Road Runner (game)

Road Runner is a 1985 arcade game by Atari Games. The player controls Road Runner who must run away from Wile E. Coyote.

Gameplay

Road Runner is an interesting variant of the platformer genre, based on the Road Runner cartoon. The gameplay is very simple: the player controls Road Runner, who is chased by Wile E. Coyote. In order to escape, Road Runner runs endlessly to the left while the landscape scrolls by. In addition to avoiding the coyote, the player must pick up bird seeds on the street, avoid obstacles like cars, and get through mazes.

Sometimes Wile E. Coyote will just run after the Road Runner, but he occassionally uses tools like rockets, roller skates, and pogo-sticks. The permanent hunt makes the game very fast paced and captures the spirit of the cartoon very well.

Road Runner dies if the coyote catches him, a car runs over him, or if he falls from a cliff. He also needs to eat the bird seed, because when he misses 5 of them he will faint and his opponent can easily get him. The player has three lives initially and can get extra lives by reaching a certain number of points. The game does not have an ending, but the landscape repeats after a while, getting more difficult each time.

Ports

Road Runner has been ported to the following home computers and video game consoles:

• Amstrad CPC – typical 8 bit conversion with worse graphics, uses only part of the screen
• Atari 2600 – very bad graphics, different from the original, typical for 2600 games
• Atari ST – good port, quite close to the original
• Commodore 64 – typical 8 bit conversion with worse graphics
• Sinclair ZX Spectrum – very bad graphics, typical for Spectrum games

External links

• The KLOV entry on Road Runner
• The Arcade Version
• Arcade Flyer
• The Atari 2600 Port
• Ports to Home Computers
• The original arcade version can be obtained from StarROMs