The player controls Road Runner, who is chased by Wile E. Coyote. In order to escape, Road Runner runs endlessly to the left. While avoiding Wile E. Coyote, the player must pick up bird seeds on the street, avoid obstacles like cars, and get through mazes. Most of the time Wile E. Coyote will just run after the Road Runner, but he occasionally uses tools like rockets, roller skates, and pogo sticks.
Development
Originally, the game was going to use LaserDisc technology for the backgrounds and road. When the player died in the game, one of many cartoon death sequences taken from the original shorts would have shown.
The game was going to be released in 1984, but Atari decided to cancel the game. The game was eventually released in 1985, but this version was a modified version. The LaserDisc cutscenes were taken out of the final game, and the road and backgrounds were changed to computer-generated graphics. The prototype cabinet was eventually found, and it is now playable at California Extreme.
Like other NES games released by Tengen, Road Runner was unlicensed by Nintendo itself, released as an unlicensed cartridge avoiding Nintendo's protections. It was planning on to be released in a licensed version by Mindscape, but it was scrapped in the fall of 1989.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #140 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.[2]
The game went to number 2 in the UK sales charts, behind Exolon.[3]
