Lode Runner

Lode Runner is a classic that arrived on the SG-1000 in 1984, bringing to the console one of the best-designed game concepts of the 1980s. The player controls a little figure moving across an arrangement of platforms, ladders, and ropes, and the task on every level is to collect all the gold bricks and then get out. Getting in the way are enemies who relentlessly pursue him and can carry off collected gold with them. There's no weapon at all; the only defense is the ability to dig a hole in the floor to the left or right of yourself.

An enormous depth grew out of this single mechanic. The hole acts as a trap that an enemy falls into and gets stuck in for a moment, so it can be used to create a passage, to delay a pursuer, or to let the player walk right over a trapped opponent's head. At the same time, the hole seals itself back up after a while, meaning bad timing ends with the player's own character getting trapped. Every level is essentially a puzzle with a time component, and the player must work out both the order of collection and the escape route in advance. The SG-1000 version is visually bare-bones, but that doesn't hurt it at all, because the game rests on the complete readability of the level layout. The sound is limited to a handful of sharp effects that give sufficient notice of what's happening.

The original game from Brøderbund was a huge success across home computers, and its influence on logic-based platformers is hard to overstate. In Japan especially, Lode Runner gained extraordinary popularity and spawned a number of sequels and variations. The SG-1000 version still works great today, because the concept hasn't aged, only the coat of paint has. Anyone who likes games where planning counts rather than reflexes will find here dozens of levels that can occupy many evenings. Individual rounds are short, so the game plays well in small chunks, and the feeling of a cleverly worked-out solution, where the player sets a trap exactly where it's needed, is among the best things the 8-bit era has to offer. On the SG-1000, it's a title that stands out from the rest of the catalog through sheer timelessness.