Annoying Yar's Revenge Easter Egg

[Mind Master]

Occasionally in Yar's Revenge, the game will abruptly end and display some letters instead of the score (I assume the letters are the designer's initials). It's quite irritating if you're having a great game (Yar's is one of those games where the score really matters) only to be shut down by this easter egg.

 

Does anybody know what on-screen action triggers the display of this easter egg?

[Nukey Shay]

You can see a description of this at digitpress.com (see the Easter Egg section)... and the manual states the trick that you'll see the "ghost of yars, so stay off it!". This is a dark thin vertical line just to the left of the energy zone. So to avoid ending the game, just move away from this area (stay on the far left or move to the right into the zone).

[Room 34]

Actually, the dark vertical line occurs wherever on the X axis the Qotile/Swirl was when you killed it.

 

If you are lined up with that dark vertical line, and you're on the bottom 1/3 of the screen, the Easter egg will appear.

 

Personally, I found that once I learned what caused the Easter egg to appear, I actually caused it by accident a lot more often than I did before I knew!

[MegaManFan]

Actually, the dark vertical line occurs wherever on the X axis the Qotile/Swirl was when you killed it.

 

If you are lined up with that dark vertical line, and you're on the bottom 1/3 of the screen, the Easter egg will appear.

 

Personally, I found that once I learned what caused the Easter egg to appear, I actually caused it by accident a lot more often than I did before I knew!

 

It occurs to me that removing this annoying "Easter Egg" would be a great candidate for a hack to be sold in the AA store. I know I'd buy an "Unlimited Yars" myself.

[Nukey Shay]

I'd go one better and have it appear ONLY when the trigger is pressed at the same time as all of that (so the EE screen is still in the cart, but can be even simpler to avoid). I wonder if a couple bytes can be squeezed in the code?

[DaveAtari]

Does this pre-date the Adventure Easter egg?

I just remember having a Yar's Revenge cart before Adventure.

[Mind Master]

Adventure is older than Yar's by several years.

[Nukey Shay]

Adventure contains the first intentional Easter Egg...some earlier games have glitches (like making the tanks "dance" in Combat, trapping the ball in Pong, etc).

[NovaXpress]

I always thought this was the worst easter egg ever. I found it the first day and thereafter it was an annoyance. Its the only easter egg that you can't NOT find.

[inextremis staple]

i have never gotten this to work

i try and try but to no avail

rats

 

is

[PongHit]

Hm... Was this easter egg removed from the 10-in-1 stick from Jakks?

 

-PongHit

[Room 34]

i have never gotten this to work  

i try and try but to no avail

rats

Keep trying... and once you do get it, I guarantee, it will happen to you way more than you want!

 

Hm... Was this easter egg removed from the 10-in-1 stick from Jakks?

If I'm not mistaken, the 10-in-1 systems don't actually run the original ROMs, and they don't have shrunken-down versions of the 2600's actual circuitry. They are recreations of the originals in not-quite-perfect form. I'm not sure WHY they would take this approach, and I can't even confirm 100% that this is true, but based on my collected memories of posts on these forums from people who do own them, this seems to be the case.

 

I would personally think it would've been EASIER to take the VCS-on-a-chip approach and just run the original ROMs!

 

Of course, the surest sign that these aren't original is that some of the included games were paddle games, but you (obviously) use a joystick to play them here... so they would, at the very least, have to be hacked versions of the ROMs to allow for different controller input.

[Nukey Shay]

Since paddle games' control issue has been said to be firmly part of the game's kernal, such a change would be difficult to pull off...I'd think.

 

And it could be that they didn't want to use the games' roms (which is viewed as being illegal). Did they have copyright permission to combine these games into the single unit?

[PongHit]

I remember reading that the ADVENTURE easter egg was removed for the Jakks 10-in-1 stick, so it stands to reason that the egg was also removed from YARS REVENGE. So, if someone wants to play YARS without the egg, getting the Jakks stick might be an option.

 

-PongHit

[slapdash]

And it could be that they didn't want to use the games' roms (which is viewed as being illegal).  Did they have copyright permission to combine these games into the single unit?

 

Uhh... Of course they did. And believe me, if they hadn't gotten permission and made them look like the originals they'd be just as liable for a copyright lawsuit as if they'd used the exact ROM images -- it would just be less concrete to prove (though look and feel would get them right off the bat). Plus, they'd have a trademark infringement suit for the Atari logo too.

 

I remember reading that the ADVENTURE easter egg was removed for the Jakks 10-in-1 stick, so it stands to reason that the egg was also removed from YARS REVENGE.

 

Well, they didn't really take out the Adventure easter egg, just messed it up. It's possible they did the same with Yar's Revenge. But then again, since it's not quite as well known, they might not have known to reproduce it they way the seem to have started to do with the Adventure one.