The first to find Adventure's Easter Egg!

[Arcade Antics]

Were you the FIRST person to find Warren Robinett's signature in Adventure?

As Mr. Robinett has said, if you found it on your own, without ever hearing the stories of the hidden signature, then you're the first. (and congrats!)

SO, what tipped you off to the potential existence of a hidden secret? Anything? Nothing? Was Adventure the only game you had and you were trying every zany thing under the sun with NO expectations of hidden secrets? Did you find the dot by accident while trying to get the bridge stuck in the catacombs? Did you find the dot AND the signature all in the same game? In the same day? Or did several days/weeks/months go by before you put the dot together with the correct wall?

Spin your yarns here! Let's hear 'em!

[NE146]

Nope despite the countless hours I played Adventure, I had never found that friggin thing. I remember reading in a couple of magazines back in the day that there was a secret, but they never went into any detail as to how to get it. So I knew it was there, I just never knew what to do.

I think the *first* time I actually found some directions and tried it out was less than 10 years ago.. which obviously wasn't that long ago at all.

[NoahsMyBro]

I don't remember where, but I'm pretty sure I must have read about the dot and followed directions to find it and the signature. It was probably in one of my original Electronic Games magazines.

(I still remember the covers of those things! Is it just me, or did the one with the blond kid holding the joystick remind anybody else of the kid in National Lampoons Vacation?)

Quick Trivia question - first correct answer receives a dead-common-not-even-a-good-label cartridge from me, if he/she wants it:

In National Lampoon's Vacation, there is a scene of the Griswold's using the 'computer' to plot out their trip on the TV screen. On the coffee table, there is a video game console AND a computer.

Name Both.

and for the fine print: I'm judging the answer based on my memory of the scene from watching the flick on Comedy Central a couple of weeks ago. The prize is going to be close to worthless, so, as the stakes are minimal, no griping/grousing/bitching/whining if I remember wrong and award the prize to the wrong contestant, or if you don't have a special technicolor glow on your custom title, or anything else petty and trivial enough that you shouldn't complain about it.....

[CrazyImpmon]

I found part by accident. It was probably 10 years ago when I discovered the mysterious dot in the black castle, purely by accident when I was trying to find new ways of getting lost. I have never figured it out and ruled it a glitch in the game. I didn't even have internet access for a few more years.

[Cafeman]

I have still, to this day, never done it. I didn't buy Adventure when I was a kid because (1) I wasn't allowed to get an Atari until Adventure was kind of old, thus my first adventure game was Haunted House. (2) limited funds meant "get new games not old ones" for some reason.

I always thought Adventure was way cool; played it at friends' houses and at J.C. Penny's, Gee Bees and other Atari kiosks (remember those huge things?). But never really mastered or understood the harder levels.

And I'm one of the "Adventure II" guys!

Actually, it was much later in life, probably in the past 3 years, that I really got a lot of appreciation for the game. Nope, I wasn't the first. But before I resume getting into the Adventure II coding that Alan and I started 8 months ago, I promise to play thru the game many times!

[theaveng]

I read about it in Atari Age (~1981) and ran out to get an Adventure cartridge just to try it! The reason I never discovered these easter eggs on my own is the same reason I never find hidden stuff in RPGs: I stick to the main goal of the game and ignore side-tracks. If I had found the Adventure dot, I'd probably ignore it as unimportant to my main goal (put Gold chalice in Gold castle).

[digitalpress]

My friend Kevin and I were the first to find it

We were playing the game regularly shortly after it was released. I found the dot one night while creating a graph-paper MAP of the game. I'll never forget that, I called Kevin and told him about it.

I saw him a few days later and he had a surprise for me. He found out what to DO with it. It truly was one of those gaming moments that in retrospect was one of the things that permanently hooked me to video games.

It was more than a year later that we heard some kid in Utah had discovered the dot, but we knew the truth. When I talked to Warren Robinett at CGE this year I explained to him that WE found his secret, not that kid in Utah. He spent the rest of the Expo at the furthest possible vantage point from wherever I was standing

[Kid Ice]

The directions for finding the egg were printed in a book in the early 80's. I don't remember the specific name of it; it might have been "How to Beat the Home Video Games", or something like that.

The directions were extremely specific and made it very easy to find the easter egg and break through the wall.

I still remember how to do it now, although these old bones sometimes have some trouble killing the red dragon.

the kid

I started a thread on this a couple months back; I hope Adventure gets proper historical credit for the 1st easter egg now that they are common in DVDs.

[slapdash]

The directions for finding the egg were printed in a book in the early 80's. I don't remember the specific name of it; it might have been "How to Beat the Home Video Games", or something like that.

I think that's the right one, as that's where I read about it. I'm sure that we would have at least found the dot, since later my brother and I spent a lot of time mapping the game and would surely have discovered the dot chamber. I don't know if we'd have figured out what to do with the dot itself however.

[mezrabad]

I found it in 1983 with some friend who had heard of a "transmolecular dot" hidden in the Black Castle. We figured out right away which room it had to be in but didn't get the signature wall to disappear right away. I don't think this counts as having "discovered" the secret because my friend who told us about it was always reading the "how to beat" books and then pretending he figured it out himself.

[y-bot]

Quick Trivia question - first correct answer receives a dead-common-not-even-a-good-label cartridge from me, if he/she wants it:

In National Lampoon's Vacation, there is a scene of the Griswold's using the 'computer' to plot out their trip on the TV screen. On the coffee table, there is a video game console AND a computer.

Name Both.

Apple II & Astrocade