Gridrunner

1982 · Fixed Shooter · VIC-20 / Multiple

Overview

Gridrunner (1982) is Jeff Minter's fast Centipede-style shooter, written in about a week for the unexpanded VIC-20, which topped the US computer game chart in April 1983.

Deep Dive

The player's ship moves freely at the foot of a grid and fires upwards at enemies, while zappers on the grid's edges send out pulses that must be dodged. There are twenty waves. Versions followed for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computers, ZX Spectrum, PET and Dragon 32.

Developer Story

Minter wrote it in roughly a week, taking Atari's Centipede as a starting point but making it faster. Llamasoft published it, with HESware, Quicksilva and Salamander handling other releases. It was remade and sequelled for decades, up to Gridrunner Revolution (2009) and a 2012 iOS version.

Did You Know?

The name came from posters for Blade Runner.
Its sequel, Matrix: Gridrunner 2, was sold in the US as Attack of the Mutant Camels, a title Minter had already used for a different game.