| Adventure (atari 2600) |
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''Adventure'' is a , also introduced the first widely known Easter Egg to the gaming world (at least one Fairchild Channel F title predates ''Adventure'''s Easter egg, however {Link without Title} ). HISTORY ''Adventure'' was Published by the console's developer, Atari . It was inspired by a Computer Text Game , '' Colossal Cave Adventure '', created by Will Crowther and later modified by Don Woods . Despite discouragement from his boss at Atari who said it could not be done, game designer Warren Robinett created a graphic game loosely based on the text game. Atari's ''Adventure'' went on to sell a million copies and is considered by many to be one of the company's finest games. At the time of the game's creation, Atari did not credit any of its authors for their work, so Robinett included a hidden message in the game identifying himself as the creator, thus creating one of the earliest known Easter Eggs in a video game. A young player from Salt Lake City , Utah first discovered the hidden message according to video game historian Steven Kent in the '' Age Of Empires Strategy Guide ''. A sequel to Adventure was announced in early 1982 . However, the planned sequel was scrapped. It eventually evolved into the Swordquest series of games. GAMEPLAY , and Rhindle (middle) is guarding the Chalice (left).]] The player's goal is simply to find the enchanted Chalice and return it to the gold Castle . The player character, represented by a square, explores a multi-screen landscape containing castles, Maze s, and various rooms. Hidden throughout the world are a Sword , Key s to unlock each of the three castles (gold, black, and white), a magic Bridge which allows the player to travel through a wall, and a Magnet which will pull any of these objects toward it. Roaming the world are three Dragons :
A dragon can be "killed" by touching it with the sword. If the console's right difficulty switch is in the "A" position, the dragons will run away when they see the sword. When a dragon touches the player, it will "strike" (remaining motionless for a moment with its mouth open, waiting for a shorter time if the console's left difficulty switch is in the "A" position) and then "swallow" the player, who becomes trapped in the dragon's belly. While the dragon's mouth is opened, it cannot be killed. A black Bat flies around randomly, occasionally picking up or dropping objects (including live or dead dragons). The bat can steal the player's sword and give him a live dragon in return, or vice-versa. The player ''can'' catch the bat and carry it around. The bat continues to fly even after the player has been killed, and occasionally the bat will pick up the dragon whose stomach contains the player, giving the player a whirlwind tour of the ''Adventure'' universe. The player can trap the bat inside a castle; this works best with the gold castle, since it has only one room and (provided the player has emptied it beforehand) the bat will, if it is flying upwards (straight up or diagonally up-right or up-left), fly around endlessly in the room and will not leave the castle. If the player enters with another item, the bat will change direction to grab the new item and usually end up leaving the castle. The bat's name was intended to be ''Knubberrub'', but that name never made it into the game {Link without Title} There are three different games available via the Game Select switch:
When a player is eaten by a dragon, he does not necessarily have to start over. Hitting the "Game Reset" switch resurrects the player back at the gold castle and resurrects any killed dragons, however, the objects all remain where they were at the time of the player's death. This could be thought of as one of the earliest usages of the "continue game" feature, which is now prevalent in most video games. Hitting "Game Select" after death returns the game to the game select screen and an entirely new game can be played. LEGACY Though not the first "questing" computer game, ''Adventure'' was the first to be programmed for a home console. The locations (castles, labyrinths, secret rooms and dark dungeons), items (keys, sword, and "treasure"), and monsters (bats, dragons) were also unique in the world of video games, and later would find their way into games such as '' Haunted House '', '' The Legend Of Zelda '' and '' Final Fantasy ''. Though significantly simpler and smaller than the latter two games, ''Adventure'' is on occasion described as their "spiritual forerunner." [http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133872 TRIVIA s of the White Castle, carrying the White Key and being chased by the Dragon , Grundle.]]
EASTER EGG ."]] Inside the black castle catacombs (on difficulty level 2 or 3), embedded in the south wall of a sealed chamber (accessible only with the bridge), is an "invisible" 1-pixel object often referred to as the ''black dot'', ''grey dot'', or ''magic dot''. (Many Atari enthusiasts recall to this day a specific reference to a ''transmolecular dot.'') One must "bounce" the player cursor along the bottom wall to "grab" the dot. The dot is not actually invisible, but simply the same color as the wall and is easily seen when placed in a catacombs passage or over a normal wall. The dot is not attracted to the magnet, unlike most other objects in ''Adventure''. Bringing this dot to the east end of the corridor below the golden castle while other differently-colored objects are present causes the wall object to also become 'invisible', allowing the player to pass into a room displaying the words "Created by Warren Robinett ." Additionally, this could create a problem for the player. If the bat happened to steal one of the items necessary to cause the wall to become invisible (and drop a dragon which would wander off, for example) the player would become trapped in the wall unless the bat happened by again with an item that would cause the wall to re-open. VERSIONS There are several clones and remakes of ''Adventure'' available:
TECHNICAL The total memory used by the game program was 4096 Byte s (4 KiB ) for the game code (in ROM ) and 128 bytes for program variables (in RAM ). The Atari 2600's CPU was a 1.19 Megahertz 8-bit MOS Technology 6507 , which was a cheaper version of the 6502 . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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