The guy who created Lode Runner which has some ties to Bomberman has passed away.

http://kotaku.com/rip-douglas-e-smith-creator-of-lode-runner-1634700628/all

Holy crap, he wasn't even that old... I wonder what happened to him.

I've always enjoyed Lode Runner, though I'm not very good at it. There's nothing quite like it, and that's a great thing to be able to say about a game - a well-designed game. Maybe I'll try another hand at Battle Lode Runner.

Most people are probably aware that, at the end of the original Bomberman, Bomberman turns into Lode Runner. For those who may not know, Bomberman's character design was lifted directly from the enemies in Hudson Soft's earlier port of Lode Runner. This was one of many ports of Smith's popular Lode Runner, and also one of the first games Hudson Soft made for the Famicom.

Some other things in the original Bomberman, like the password system, were also derived from that version of Lode Runner, but without that Famicom port, who knows what Bomberman would have looked like? Shinichi Nakamoto, the man who made the definitive Famicom/NES version of Bomberman, had this to say:

"Because the character of 'Bomb Man' was 'just some middle-aged man wearing a hat', in order to be accepted by Famicom users, I needed to make something new for the character's appearance. So, there was an enemy robot that appeared in Lode Runner. (Actually, I had not thought of this, but... if it is a robot being destroyed with bombs, you may not feel very sorry for it, but if it were some cute princess or something like that, then it may not have become very popular...)" (Super Bomberman Hudson Official Guidebook, pg. 106)

Funny how such a prominent, recognizable video game character resulted from a bunch of copied sprites.

I've heard of Lode Runner, but never played it myself or seen it played. I should probably change that.

@plasm: I knew there was some connection between Lode Runner and Bomberman, but it's interesting seeing that commentary from the official guide book. I think what makes the whole "Bomberman's design is actually just a copied game sprite" thing even funnier to me is that essentially most of the other characters in Bomberman games are, well, clones or mild variations on the basic Bomberman design. It's like the Clone Wars, but with less George Lucas.

(Semi-relatedly, every now and again I get this urge to write Bomberman: The Explosive History or some other similar chronicling of the ups and downs of the Bomberman games...)

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