The player controls a character who must collect all the gold pieces in a level and get to the end while being chased by a number of enemies.

There are 150 levels in the game, which progressively challenge players' problem-solving abilities or reaction times.

[9] Levels have a multi-story, brick platform motif, with ladders and suspended hand-to-hand bars that offer multiple ways to travel.

A trapped guard who cannot escape a hole before it fills is consumed and immediately respawns in a random location at the top of the level.

Unlike guards, the player's character may not climb up out of a hole, and he will be killed if it fills before he can escape by other means.

In general, depending on their exact positioning relative to Lode Runner, the guards sometimes appear to be repelled.

Around late 1980, high school student James Bratsanos heard from a friend about a new arcade video game, Space Panic by Universal, which involves climbing platforms and ladders while digging holes to trap monsters.

He began writing a Commodore PET program, called Suicide, using simple text-based graphics.

Bratsanos later left the project to pursue his studies, and Smith continued to develop Kong[11][10] into the prototype of what later became Lode Runner.

[13] Over one weekend in 1982, Smith recreated a crude, playable version in 6502 assembly language on an Apple II Plus and renamed the game Miner.

"[12] Miner, like its text-based Kong predecessors, had only simple animation where characters move across the screen in block increments.

[15] Smith borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game.

Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Broderbund.

[1] The original microcomputer versions were for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, VIC-20, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles.

The IBM PC port was originally on a self-booting disk and is incompatible with video cards other than CGA.

A level editor was included, which in Japan used the Famicom's Family BASIC tape drive to save one's work; however, as with many US localisations, the NES lacked the tape drive and thus there is no way to save levels created with the US release.

Broderbund released an enhanced version, Championship Lode Runner, in 1985, with 50 levels and a higher difficulty.

It was ported to the Apple, Atari, C64, MSX, and IBM PC, as well as the NES (although that version did not reach North America).

[24] Praises for the introduction of strategy into the "climbing game" genre and for the intuitive level editor were repeated in Video magazine's review of the game as well as praise for its graphics and animation, with the Apple II version being described as "stand[ing] out far ahead of the pack".

The magazine called the game "a tour de force of American ingenuity ... the first release in a long, long time that can honestly bear the title, 'computer game' ... Lode Runner uses the power of the PC to create something much more than a video version of Ping Pong.

[27] The Commodore 64 Home Companion said that "there's lots of education hidden in" the level editor, concluding that Lode Runner "is one of the first of a new breed of computer game that lets the player be a creator".

[28] By 1985, the game was still selling well, with Video magazine reporting that it was the 6th best-selling recreational title in March[29]: 35  and April of that year.

Judges praised its "outstanding design", and described it as "fascinating", "irresistible", and as "the thinking player's climbing conquest".

[33]: 28  Softline readers named Lode Runner the most popular Apple and fourth most-popular Atari program of 1983.

[40] Tetris designer Alexey Pajitnov stated in 2008 that Lode Runner was his favorite puzzle game for many years.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Lode Runner on their August 1, 1984 issue as being the most successful table arcade cabinet of the month.

Another title, Battle Lode Runner, was originally exclusive to Japan, but made available on 23 April 2007 as the first Japan-only game to appear on Nintendo's Virtual Console service.

[53] The NES version, developed by Hudson Soft, marked the first appearance of Bombermen as the opposing robots.

[63] Dion Olsthoorn licensed the original Lode Runner from Tozai to create a version for the Atari 2600.

[64] The ZeroPage Homebrew channel featured the gameplay and an interview with the programmer on their Twitch Livestream on October 8, 2022.