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Lode Runner X

No multiplayer games are running.

New games coming

 • Posted on Saturday, December 9th 2006 (1:57 PM) by Mike

It's been a long time since I updated; fortunately, that doesn't mean I haven't been working on things. ;)

I've been spending the recent weeks creating a sequel to a game I created last year called Tetratris. I don't actually have that game on this site. I'll try to add a subsite for that project in not too long.

I've also been working on a platformer + RPG combination. I made a demo version for a game challenge but I didn't publicly release it. I just finished some upgrades to the engine, and I think I will work on creating a new demo to release in the not-too-distant future.

I also promise I'll update sooner next time. :)

Snake Complete!

 • Posted on Thursday, August 10th 2006 (3:44 AM) by Mike

Great news! I have finished work on my Snake game.

You can visit the Snake page here!

Don't forget to log in / register when you play so that you can have your scores saved!

New game soon: Snake

 • Posted on Wednesday, August 9th 2006 (3:31 AM) by Mike

I haven't updated since the release of Lode Runner X. I hope you enjoyed that game! :)

Recently, I've been working on a Flash version of the popular "Snake" game. I almost have it ready; I'm fine-tuning a couple of things and getting the high score table finalized. I think you'll like this game quite a bit.

I'll be adding a subpage for Snake very soon; keep your eyes open!

Release Official!

 • Posted on Tuesday, May 16th 2006 (3:55 PM) by Mike

I am happy to present you the final release of Lode Runner X!

You can download the game here. Simply run the program and follow the instructions. I included a nice readme file, but you should also be able to just jump right into the game without much trouble.

I've also added a section for you to register an account for multiplayer stat tracking. Check it out in the right column under "Register."

At the top of this main page (and only on this one page), I've added a small line to tell you whether a multiplayer game is currently running or not. (It also lists the time at which said game began.) You'll be able to just stop by the site quickly to see whether or not a game is running instead of needing to check from the game itself.

I'm considering adding some sort of game-setting-up service where you can send messages to other players to see if they want to play sometime. I could also just set up a little bulletin board; that might work better. We'll see what happens.

Enjoy the game!

New webhost!

 • Posted on Monday, May 15th 2006 (10:31 AM) by Mike

I've signed up with a new webhost, and I've also purchased a new domain name: www.psyguygames.com. If you're reading this you probably used that URL. :)

The old webhost will still be used for 'legacy' purposes; I'm not going to take it down, but I now consider if obselete.

Actually, aside from the new domain name, there isn't any real visible difference. That's a good thing, though!

(This also serves as a test update to make sure everything's working properly. I also just edited this last sentence in.)

Release Soon

 • Posted on Saturday, May 13th 2006 (12:23 AM) by Mike

I'm planning on releasing the game very soon. I have released it to a limited audience, and in the next couple of days I should have it officially released.

I added a line at the top of this front page that lets you know if a game has recently been started. This way, you can just quickly check this website to see if a multiplayer game is available instead of having to start the game and check.

Working on Levels

 • Posted on Saturday, April 22nd 2006 (5:48 PM) by Mike

During the last week I've focused on finishing the remaining levels for the single player mode. Once I've completed all 80 levels (i've got around 16 left now), the game will near be complete. The remaining work will mainly consist of fine-tuning various parts of the game (mostly visual / input elements).

Since I don't have a lot of exciting news to update with, I'll try to put up screenshots of many of the remaining levels. There are a couple of new screenshots in the screenshots section; I just put up a shot of Level 71, so you can check that out if you're interested.

Gamepads

 • Posted on Saturday, April 15th 2006 (12:11 AM) by Mike

I bought a gamepad today to make sure the game would let them work. I actually only had to add testing for a POV hat in my code (since that's what the D-pad registers as); the rest of the code handled the thing fine.

I also fixed up the control settings menu. It works well now, and you can choose which device you want to use in the event that you have, say, two joysticks and a gamepad attached to your computer.

I also, recently, increased the font size in the game. It was, admittedly, a little bit small, but now it reads very easily.

Aesthetic Changes

 • Posted on Wednesday, April 5th 2006 (12:31 AM) by Mike

I've been prettying the game up a little bit over the last couple of days.

I started by increasing to 800x600 resolution (from 640x480) and adding a frame around the main action area. See the screenshots section for how that looks. This way, I can easily display all information without worrying about obstructing the player's view.

I even added a scrolling tip box (with different hints for the game and for the editor); it's pretty cool.

Yesterday and today I re-did the menu. It seemed somewhat clumsy still; it works great now, and it looks so much better. I will put up a screenshot soon.

I added some powerups to the multiplayer mode. Along with invincibility, invisiblity, increased speed and increasing bomb power, I added a throwing hatchet. It's a rare item (1 of 5 types of powerups), but every once in a while you can get your hands on a hatchet. At any time, you can then throw it to the left or right and it will destroy any player/enemy in its path. Very cool!

Late update

 • Posted on Thursday, March 30th 2006 (1:14 AM) by Mike

I don't have a lot of noteworthy news, but I figured I should update since it's been just over a week.

I spent the last week fixing up the various problems remaining in 4-player multiplayer. Recently I took care of the possibility of a 3rd or 4th player attempting to join a game in progress. Obviously, that new player can't just join, so I had to make sure that they sit in the lobby until the current game ends. Meanwhile, the host gets a little note in the lower-right corner alerting them to the new player's presence. I've done other such similar upgrades.

I've been making a couple of new maps, and I changed two of the worlds' backgrounds. Ice world received a great upgrade, and Forest world changes for the better also. I have added a handful of new screenshots in the last week; see the screenshot section for those.

I've also got the website pretty much complete; the right-hand column has links, a multiplayer leaderboard, and even a random screenshot. I still need to add a couple of pages (e.g., the joystick page).

Various Updates

 • Posted on Tuesday, March 21st 2006 (10:55 PM) by Mike

It's been a long time since I updated this site, but now I have a lot of news.

Firstly, I've updated the layout. I went with a simpler look (and removed the frames) to better correlate with the essence of simplicity in Lode Runner. Just like Lode Runner, though, it has a lot of depth underneath its surface (just check the Stats section!).

In game news, I have spent the last week fixing the game to work with 4 players. I had hard-coded the game to only have 2 players, so I had to upgrade a lot of code. I just today finished changing the webstats scripts to understand games with 3/4 players. (Mostly, this involved the head-to-head popup windows which now can have 3 or 4 players' stats displayed within.)

I've added some screenshots in the screenshot section. You'll see the new level loading method there.

I'm working on adding some new elements to the right navigation bar; some of the links aren't available yet, but in the next week I'll have them finished. I think I'll add a random screenshot and some 'top players' section, maybe the 'top 3 players' in multiplayer.

Still here

 • Posted on Wednesday, January 4th 2006 (12:36 AM) by Mike

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this game.

Small updates

 • Posted on Tuesday, November 29th 2005 (12:43 AM) by Mike

Apparently I had a small error in the stats section. Luckily, it was just a scripting error. I wasn't computing the flag time properly (convering from N seconds to min:sec format). I have fixed that now.

I changed up a couple of things in the game in the area of multiplayer. Usually, an enemy will respawn 2 seconds after he is killed. In multiplayer now, though, the enemy will wait 8 seconds. I did this to balance the game a little better; the enemies became a little too much, especially in KOTH mode. I also increased KOTH leave-hill-warning time from 5 to 10 seconds (the time you can be away from the hill before your accumulated time resets). These changes look to have helped the pacing of games (especially KOTH / flag games) considerably.

Replays

 • Posted on Friday, November 25th 2005 (1:40 AM) by Mike

I started implementing a replay mode today. It's working to an extent right now. A couple of moving objects (like the ice cubes) don't get recorded, and the enemies are a little off. For the most part, though, it's working pretty well. Flag mode and KOTH mode, on the other hand, are working very well. I tried a mode earlier where the goal was to hold the flag for 2:00 and to get 2 hills captured. It was pretty darned fun.

Site Back

 • Posted on Tuesday, November 22nd 2005 (1:10 AM) by Mike

For the last few days, the host I use had been experiencing a distributed denial of service attack. Not cool! It looks like they've got things just about sorted out.

I got the screenshots section running, finally. I have around 20 screens, and I will add about 10 more in a day or two.

Are you interested in playing multiplayer? Send me an e-mail at mdotychar at yahoo dot com and let me know. The multiplayer is fun, but I only have a couple people to play with right now (since it's still technically unreleased). If you've ever played Lode Runner, you're going to have to give this one a try. ;)

How about the new look, huh?

 • Posted on Tuesday, November 15th 2005 (11:45 PM) by Mike

It's looking pretty darned nice to me. I have done some work to make everything look orderly and clean. There is plenty of work to be done, but what is done looks good.

Most of the links at the bottom don't work yet. Three of them go to yahoo.com, which is clearly not the final result. ;) The screenshots section needs fixed up (and it needs some screenshots some day). The History/etc. page is done, and of course the news page looks great.

The stats system is around 50% redone. (Graphically, that is. No new stat features lately!) Some of the 'advanced' pages need updated, such as games against a certain opponent and the head-to-head displays. I should be able to get that done tomorrow, along with most of the other sections.

Website

 • Posted on Tuesday, November 15th 2005 (8:29 PM) by Mike

I'm working on a new layout for the website. You can preview it here. The banner at the top of the page and the frame makes it pretty unsightly, but when the game's done and the new layout is ready, I'll work on upgrading my host; then, it'll look pretty good (hopefully!). ;)

New screen

 • Posted on Friday, November 11th 2005 (9:36 PM) by Mike

I've been working on new single player levels lately. I'm about 60% done with them; here's a screen of the latest one. It is one of my favorite levels. It's very hard, but very cool at the same time. I did a little work on the editor to make creation faster. You can set all tiles of a desired type to be collision/ladder/monkey bar etc. now, so instead of clicking 'apply ladder' to every ladder tile, you just ctrl+click on one ladder and it automatically applies ladder-collision to each ladder in the level. That makes it pretty much twice as fast to finish a level. Well, not twice as fast, but less tedious.

Cheats

 • Posted on Monday, November 7th 2005 (12:21 AM) by Mike

I spent a short time today finalizing the cheats system. After implementing all of them (so they actually worked), I finally got around to implementing the purchase system.

Each time you complete a single player level for the first time, you get to keep the gold in that level for use in the cheats store. Right now there are twelve cheats. Some of them are cool, some are weird, but they all cost money! ;)

Pac Man

 • Posted on Monday, October 31st 2005 (11:57 PM) by Mike

Remind you of anything?



I was nice enough to pick up all of the bombs and ropes so that you could have an unobscured look at the level. ;) Imagine how much more effectively Pac Man could have grabbed those things he ate if he'd been able to dig holes in the ground!

Stats adjustments

 • Posted on Monday, October 31st 2005 (2:07 AM) by Mike

As usual, I did some minor work on the stats system. I actually had to reprogram all of the actual game's presets; I hadn't been saving some of the information, and I ultimately decided that I needed to. (Previously, I didn't save the settings for Turbo/Dark mode, and map spawn settings.)

Check out NewPlayer's stats for a look at the updated website side of things. When a non-standard game setting is used (game setting refers to a non-goal/non-equipment settings, basically), an icon appears to represent that change. This you, you'll be able to see if one player played in the dark while the other player had turbo mode (a huge imbalance!). Then, if you saw that the favored player won, you'd think, "Well, of course they'd win!" Or, if the other player overcame the odds, you'd really come away impressed.

Turbo Mode

 • Posted on Saturday, October 29th 2005 (11:39 PM) by Mike

Today I'll show you a screenshot of the Deathmatch Setup screen. It will probably not change very much, so you might consider it final. I just finished fixing a couple of problems with Turbo-mode, mostly enemy-related problems. I also need to make it so that you can make turbo mode apply to both players, only one player, or only enemies. (Right now it's just all on or all off.) Everything else in the setup screen is pretty much fully functional.

Stats page goes crazy!

 • Posted on Friday, October 28th 2005 (12:59 AM) by Mike

I've been continuing to work on the stats page. I haven't added any new stats from the game, but I have significantly expanded the website-side display of statistics.

A basic new feature is that you can click on the opponent's name in your games list to see your career games against only that opponent. (So, just a basic filter.)

The other one is what I think is really cool, though. You can click on the result (win/loss) of any game in your list, and you get a side-by-side comparison of that game. This way, you don't have to flip back and forth from your list to the other player's list to see one particular game's nuances. It's pretty cool. I've also been tinkering with the visuals of the stats pages, and it all looks pretty good now. The goals are highlighted in green, and the starting equipment (lives, bombs, etc.) are highlighted in blue. (If the value is 0, then the field has no color.) This makes it really easy to glance and see the settings of each game.

I can verify that the statistics are very detailed because I'm starting to be confused by the system, and I built it! ;)

More stats!

 • Posted on Wednesday, October 26th 2005 (11:44 PM) by Mike

After some thought, I decided that the per-game statistics didn't provide enough detail. With all of the different possible game modes, I want to be able to reflect the game's outcome as best as possible. If one player's goal is to get gold and they don't get to use bombs, then I want the stats to reflect that. As it was, the stats would show that gold-collecting player as dying a few times and having very few kills; other than that, the stats wouldn't tell much. It might seem, based on that, that the player played a pretty bad game. But, what if they almost won? (Or they did win?)

So, I've added the game settings to each game's statistics. When you move the mouse over a row (each game has its own row, as before), the page updates a row of edit boxes at the top with the settings the player had for that game. It's now reached a point where it has a ton of detail. You can tell pretty much everything about a game by looking at the statboard; I'm pretty satisfied! ;)

More Before & After

 • Posted on Tuesday, October 25th 2005 (12:10 AM) by Mike

Here's another cool level I just made (MP as usual). I actually haven't had a chance to playtest it yet, but I think it'll be pretty good. It's a novel design (not that none of the others are, but there definitely aren't any like this).

I finally went ahead and fixed the player movement checking. It worked fine before, but you could try to run into a wall and it would let you try. (You would not move, but you would animate.) This worked fine in single player, but every time you move in multiplayer, you're going to need to send a network message. So, running into a wall repeatedly would create many network messages, sometimes slowing the game down. When I made this level, I realized I needed to fix that. I'm sure there will be instances where players run into the walls while running up the slanted ladder sections. ;)

Finally, here's the screens:

Carnage

 • Posted on Monday, October 24th 2005 (6:40 PM) by Mike

I fixed a dumb problem with the chat system today. It only would appear if all 5 lines were full; otherwise, the function exited (because it didn't need to move any lines off to make room) before I told it to appear.

Here's a before-and-after screenshot pair of one of my many multiplayer levels. This particular one is pretty fun, unless you use the bombs to destroy the level. (Actually, in multiplayer, the blocks come back after being destroyed to keep the level playable; as you can see, the second screenshot really isn't playable. ;) )

Chat system

 • Posted on Sunday, October 23rd 2005 (10:58 PM) by Mike

I worked on the chat system a little bit today. Just some fine-tuning, mostly. Before, I had it so that you could turn the chat window on or off and move it around with the mouse. This become kind of cumbersome, though, so I changed my approach. Now, the chat dialog only appear when you are typing a message or when you receive a message. When you receive one, it moves onto the screen (from an offscreen area) for a couple of moments, then it returns (unless, of course, you start to type something in response). Actually, it might have a couple of problems appearing right now -- it worked at times, but I'm not sure if it worked every time -- but the system works well, definitely better than the previous approach.

I also finalized the gold-chase modes. Now, you can just set 'gold needed to win' to 'all' (or 'no pickup'). I played a couple of games set like that, and it's different (not in a bad way). It actually seemed pretty easy for the gold-hunter to get the gold and win (we played this in the level in last update's screenshot). I had 2 enemies, and it still didn't pose a great challenge. I'll probably end up using at least 3 enemies and giving the gold-seeker only 3 total lives. That might work the best.

I also made it so that you can't hang onto a rope for very long. Before, you could launch a rope then just hang out, effectively preventing death forever. Now, you only have a short time, then you drop (if you don't move first). This will help to prevent annoying stalemates.

California Dreaming

 • Posted on Saturday, October 22nd 2005 (10:12 PM) by Mike

Well, actually I don't know how dreaming is involved. I guess you could say that my dream involved the MP game with a Californian opponent work work smoothly, and it did work smoothly. Dreams do come true! ;)

I played against my mother in two quick MP games just earlier this evening. The biggest problem didn't even involve the gameplay, it involved the game duration calculation. The statboard says that the games lasted past 10 minutes, but each game took about a minute at most. She had to get 20 bars of gold to win, and she had 8 lives to get all of that amount. I added 1 bomber enemy, but I obviously should have added more! My record has fallen to 24-6. The good news, though, is that it all worked smoothly with no lag to speak of! ;)

To celebrate, I'll give you a new screenshot. I also added background music to the game today, but I can't really give you that in a screen.

Co-op Level

 • Posted on Friday, October 21st 2005 (3:52 PM) by Mike

Here's a new level I made yesterday for cooperative mode. If there isn't another player available to play with, though, you have to try it on your own. I can now officially say that it's possible with only one player, though pretty tough! It was very satisfying to finish it, and it only took approximately 3 minutes. Two enemies and two bomber enemies could not prevent me from retrieving 75 gold bars (including 3 particularly difficult ones) and escaping to the top (which didn't happen as easily as I'd have liked!).

Good as Gold

 • Posted on Thursday, October 20th (2005) @11:29:32 PM GMT +0300 by Mike

Ok, I'm pretty satisfied with the gold system's performance in MP now. I finished up by making it so you can disable each player's ability to pick up gold. This way, you can disable one player and make the other player need 20, 40, or whatever number you like. Then, the other player has to guard against the other player getting that much gold. It should be a pretty fun mode.

Here's a new screen, a cool MP level I made.



I can also confirm that cooperative mode is very fun. It is also quite challenging depending on the level you play. With my levels, it's pretty tough! ;)

Counting gold

 • Posted on Wednesday, October 19th (2005) @11:02:50 PM GMT +0300 by Mike

I suppose most people wouldn't think counting a lot of gold would be a big deal -- it'd mean they were rich, assumedly -- but in this game, counting gold during multiplayer has been a problem (not a fun one, either). Luckily, I've finally fixed up the mistakes, of which there were mainly 2. First, my gold network messages became corrupt because I assigned an int to a byte. Hey, we all make mistakes. ;) Plus, I wasn't sending the message under one of the conditions where the message needed to be sent (gold appearing above an enemy who falls in a hole while carrying gold), so that messed things up, too. I think I have it all working fine now, though. I also straightened out a couple of minor player-kill stat problems, and hopefully I've got all of that taken care of. Who knows, I might even finish this some day! :p

Minor stat quirks

 • Posted on Wednesday, October 19th (2005) @9:01:08 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

Yep, there are still a few slight discrepancies in the statistics. They're close to inconsequential, but I obviously want to get everything ironed out.

Check the stats page, which now has some results from real games (instead of my test games and solo games ;) ).

I need to get the gold picking up fixed, too. It doesn't quite work properly in multiplayer mode, and I have a cool mode that depends on it. One player will have a goal of getting x amount of gold, and the other player will have to stop him (but the latter player won't be able to pick up gold). Some situations would see the gold-collecting player starting without any bombs or anything (and having all map pickups disabled). Add in a couple of enemies and it'd be crazy! Which is the best thing a MP game can be, of course!

Screen

 • Posted on Wednesday, October 19th (2005) @3:55:39 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

Here's a new screen, a new multiplayer level. It's pretty fun, and I've only run 1-player tests on it (with enemies added).

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

More stats

 • Posted on Tuesday, October 18th (2005) @11:56:40 PM GMT +0300 by Mike

I thought having running stat totals would be pretty good, but I've gone a step farther. Now, I record the result of every individual game you play! That's pretty cool, I know. ;)

Just check the stat page, and click on a player's name to view every game they've played (with the game's stats of course). It's still being worked on, but it's definitely functional.

Stats system

 • Posted on Tuesday, October 18th (2005) @6:12:51 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

I experienced much frustration in dealing with the website-side aspects of the stats system, but I've finally gotten a solid rough draft version of the stats system working. You can still see it here. I play as [b]mike[/b] right now. You can easily see my dominance! :p

Online stat tracking

 • Posted on Monday, October 17th (2005) @8:12:44 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

I'm working on a cool new feature: stat tracking.

After each game you play in multiplayer, the game's statistics will be added to a running total on the website. These stats will be viewable on the website all of the time. It won't be as extensive as, say, Halo 2's online stat tracking (but what could be?!), but it'll still be cool to see. Right now, you can see a rudimentary version of the stat tracker here. As of this posting, I haven't implemented the stat-sending part yet, so it is currently empty.

I have the login feature working in the game, though. You sign up at the website for a new name. Then, you login on the menu. If you don't login, your stats won't be recorded. Well, I think that answers my last question (that I didn't type out). I hadn't decided how the stats would be sent. I was considering having the client send a copy of its stats to the server at endgame and then having the MP server send both sets to the server. Now, though, I think I'll just have each player send their own stats. The only reason I might have done it the other way would be to keep it legitimate, but this way will be legitimate, too. If a user wanted to prevent stats, they could just not log in, anyway.

Let's see, I think I should add a screenshot here. I'm getting some cool multiplayer levels made, and they're pretty fun to play. We'll go with one of those cool new MP levels...

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

In regards to the last update, I have the server tracking feature working very nicely. There may be some tweaking to do to it, but it looks very good right now.

server lists

 • Posted on Sunday, October 16th (2005) @8:20:43 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

I've implemented an extremely useful game tracking feature. Now, you don't need to know the IP address of a game you want to join. When a user launches a MP session, it sends a message to this website with the connection information. Then, other users can search for games, and this site will send them the information for all available games (created within the hour). They get the list, the computer name, and just click on whatever game they want to join and they're in. :)

New MP level

 • Posted on Tuesday, October 11th (2005) @8:56:21 AM GMT +0300 by Mike

Here's a screen of the newest multiplayer level.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Real update

 • Posted on Monday, October 10th (2005) @8:44:36 AM GMT +0300 by Mike Doty

This time it's a real update. Here's a screenshot.



I don't think line breaks will show up yet and I'm too lazy to edit the one line of code I'd have to insert right now. Before anyone reads this it'll be fixed anyways. ;)

Navigation

Back to the news page.

See what the game looks like.

Compare yourself to other players!

Create a stat tracking account for multiplayer!

Learn about the long, storied history of the Lode Runner series.

The Game

Learn about the solo game campaign.

Find out how to perfect your deathmatch skills!

Play the game it was meant to be played!

Make as many levels as you can dream.

Problems; tips; why was it made?

Leaderboard

Random Screenshot