Crisis Mountain

Crisis Mountain from 1982 is a platformer from the genre's earliest days, written by David H. Schroeder and published by Synergistic Software. The player descends into the interior of a volcano, leaping over rolling boulders, dodging lava and defusing bombs left in the caverns.

1982 is prehistory for platform games: Donkey Kong was barely a year old and the genre's rules were still being drafted. Crisis Mountain is one of the titles that helped write them – the combination of jumping, collecting and the time pressure of ticking bombs gave the player a clear goal and a reason to take risks. The design philosophy is pure arcade: short runs, score chasing and difficulty that spares no one.

A single author's name on the box is a signature of the period. In the early eighties games were routinely born in one head – design, code and graphics alike – and Synergistic Software was one of the companies giving such creators a publishing home.

This record documents the Commodore 64 version, which the game reached from its original home on the Apple II. Porting successful titles between platforms was the standard way of getting a game in front of the widest possible audience at the time.

Games built around natural forces had a particular pull: a volcano is an enemy you cannot fight, only dodge, and that gives the action a different rhythm from monster battles. The chase for a better score then holds the player in exactly the way the arcade golden age invented – one more try, this time it will work.

You can climb down the volcano without risk of burns – Crisis Mountain runs directly in the browser on OldGame.cz.