Hidden ROM messages

[Goblin]

I've been meaning to ask about this topic for a while. We also know that when programmers have extra space in their roms they sometimes used it to write messages and inside jokes amongst themselves. Sometimes it's just their names, but other times it can be random things. So what is the most interesting thing you have ever found?

A prototype I just sold (The released version has the same message as well) has the introductory paragraph from the Hunt for Red October:

IN NOVEMBER OF 1984, SHORTLY BEFORE GORBECHOV CAME TO POWER, A TYPHOON-CLASS SOVIET SUB SURFACED JUST SOUTH OF THE GRAND BANKS. IT THEN SANK INTO DEEP WATER, APPARENTLY SUFFERING A RADIATION PROBLEM. UNCONFIRMED REPORTS INDICATED SOME OF THE CREW WERE RESCUED. BUT ACCORDINDING TO REPEATED STATEMENTS BY BOTH SOVIET AND AMERICAN GOVERNMENTS....NOTHING OF WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE... EVER HAPPENED

[Achika]

Um, for some reason this is in the Buying & Selling forum... I'm gonna go ahead and move it since I've got no idea why it's here?

[Sion]

I was reading up on the net one day and found a topic about Front Mission 3. So I started reading it and it was talking about hidden messages on the disc and it gave a track number or something like that (I forgot which track) with the message. Well i started listening to it on the net (and this was from the game) about how the person who was talking hates a certain group of people and went on with the hate message. So i thought "Hey, I own Front Mission 3." So i popped it in and went to the track (this was a LONG time ago) and found the one he said and listened to it. Lo and behold it was a true hate message towards people that were not japanese. Sorry it wasn't as descriptive as it should have been but it has been a good while since i have listened to it.

[gleavepaul]

Lemmings on the Atari Lynix has a stupidly long and daft message

[Balloon Fight]

I'm just curious, how do you read these ROMs? I was reading about this is DP7 about how the programmers say random things in it and was curious how to do it.

[Ed Oscuro]

Lemmings on the Atari Lynix has a stupidly long and daft message

Lemmings is stupidly long and daft anyway ;)

I would check out my CD-i titles but we're looking at a LOT of text. Could be done though.

[gleavepaul]

This is the scroll that comes up when you finish the Lemmings game:

ALL DONE!

congratulations!!

you've completed

l e m m i n g s

everyone here at dma
design salutes you as a
master lemmings player
not many people will
complete the mayhem
levels. you are
definately one of the
elite.

programming
brian watson (biscuit)

with

graphics conversion by
mike dailly
gary timmons
scott johnston

level editor by
steve hammond

(using amos which was
an atomic-size
mistake)

original music by
tim wright
and
brian johnston

lynx music
tony williams

additional graphics
jamie grant

levels themselves were
converted by

john harris
and
john delayney

psygnosis/atari liason
greg duddle
graham stafford
and
john skruch

testing
mike clarke
gray mercer
craig duddle
faran thomason
and
sean patten

original concept
by
dma design

tea boy
mike dailly
scott johnston
and
russel kay

sprite generator
mark ireland

Electricty supplied by
scottish power which
was originally
contained in a big
hydro-electric dam
which was powered by
water that got its
energy from the sun
and so on and so forth
right back to the very
beginnings of the universe

and now the traditional
scrolly message things.

the following items
were consumed during
the making of lynx
lemmings;

520 cans of coke
200 bags of crisps
108 custom built sandwhiches
300 cups of tea
64 tracker bars
1 fruesli bar (blech!)

and a lot irreplacable
fossil fuels

and the following equipment
used in the course of the project;

900 gallons rocket fuel
1 teleporter
4 hard disks
set of spanners
nicam tv set
15 amigas
22 pcs
desk lamp
paintball guns
farside calendar
amos compiler
blank disks
too much paper
cranky old amstad printer
satellite system
screen blanker
star trek video
tayside buses
cfcs
welding kit
soldering iron
hammer
nails
circular saw
30 rolls wallpaper
bucket and spade
power sander
hover mower
paint strpper
particle gun
cold fusion reactor
comic rays
fan
telescope
digital thermometer
lemon curd sandwhich
fridge
microwave oven
jar of loose change
gobstopper
business card
vacuum cleaner
stickey backed plastic


with invented assistance
from the following people
and places.

nasa
cern synchrotron
hubble space telescope
jodrell bank
corner shop
cray research
edinburgh zoo
starbase 47

not forgetting the
hinderances from these;

road works
headphones
network crashes
solor storms
ozon depletion
chocolate cake
pcs
snowstorms
tidal wave
earthquake
disk errors
volcanoes
blocked drains
hangovers
yogurt
coffee perculator

are we clear yet?

anybody listening?

no?

good.

important message
----------------

5

4

3

2

1

we're going for the
record now.. What's the
largest scrolly mesage
ever seen on a game cartridge?
no idea? miniscule, thats what.

we at dma design in our shiny green office
building are attempting 40k worth of message.
pointless, futile, mesage. thats 40960 characters.
we even employ someone purely to write these scrolly
mesages. we have more text.

loads!

loads!!

loads!!!

and then some!!!!!!

speaking of characters,
there were some very
strange ones involved
in creating the game. I
myself am a member of the
the guild of scrolly
message writers, not
the everyday messages
that get flung around
on demos but a bona
fide scrolly embedded on
a rom cartridge. few are
qualified to reach this
level of expertise. if you
wish to do this youself
there are special night
classes you can attend. you
just have to know where to
find them.

thanks go especially to the
sandwich ladies and the
chocolate cake that caused me
so much trauma trying to
slim down..


so anyway, in several
thousand years time
some archeologist is
going to dig up this
cartridge. i may as
well explain a few things
about 1993

first of all the
location of atlantis.
it is in fact in the
tay estuary just next
to dundee, sctoland

that fact alone explains
why atlantis has remained
so quiet over the years.
who could take them seriously
nowdays with the think highland
accent and a claymore

come to think of it, wielding a claymore in
front of people does tend to make them take you
seriously. so why did atlatis sink?
it was the constant rainfall that did it.

I may as well tell you
that the scrolly
message classes are
held at the following
address.

the university
1 south underwater st
west 15
atlantis

enclose around 20 quids
worth of stamps for all
correspondance

and now vampires.

are you one of the
legions of the undead?
does the sun make you
peel until there is
nothing left? do
hordes of irate locals
armed with sunbeds try
to ruin your night?

if the answer to any of
the above questions is
a resounding yes then
you really have got problems
I suppose in
that case you'll have
been playing lemmings
in the middle of a
transylvanian castle
in the basement.
in that case, make sure
you've got plenty of
batteries.

can't leave out aliens:
why would anyone wish to
leave aliens out of a scolly
message (a note for the
pedantic: under no cimcumstances
is a message text called a scolling
message, it is always a called a scolly )

so anyway: aliens. we
are of course talking
about the suckers that
come from space and not
the ones that try sneak
in you're country when
you're not looking.

I am confident that no-one
at dma design has in fact
been abducted by aliens
although several of them may
actually be aliens themselves.
have you ever seen whitley
strieber's communion?
if so then i can give
the true explanation.
the alien is large, white, bald and has enormous
eyes. now consider what michael
jackson is doing to himself, and
it will instantly become clear that this is what
michael will look like in several hundred years.
considering his reputation for eccentricity and
his vast wealth i have no doubt that
he will fund a time machine and go back to the
eighties and pretend to be from outer space. or not.

a word about piracy.
yes, even cartidges
can be copied. it's
not very nice is it?
if you do try it then the
jokes on you. inserted
into this text is a
powerful magical spell
to shred the very soul
of evil nasty people who
would take away our livelihood.


nasty pirate
go way.
you'll never live,
to see the day,
when evil triumphs
over light,
'cos we all think
you're full of

* zzzt * software
failure there* mmm,
never mind. on with
the next topic. the
pentagram graphics
should take care of
it anyway.

7k of message!

ah we never quite
got to 40K but I think
it is still enough
to count.

i think it's a...
world record
for a console cartridge.

you!

until next time

a little message from
the programmer.

enjoy your lynx. it is
the best of all of the
hand held portable machines.
only with your support can
we produce software for this
lovely little piece of
hardware with a goal
keeping the machine alive and kicking

well i may not have plans
to do anything in the immediate
future on the lynx, but if it is still around in a few
years maybe I'll do lemmings ii on it.

then again maybe not
i suppose i would have to
be mad to attempt it but then
again anyone who attempts a major
programming feat using a 6502 must be mad
but don't forget the lovely hardware
this little machine can do more to the
display than an amiga
can thanks to rj mical and his team
for being insane enough to design such
a nice piece of hardware and having the foresight
to produce their development software on the amiga
maybe it's because they
had something to do with that as well?

bye...

| Ken Sumrall

[Damon Plus]

On the American version of Captain Tsubasa for Nes(Tecmo Cup Football Game) , I found that at the ending the main character says he wants to be an astronaut or a F-1 driver, but in the game he says nothing about that!

[TheRedEye]

Bloody hell, that Lemmings ending is awesome.

My favorite find is from Adventures in the Magic Kingdom on the NES:

"SATURDAY MORNING IS MORNING SALAD"

[Flack]

Speaking of hidden messages, if you haven't checked out the Silicon Zoo, you should check it out. It's a collection of miniature secret pictures that people have hidden on microchips and circuits. There are literally hundreds of them, with everything from little Snoopies and Killroys to other hidden cartoon characters and the like. What's even more incredible is some of these are so small you would never make them out with the naked eye. Pretty cool!

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/index.html

[Richter]

sweet, thanx for the link

[Raccoon Lad]

Here's one from Krusty's Funhouse on the SMS:

Wow! your clever fax 44 21 523 3942

[UndeadKing]

The first thing that comes to mind is the message hidden within The New Tetris on N64.

http://www.bretz.ca/dave/tetrisrant.htm

[rbudrick]

Holy SHit! That lemmings one is great, but that Tetris Rant is insane!!

Jeez, I forget what game it is, Burai FIghter, I think.....if you beat it on the "impossible" setting, it almost seems to infer thatyou cheated. Well, if slomo on my NES Adevantage stick is cheating, then yeah, but other that that, I kicked the crap out of that game.

-Rob

[Mayhem]

I'll have to dig out the ending to Rodland on the C64. The programmer Steve Snake told me he was utterly mentally exhausted after pulling several months work straight to get it done, and was literally tripping his brain off when he came to coding the end sequence. It reads very much like a Monty Python episode in some ways

Aside from that, there's the great hidden message in Amazing Maze for the Vic20: "The next sound that you hear will be that of your logic board melting down. This is the price one pays for screwing with the master."

[Jorpho]

Oh man... That is one heck of a message. At first I thought it was just going to be like the end of Lemmings 2 (PC), but it just kept on going...

I wonder if the original author is still working at Rockstar?

[dreamcaster]

Wasn't there some hidden message in Streets of Rage or something?

[Quintracker]

The first thing that comes to mind is the message hidden within The New Tetris on N64.

http://www.bretz.ca/dave/tetrisrant.htm

OMG that guy's dead! I clicked the back button at the bottom of the page and was like no way... too sad.