Hidden Messages in Game Code

[Blu3Flame]

While searching around for something on the net I stumbled across this,

http://eabmobile.abime.net/showthread.php?t=5040

Listing some of the messages found in game code over the years aimed at deterring crackers.

Few choice selections..

Blood Money

Well hello there hackers. I'll warn you now that this game has a LOT of protection, so it will be a few late nights for you lot. It's a mugs game anyway, you should be writing games and making loads of money like me (you too could afford a 16V Astra GTE), but you are obviously lacking in a few brain cells & will put a weeks work into cracking this for what? SOD ALL, thats what. Well if you do manage to crack it send me a copy: DAVE JONES, DMA DESIGN, MINTLAW PARK, WEST FERRY, DUNDEE DD5 1RD. In return you will get sod all as usual. In the meantime I'll be thinking of you when I'm in Florida, spending some of my dosh.

Dragon's Lair

Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair Custom Boot Block >> DO NOT INSTALL! << Copyright © 1987/88/89 Randy Linden

A message to crackers: Nobody wants copy protection. All it is designed to do is give a program a fighting chance. Now we realize that there is a great competition to see which group breaks this game first, however, if you do break it, please consider this: If you let this game out early after release, and there are few sales, it will be very difficult to justify followup games of this type. Nobody benefits; not the developers, not the users, and not the Amiga community. Please reconsider holding on for a while and not letting the game suffer. The decision is yours.

Dragon's Lair: Escape From Singe's Castle

Once again, a small note to pirates and crackers: I thank you very much for delaying the release of DL1, but must once again ask you to please wait with Escape. We have tried to provide the Amiga community with the best possible game for your money (unlike many other companies), and hope that once again there will be enough sales into the future to support yet another game we are planning for the Amiga: TERMINATOR! Please consider delaying your release of Escape. As more and more quality companies leave the Amiga for the more profitable IBM, C64 and Nintendo markets, it is up to you, the users, to show which computer is truly Visionary. Randy "Irwin" Linden

F1 Tornado

If you crack this game then there's plenty of space for an intro (from sectors 600+) so do something good!!

Donkey Kong (Arcade, Japan)

CONGRATULATION !IF YOU ANALYSE DIFFICULT THIS PROGRAM,WE WOULD TEACH YOU.*****TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM.

I've tried to look around on the net to see if there was a better resource for this kind of stuff and haven't managed to turf anything up.

[DarhkFox]

Quality.

Its odd about saying they would leave the amiga market for the more profitable "c64" market though?

Also Terminator never got released on the Amiga did it?

[K]

I imagine that in 1987, there were a lot more C64s than there were Amigas, and that developing a game for the former was a lot cheaper than developing it for the latter.

[Pistol]

I like the F1 Tornado one the best.

[swiv]

saw this the other day:

http://equ.in/ox/spectrum/eggs/screens.php

hidden messages in spectrum loading screens

[Nick R]

Bizarre Creations' old site used to have a list of some of the rude function names they put into the source code of MSR and Fur Fighters.

[son_of_helvetica]

Reminds me of this - http://www.google.com/codesearch

[Rex Grossman]

you too could afford a 16V Astra GTE

Livin' large!

[NonShinyGoose]

There was a hidden message on the US-only Genesis Collection (I forget the proper name) on the Dreamcast that basically told hackers how to add more ROMs to it if they made a hacked copy. Which they did.

[Alexlotl]

There was a hidden message on the US-only Genesis Collection (I forget the proper name) on the Dreamcast that basically told hackers how to add more ROMs to it if they made a hacked copy. Which they did.

Memory serves, that collection used an author-ported version of Steve Snake's KGen98/Kega, so that might have been left over code from the original emulator. Or just Steve Snake being who he is.

[DarhkFox]

Sega employed Steve Snakes to create the emulator for that indeed.

Also: I made my own hacked Sonic collection with it, I think i got pretty much every sonic game on it working fine (well ones that it would play)

[dumpster]

There was a text reader program in YS Program Pitstop that displayed characters on screen whilst you played the tape.

One mag gave away a game called "Blob The Cop", which was blatantly "Blobocop" with the logos changed. I think it was advertised as Blobocop in the previous issue. The text reader program revealed the following:

If you are reading this then you are obviously hacking the code apart. God knows why though... Oh if you are either Ian or Stingray then HI! (Thought Id find you two noseing about in here! Theres a bit of a story attached to this little gamette... Ages ago when I got my lovely PDS (Programmers Development System) I started writing this just to see what it could do. In a couple of days this monstrosity had been born, under the working title of PLURPS! I stuffed it away in a dark little corner of my hard disk for a while and little morewas ever seen of it. It didnt have a name or a plot. But at the show we decided to offer it to the mags, they all said they had loads of stuff so didnt want it. Then suddenly out of the blue SU phoned and said they were interested so I then HAD to finish it. After many long lunchtimes thought, I came up with the name BLOBOCOP , intending the name to be a parody of OCEANS ROBOCOP. I had never actually seen the game and have been told that this bears quite a resembelance to ROBOCOP. Well, we send the completed master off to SU who saw fit to loose it. The replacement met the same horrible fate. THEN on the 23rd of December, having just got back from Southamton to collect JABBAs new D50 synth (What a poser huh) I made a spectacular entrance to the pre xmas doo drinkies to the shouts of 'youre in deep trub...' 'OCEAN are going to SUE...' etc etc... After a severe tongue lashing I was asked to interrupt my xmas break and make the grueling journey from Cheshire to Hampshire on the 28Th 'just to fix the bits' Well, bang go my heavy boozing sessions!! Ah well it makes a nice rest from being jumped on day and night by thousands of delinquent second generation cousens!! Ah well, ya can always dream... Hope you have all had a smashing Xmas and a GREAT new year. I'm back off to Cheshire in a few hours to re-join the merriment!!! See ya all.... Andy (&e7)

[uglifruit]

The New Tetris (N64) had lots for the interested hacker in the (dumped) rom (by David Pridie)

I'll pick out some highlights...

"I must say, this was a fun time coming down to San Francisco to do The New Tetris. Allthough there were a few problems. First of all being our producer.. D*N, my god.. is this guy useless or what?? I don't hate you D*N.. but you SUCK, and I mean SUCK as a producer. You should go back to testing video games, but I doubt you could even manage that properly. I feel sorry for you. During this project you just sat around and played video games.. starcraft and everquest. Don't even deny that.. when you WERE working, it was making stupid Excel spreadsheets to try and tell me how many bugs I had left to fix on a graph.. like WTF is that??? who cares.. I have the bug list in front of me, like I need to see it in freaking technicolor. So D*N, I must say this.. hold onto, and fake your job while you can, because once they find out how truely useless you are, you will be out of a job. I cannot think of any skillset you would fit into in this industry, so you better hold on tight. (This guy thought I could save a name in 8.4 BITS.. like umm.. .4 BITS?? WTF is .4 BITS?? its either ON or OFF, not in between... anyhow, Enough about you though."

"While I am screaming.. I might as well say this: Niel Voss.. your music is freaking KICK A$$.. you are one really damn talented boy. BUT, you are one of the laziest music guys I think there is You could go far if you wanted to, but you just lack the GO for it. It is a shame. I wish you all the luck and would reccomend you to ANYBODY just because even though everything is last minute, and like pulling teeth, the end result is AMAZING."

"Well boys and girls, I just thought I would immortalize some thoughts I have at the moment into a rom which will be burned forever. This game sucks. The music is great but the game itself is not how we wanted it unfortunately. I mean, it is a good game, but some things could be polished, as well as sped up. Could use another month to finish this thing off AFTER all the bugs are fixed. oh well, woh is me. "

© 1999 July 1 David Pridie

"If you are reading this, you can obviously see this disclaimer. All this material belongs to David Pridie. If you find it and want to post it in ANY media format, you must get my permission or feel my wrath . This text if it is ever read, is intended to be read by hackers whom have dumped the contents of this rom and viewed it. That is ALL it is for. And maybe some of them will remember me from the C64 and PC days, Martial Artist of PE/TDT/RAZOR 1911/INC/FLT/TRN/FBR, I was in them all.. and I made trainers and intros mostly. I thank that scene for teaching me how to program, because without it I don't think I would be where I am today. Well that does it 4.5 years and Two games later (Tetrisphere and New Tetris). Unfortunately I wont be working on Nomans Quest.. but oh well. HAPPY CANADA DAY.

"

There is loads to look at in the dump, in plain text - including Ascii art and huge rants. Very entertaining. (I used metapad to look at the rom image, which I ...erm... found).

[Nick R]

Bizarre Creations' old site used to have a list of some of the rude function names they put into the source code of MSR and Fur Fighters.

Hooray! It's on Archive.org:

TOP TEN STRANGE THINGS FOUND IN OUR GAME CODE

(WARNING: Bad language alert! Not for the easily offended!!)

A) METROPOLIS CODING ODDITIES

1. void ChainSmokeLikeKeith( CHAIN_ENTRY *Cl, long Cnt);

2. struct ARTY_FARTY_SHITTY_CAR

3. // Check for Turtilification...

4. sprintf(TString," Crash Tinkle Tinkle, Broken glass and maimed people... HA HA HA HA !!!");

5. // OK, here's something Jonathan and I guessed at... // ...Fucking hell it worked!

6. // Meat and bones calc...

7. #define LENS_FLARE_BOOSH #define LENS_FLARE_PUJANG #define LENS_FLARE_DOOF

8. // Build bounding box vertices FELCH

9. // Bollox spray all over the screen

10. long FuckFlag=0;

And now, after reading this, do you still really want to know all about the game?

B) FUR FIGHTERS CODING STRANGENESSES

1. dbprintf("There is a Bug"); CreateBug();

2. // Blobbies

3. // DETECTION is my lasertronic purpose

4. // I'm a man and I follow a spline rather than any conventional deity

5. int pammo,lammo,sammo,rammo,nammo; // My Italian brothers

6. CreateBaby();

7. // Variables needed for the process - or just a load of bollocks I made up

8. // Mark did this for bigger Glide happiness

9. // What do we know of their military intent ?

10. // This is where the bugs come from

OK, it's not their fault, they can't help it......it's the pressure of working here!!

C) FORMULA 1 CODING SILLYNESS

1. #define _NUMBER_OF_BUGS_ 74 - F197

2. StopLinkFuckingUp(); - F1

3. #ifdef BOLLOCKS - F1

4. // ORAC - RESTORE THE TELEPORT !!! - F1 PC, F197 PC

5. // This code needs to be Transbobulated, using the process of Transboblification. (See Rozza for details) - F197

6. // STOP EVERYTHING AND DANCE - F197

7. #ifdef _game_crashes printf ("Pete_is_an_arse_bandit \n"); #endif - F197

8. dbprintf("Focus Davrosed"); dbprintf("Focus DoctorWhoed"); - F1 PC, F197 PC

9. // thetta er keith here. halli er alveg ath koma. - F1

10. // take a glorious snapshot and dump to a 24bit targa file like a complete bastard - F1 PC

Yes, you can see why the F1 series has sold millions of copies worldwide, with code like this!

[Blu3Flame]

Haha, that's excellent. Thanks for digging that up.

The Tetris stuff looks really interesting too, will have to look inside the ROM myself. Reminds me in some way of id Software's .plan files.

[gone fishin]

Lol- the funniest thing is DMA Design's address, it's a house in Dundee (funnily enough, not too far from where I grew up). Must have been where Davy Jones lived. Little did I think, as I played my pirated copy of Blood Money, that he was living about 10 minutes away....

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&sour...=12,266.23,,0,5

How things have changed for DMA/Rockstar North!!! ;-)

[ScouserInExile]

Bizarre Creations' old site used to have a list of some of the rude function names they put into the source code of MSR and Fur Fighters.

In quote 9 for F1, the "Halli" mentioned is the bloke I bought my first car off, fact fans.

[alan cummings]

There's loads more of these somewhere. I remember reading a massive archive of them years ago in the internet olden days. Can't remember where though, and possibly not there any more I guess. I'll have a look ...

[The Bag]

If you have a look at the Black & White 2 heightfields, flat non-edited land is 'cUnT'.