Yar's Revenge "Ghost of Yars"

[+xucaen]

In the manual for Yar's Revenge, it is written

 

 

When you destroy a Qotile, or a

Swirl, there will be an explosion,

during which the Yar stays on the

screen. Use this opportunity to

make up your own victory dance.

And watch out for the Ghost of

Yars! You'll see his mean streak,

so stay off it!

 

 

Has anyone ever seen the Ghost of Yars? Is it something that will kill the Yar or is it just an artifact of the graphics? Maybe someone can share a photo of this ghost?

[Unbeliever]

I haven't seen this when playing...

[+Gemintronic]

From the great and powerful Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yars%27_Revenge#Easter_egg

[JamesL]

I'm surprised to see this referenced in the manual, since the easter egg is a programmer credit, which was a big no-no at Atari. I just always assumed it was done in secret, like the easter egg in Adventure. How did the Yars programmer get away with this? Does anyone know the story?

[+Gemintronic]

Seems the ghost of yars was official but the exact conditions needed for the easter egg wasn't. By the time players found the easter egg it was already too late.

[JamesL]

I love how the programmers eventually got the credit they deserve, besides getting immortalized in the process

[PFL]

Never knew this existed let alone seen it! Tell you what though. Ghost of Yars would be a great name for a sequel...

[+xucaen]

Ok, I am going to make it my mission to find this Ghost of Yar.

 

Thanks everyone!

[Chris++]

It's just an overreaching description of the vertical line that marks the position where the Qotile was killed (in swirl form). If your Yar hangs out on the bottom third of the line during the huge explosion, the game will sometimes freeze, and display Howard's initials frontward and backward.

 

There's an easier way to get the Easter egg, however. Shoot the Qotile during his Swirl, as before, but then simply push "Select" while the explosion's occurring.

[AtariLeaf]

That doesn't make any sense. The player is the Yar, the enemy you kill is the Qotile. Shouldn't you beware the "Ghost of Qotile"

[AtariLeaf]

It's just an overreaching description of the vertical line that marks the position where the Qotile was killed (in swirl form). If your Yar hangs out on the bottom third of the line during the huge explosion, the game will sometimes freeze, and display Howard's initials frontward and backward.

 

There's an easier way to get the Easter egg, however. Shoot the Qotile during his Swirl, as before, but then simply push "Select" while the explosion's occurring.

 

Extremely overreaching. Seems every glitch in a game has some ridiculous supernatural explanation to it. IIRC Warlords has a similar ghost explanation for the screen flashing of the dead kings when the ball hits those areas.

[+xucaen]

That doesn't make any sense. The player is the Yar, the enemy you kill is the Qotile. Shouldn't you beware the "Ghost of Qotile"

 

 

Well, the Yar is avenging the extermination of its species at the virtual hands of the Qotile. When a Qotile is destroyed, the Ghosts of Yar's species appears to rejoice the death of the Qotile.

[Chris++]

 

Extremely overreaching. Seems every glitch in a game has some ridiculous supernatural explanation to it. IIRC Warlords has a similar ghost explanation for the screen flashing of the dead kings when the ball hits those areas.

 

In fact, since you've recently acquired 7800 Frenzy (cool video, by the way), you might get a kick out of this, unless you already know it: The great 2600 Berzerk was set upon by a "creative" manual writer as well, and the collision-detection failure that occurs when the player shoots a robot at the same time another dies is attributed to a "Super-Strong Robot."

 

Edited April 30, 2014 by Chris++

[Nukey Shay]

@xucaen

The "Ghost" is quite visible. Just look for the vertical black line as the explosion is occurring.

 

@AtariLeaf

It's not a glitch in this game. The bitpattern -------X is specifically sent to the enemy's graphic register and color register (GRP0 & COLUP0) during an explosion at $F0D9, and the program later checks at $F589 if a collision is occurring between player sprites and if the Yar sprite (GRP1) is low enough onscreen (>127) to trigger. Also notable is that the variable used to track this status is one of the last ones listed in user ram ($F1)...usually indicating something that was added late in development.

 

@JamesL

In the early days, yes. Warren Robinett mentioned that he had to not draw too much attention when making his credit screen before it went into production, or it certainly would have been removed by management. However, this game was made at a time when programmers were being given credit all over the place (the initial ones packed up and LEFT the company to make their own companies and games to do it). Aside from that, secrets buried in games generated free publicity anyway, so the practice was no longer discouraged by that time.