1 Donkey Kong (Arcade)
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It’s the 80′s, or perhaps the 90′s. You’re a game programmer, working long, hard hours slaving over code for which your corporate overlords will likely not even give you the dignity of a credit. If they do, they’ll make you use some goofy-sounding nickname.
You’re stressed, you’re frustrated, you’ve barely seen your loved ones in weeks. You can’t vent to anyone about the coworkers that are pissing you off, your game is likely to be pirated upon release, but you’ve done amazing feats of code. What do you do to vent your frustrations while leaving your mark on your hard work?
You hide a personal message in the game’s code.
Many a game designer has left messages etched permanently in the data of our games, buried deep within the code and not intended to be seen by us. The most famous was the hidden digital signaturethat Warren Robinette left in his game Adventure, in rebellion against Atari’s policy of total anonymity for its creatives.
But he was hardly the last. The content and scope of these messages varies wildly, from furtive credits to gigantic essays about the ills of the game industry. Sometimes these messages can only be seen by hacking into the game’s code, while other times the programmers have hidden them in the gameplay itself. There have even been cases where these messages have helped settle legal disputes over who actually created the games.
The Cutting Room Floor is a repository of content that lies hidden beneath the surface of games. Here are some of the fascinating treasures these tireless digital archaeologists have unearthed.
Donkey Kong (Arcade)
When Nintendo first got into creating arcade videogames, it didn’t yet have the capability to program them itself. This hidden message in the code of Donkey Kong shows that development of Nintendo’s breakout hit was at least partially outsourced to a company called Ikegami Tsushinki:
CONGRATULATION !IF YOU ANALYSE DIFFICULT THIS PROGRAM,WE WOULD TEACH YOU.*****TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM.
The message, among several other bits of code, helps prove Ikegami’s otherwise-hidden role in the game’s development. Ikegami would later sue Nintendo for illegally producing extra Donkey Kong games without its consent, as it was also the contracted manufacturer, as well as reverse-engineering Ikegami’s code to create Donkey Kong Jr.
