Quirks in Arcade games.

[Foxsolo2000]

My favourite arcade game when I was younger was Mr Do. I used to play for hours battling dragons and diggers in the vain hope of collecting one of those elusive diamonds that allowed you to have a free game. Whilst playing it though I noticed a few quirks that made the game more interesting. For example nibbling four sides of a Cherry turned it into a Rose and allowing an apple to drop on you whilst it also fell on the last digger magically resurrected you and saved your life. Added to this was the creation of what was known in my arcade as a Black Hole which was created when the Dragons and the letter monster became stuck in the letter box at the top of the screen but in doing so froze all the diggers on the screen. The player was then free to eat away all the dirt and cherries (save one) and blast all the diggers (save one) until you were left with a totally black and empty screen (pointless but required some skill not to get yourself killed or to eat the last cherry etc). There was also a bug in which a dragon could get stuck attempting to eat a falling apple for instead of swalling it, it would be unable to eat it and keep circling round the apple indefintely. The rarest quirk that I only saw once was when two diamonds actually appeared on the screen at the same time at different parts of the screen but gaining one only awarded me one extra game. Were there any other arcade games that possessed similiar quirky moments?

[Rybags]

Galaga has the "leave the bee alone" trick on Level 4.

 

I think it is the highest bee on the right, let it swoop about 57 times (until it stops firing). From then on, the game is a cakewalk as no aliens fire at you.

 

Doing that trick also reveals the "Stage 256 bug", where the machine finishes Level 255 then crashes and restarts.

 

Defender had the "International Date Line" trick, where if you were being chased and crossed a certain part of the landscape, the enemy would turn around and chase you from the opposite direction.

 

Rygar has a few (some intentional). If you don't have the bear power-up (destroys enemies by landing on them), you can ride the big birds to the end of a level by jumping on them.

 

Hidden 1 million in Stage 13. (repeatedly shoot near the rightmost star when several of them appear near the tree about 1/2 way through the level).

 

Bonus 10,000 at end of stage. Finish a level and hold the stick down/left. If the time remaining matches the hundreds component of your score, you get 10,000 points. Easiest way to get it is just let the time run to 00, and make sure your score is xxx000-xxx090.

[dogcorn]

I sorta liked games with lots of secret bonuses. One was Astro Blaster. Basically if you finished a wave in a certain order, or something like that, you got extra points. Another was Gauntlet II where you'd have to perform special tricks to get to the treasure rooms. The only one I remember now is finding a moveable wall and pushing it into the exit.

[Fellow Atari Man]

I sorta liked games with lots of secret bonuses.  One was Astro Blaster.  Basically if you finished a wave in a certain order, or something like that, you got extra points.

984227[/snapback]

 

Oh lordy. That game had a LOT of secret bonuses.

 

*like you said, finishing a wave in a certain order is one

*during a wave when spaceships/whatever move in a horizontal line, if you destroy them all before they reach the edge of the screen, that's a bonus (using Warp is mandatory here!)

*during docking, if you don't use the directional buttons, you get a bonus

*ditto for the "paint scraper" bonus if you brush against a docking arm without gettting destroyed

*many more other than the above I can't remember

[Major_Havoc]

allowing an apple to drop on you whilst it also fell on the last digger magically resurrected you and saved your life.

 

And... if you did it correctly on your last life, you would be rewarded 255 extra lives on most machines.

[Foxsolo2000]

Really? That was a new one on me. I palyed on several machines and never had that particular experiance

[Tempest]

allowing an apple to drop on you whilst it also fell on the last digger magically resurrected you and saved your life.

 

And... if you did it correctly on your last life, you would be rewarded 255 extra lives on most machines.

991684[/snapback]

 

This only works on certain versions. I believe it might only work on pirate versions of the game.

 

Tempest

[yuppicide]

I remember there being a trick in Donkey Kong Jr. where you jumped off the platform you start on to the right somehow. If you landed in the right spot you got some extra lives.

 

I have never got it to work and don't really know how. I think I saw it in an old magazine.

[NE146]

Really?  That was a new one on me.  I palyed on several machines and never had that particular experiance

 

Sure.. it was a well known trick to us kids back in the day I had some old png's of when I was explaining the trick to marco a couple years ago.. and here they are:

 

Start with a playfield with the apple in the top left

Kill off all your men except the last. And leave one last enemy.

Make a long tunnel to the top apple and wait.

Then when he's just behind you...

Move down just a touch (to dislodge the apple) then shoot him!

The apple will fall and crush you..

And the game will start rewarding you 255 lives.

 

Tempest I know what you're talking about.. it IS only on certain manufactures machines. But man it worked on pretty much all Mr. Do arcades I used to play back in the day. I think they might have taken it out on the U.S. releases.. but who knows. I do know it only works on certain mame romsets.

 

This also brings to mind my often repeated memory of getting kicked out by some crazed chinese lady "arcade operator" because I had done the 255 lives trick in Mr. Do! and she said the machine was malfunctioning... so she pulled the plug and chased me out! Dumb ass bitch

[Tempest]

Sounds like this is the old double death counter roll over trick (ala Sinistar). Basically the game takes away your last life when the monster touches you, then another when the apple crushes you. This would normally give you -1 lives which causes the counter to roll over and give you 256 lives.

 

Tempest

[NE146]

Sounds like this is the old double death counter roll over trick (ala Sinistar).  Basically the game takes away your last life when the monster touches you, then another when the apple crushes you.  This would normally give you -1 lives which causes the counter to roll over and give you 256 lives. 

 

Tempest

 

Right. But it's weird because you DON'T make the monster touch you. You shoot it, then the apple falls right behind you. So you don't die twice. Only once from the apple.

 

I've always imagined it's something along those lines though.. maybe the game calculates -1 life temporarily when a stage ends, which it does right when you shoot the monster.

[supercat]

Someone once demonstrated to me that on Tempest, getting a final score of 18x,x46 and waiting awhile before starting the next game (I think after the attract mode cycled two full times) would allow the game to be started at any level. I've since heard, but not confirmed, that other magic scores would trigger even more wondrous things to happen.

[NovaXpress]

Tempest was absolutely loaded with tricks. You had to chip away at spikes to get the exact proper score. I used to have the list of bonuses: extra lives/different levels/color changes, etc.

 

from KLOV:

TRICK: Get a score in the form of XXYYZZ, where XX > 16, 29 < YY < 60, and ZZ is a code. Some codes are:

 

    * 01 - Test mode.

    * 06, 11, 12 - 40 free games.

    * 46 - Start at any level you like (up to level 81).

 

In the test mode, you can zero the high score table and examine the game parameters, but not modify them.

I believe that both Missile Command and Defender had a glitch/feature where you would recieve extra lives for every enemy destroyed for a brief period.

[Foxsolo2000]

I was playing Mame the other night and on Sky Kid I rediscovered an old quirk fo shooting the three dancing girls at the end of the game. Doing so turned them into flowers and shooting the gravestones made them raise up and eyes appear within them

[+FujiSkunk]

As games became more complex, they became more prone to errors. As a result, some latter-day arcade games are loaded with bugs, a few of which have become as legendary as the Galaga and Sinistar bugs. This is complicated by the fact that, in their rush to get highly demanded games (particularly sequels) out the door, some companies have shipped games knowing they are buggy and half-complete, letting the game players be their beta-testers.

 

I don't think there are any better examples of this than Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II. Most everybody knows that the first MK has one intentionally hidden character, Reptile. The game kept track of how many times Reptile made an appearance, and you could see this count along with the rest of the game's stats. Arcade techs soon noticed that on the same screen as Reptile's counter, there was another counter called Ermac. Debate after debate ensued over what or who Ermac really was. Some people claimed it was simply a counter for the number of times the machine knew that it had encountered a bug. Others swore Ermac was another hidden character. In a way, they were both right. Whenever the game counted an ermac (literally, an "ERror in the MAChine"), it was usually because a character, often one of the ninjas, had appeared on-screen with the wrong colors. Ermac became so popular, that in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, he became an official character in the MK universe.

 

Mortal Kombat II's bugs were even more notorious. The first public version was very obviously not ready for prime time, with some characters way too easy, others way too hard, and a lot of features otherwise missing. Little by little, the game improved, but often as new features were added, so were new bugs. One of the most infamous was when "babalities" were first added. Kitana, after winning a match, was capable of turning her opponent into a baby, then levitating and punching the baby, at which point the poor kid would disappear in a splatter of blood. Needless to say, this did not sit well with some players, and the bug was fixed before the next release.

[NovaXpress]

One of the most infamous was when "babalities" were first added. Kitana, after winning a match, was capable of turning her opponent into a baby, then levitating and punching the baby, at which point the poor kid would disappear in a splatter of blood. Needless to say, this did not sit well with some players, and the bug was fixed before the next release.

That doesn't sound like a bug. I also can't imagine MK fans being offended by a splattered baby.

[+FujiSkunk]

One of the most infamous was when "babalities" were first added. Kitana, after winning a match, was capable of turning her opponent into a baby, then levitating and punching the baby, at which point the poor kid would disappear in a splatter of blood. Needless to say, this did not sit well with some players, and the bug was fixed before the next release.

That doesn't sound like a bug. I also can't imagine MK fans being offended by a splattered baby.

1006149[/snapback]

 

You could argue it, I suppose, but the purported idea behind babalities was that, like fatalities and friendships, they were finishing moves, and therefore the characters shouldn't be able to do anything else once the move has been executed (pardon the pun).

 

Also keep in mind that MK2 was highly sought after when it was still new. With that many people playing, and with the Internet just beginning to give players a means of sharing experiences, somebody was bound to complain. Bug or not, it was removed in the next release.

 

Edited for spelling.

Edited January 25, 2006 by skunkworx

[supercat]

I believe that both Missile Command and Defender had a glitch/feature where you would recieve extra lives for every enemy destroyed for a brief period.

993783[/snapback]

 

Defender had a bug/quirk in the extra-life code. The code was basically:

if (score >= next_extralife_score)
{
 extralife_sound_effect();
 lives++;
 next_extralife_score += extralife_score_increment;
}

All the score-related maths were done using BCD. Assuming extra lives were set every 10,000 points, the player would receive an extra life upon reaching 990,000 (as he should) but the score for extra life would wrap to zero. Consequently, any time the player scored anything, the game would award an extra life but the score point for the next extra life would increase by 10,000. If the player received points for 40 different objects before wrapping the score completely, he would receive 40 extra lives, but would then not receive any more extra lives until he reached 400,000 points. If the player managed to receive points for 101 different objects before wrapping the score completely, he'd get 101 extra lives plus the score requirement for an extra life would wrap again. On the other hand, if he only hit 99 different objects before wrapping the score, he'd get 99 extra lives for doing so but wouldn't get any more extra lives until his score again reached 999,000.

 

If a machine were set for extra lives every 25,000 points, it would go into the 'award lots of extra lives' mode at 975,000 points and the extra lives score would wrap with every 40 point-scoring objects destroyed in that mode.

[NovaXpress]

I assume that the same type of bug existed in Missile Command as well. It shows that there weren't any playtesters who could take the machine that far.

[supercat]

I assume that the same type of bug existed in Missile Command as well. It shows that there weren't any playtesters who could take the machine that far.

1006209[/snapback]

 

Perhaps, though it's actually sorta cool that the game does something special as a reward for rolling the score. The L256 killscreen on Pac Man would seem like another story.

[Dav]

Someone once demonstrated to me that on Tempest, getting a final score of 18x,x46 and waiting awhile before starting the next game (I think after the attract mode cycled two full times) would allow the game to be started at any level.  I've since heard, but not confirmed, that other magic scores would trigger even more wondrous things to happen.

993620[/snapback]

 

 

That's a really interesting story on how that bug came about. It was the result of copy protection that got out of hand.

[Foxsolo2000]

Just remembered another quirk the other day. In 720 degrees you could often go straight through the chain link fence and skate around the edge. Sadly though you could never enter any of the parks if you did this and usually ended up stung by the bees. On the ramp if you were able to jump high enough you could land upon theroof of the building next to the ramp and then jump over the ramp onto another one which was painted in wierd psychedilic colours and bizarre pixels

[Rybags]

There was a "feature" in early versions of PacMan where you could stop in a certain part of the maze and never get eaten.

 

In Gladiator, if you attacked one of the female enemies in the right order, you could get to see her topless just before she died.

 

In Space Invaders, it's impossible to get shot by an enemy on the lowest level (before landing), but that would have been a deliberate feature.

[Foxsolo2000]

The Gladiator with the topless girl was the Japanese release for the US release stopped at her bra. In final fight the Japanese version showed Hagars daughter in her bra on the tv, a scene that was lacking in the US and European releases

[Cybergoth]

There's this bug in the first level of Ghosts'n'Goblins where, when walking on the upper region of the graveyard, a zombie may appear in mid-air. Once the zombie *notices* it's mistake, it's quickly disappearing back into the non-existing ground