I don't think the original person who decompiled someone else's intellectual property has too much ground to stand on here lol
gabrielsroka
21 kloc
Just wanted to note: this is in no way the original source code for the game. It's disassembled and commented source code.
Here is the repository owner explaining the process himself: https://github.com/Piddewitt/C64-Game-Source-Code
Nice work and interesting still, but maybe we can correct the title?