Raiders of the Lost Ark Parachuting & Frustrations

[+Propane13]

Hi guys,

 

I dug out ROTLA last night, and showed a buddy of mine that there were indeed more than 3 screens to that game (since he had never figured out the grenade thing). In doing so, I walked through the game, and got close to the end, but remembered some painful Atari experiences with this game from my younger days.

 

I decided to share my horror stories.

 

Namely,

1) Accidentally selecting the eyepiece when you're standing just a pixel off, and dying

2) Waiting for 5 minutes for the sun, and then accidentally moving the wrong controller, getting confused, and dying

3) When returning to the marketplace from the black market, going up to the opener screen only to get hit immediately by a snake (grr!)

4) Parachuting, hitting the branch, and dying (grumble, grumble)

5) Making it into the mesa, but having those final little thieving jerks steal your shovel the minute you arrive

6) Making it into the mesa, making it past the little thieving jerks, but then accidentally pressing the wrong controller's button, and deleting the shovel

7) Making it into the mesa, making it past the little thieving jerks, using the shovel properly, only to learn with horror that you were digging in the wrong mesa.

 

I'm sure a lot of people can relate. This game can be hard. Very hard.

 

Well, we didn't make it to the end. But, I decided for fun to try to parachute into the initial mesa, and just keep resetting the game. It took 20 attempts. I got in their once by accident.

 

So, does anyone have a "tried and true" method for getting in there?

 

I have a few other obvious questions (I've figured out how to bribe the raving lunatic without dying for example, although, I don't know what exactly you gain from this).

 

Regards,

-John

[Chris++]

Line yourself up so the parachute will hit the branch. This is all you should be paying attention to: parachute -> branch.

It gets "caught" on the branch, and you'll be sucked right into the cave opening.

[Nukey Shay]

Now try getting inside the mesa still carrying all 3 treasures (supposedly essential to opening up the still-unfound second easter egg mentioned by HSW). That thing is really difficult. After getting the shovel, collect all treasures and buy a parachute. You need to use an object that gives you the grappling hook (i.e. the ankh or the hourglass), and have it near the parachute in your inventory. Once you reach the correct mesa and are standing on it, instead of dropping the grappling hook object press the button while it's in the "sky area". You will begin to fall...but now you can select other objects. So immedately pick the parachute and use it. Bang...you are inside with the 3 treasures and the shovel. The second egg supposedly depends on the placement of the treasures in your inventory, but nothing at all was discovered in the code AFAIK. So it's either really well-hidden or it never made it to the released program.

[A.J. Franzman]

Line yourself up so the parachute will hit the branch. This is all you should be paying attention to: parachute -> branch.

It gets "caught" on the branch, and you'll be sucked right into the cave opening.

854777[/snapback]

The key word there is "branch" - the brown part, not the green leafy part!

 

Also, IIRC you can slow your descent somehow (pushing up on the stick, or holding the button down?), this makes it trivially easy.

[A.J. Franzman]

3) When returning to the marketplace from the black market, going up to the opener screen only to get hit immediately by a snake (grr!)

854751[/snapback]

This is easy to avoid too - the snake in the opening screen always exactly matches the position of the one in the black market - so just make sure it isn't where you're about to be, before you cross the border. [EDIT: make that the regular marketplace, not the black market. I stand corrected!] Edited May 14, 2005 by A.J. Franzman

[Nukey Shay]

Correction: The first market

[atarilovesyou]

...man, thank god for the internet. I had this game years ago without rules, just trying to figure it out (I remember seeing the tv commercials for the game years ago, and I always remembered how great it looked...I knew it had something to offer)...definitely a tough game.

 

In a lot of ways, that game, Adventure, and a few others are really so ahead of their time...the programmers really had to work within the confines of the technology....it's almost like ROTLA could have been made 10 years after the fact, and still incorporate many of the mechanisms of play from the VCS and be a great game...just much more user friendly with today's platforms.

[Foxsolo2000]

Does anyone know what this Easter Egg with the three treasures was suppossed to get you? Raiders was reputed to be riddled with easter eggs and bugs, more than any other 2600 game. I discovered quite a few including the Yar in the Mesa field and the signature but there were rumours of a yar in the black market and the thieves turning into little ETs inside a certain mesa. Anyone else found anything wierd on this game?

[Rom Hunter]

Info here:

http://www.digitpress.com/

 

(Click on Easter Eggs).

 

[Foxsolo2000]

Thanks for the info Rom. Already seen the digital press site some time ago. I spent several years playing this game merely to attempt to discover new bugs or Easter Eggs. I have five questions that I have yet to answer or have answered on this game. Firstly there was a rumour that if you could get the snake in the entrance room to go exactly through the crack in the rock it would become a large Chai and Indy would become a lot of dots. Was this ever true?

Secondly when using a rapid fire joystick within a mesa you could get the dirt to rise and a small hole appear which Indy could disappear into. Does anyone know what this was suppossed to mean or if Indy could use the hole for any reason?

Thirdly was it ever proved that all the thieves in the flying saucer mesa turned into little ETs at a certain time and if so how exactly was this achieved?

Fourthly did anyone manage to prove the existecne of a Yar within the Black Market and if so how was this achieved and finally it was said that the second grenade was used to reseal the hole within the entrance wall that the first grenade made yet I was never able to seal it up so if this was the case how was it done?

[Rom Hunter]

Thirdly was it ever proved that all the thieves in the flying saucer mesa turned into little ETs at a certain time and if so how exactly was this achieved?

With Raiders being Howards second game, it's hard to believe that there are any E.T.'s walking around.

 

[Foxsolo2000]

Damn Rom you are right there! So I guess that clears up that particular rumour, what about the other four?

[Nukey Shay]

Thanks for the info Rom.  Already seen the digital press site some time ago.  I spent several years playing this game merely to attempt to discover new bugs or Easter Eggs.  I have five questions that I have yet to answer or have answered on this game.  Firstly there was a rumour that if you could get the snake in the entrance room to go exactly through the crack in the rock it would become a large Chai and Indy would become a lot of dots.  Was this ever true?

Not that I know of. Tho there IS a hidden key graphic that was buried in the code discovered by Thomas Jentzsch. Unfortunately, the key graphic is supposed to be impossible for the kernal to display (unless the rock is not). It's possible that the image is just a scrap of forgotten data from an earlier version of the program. Perhaps that key is where this rumor originated from?

 

 

 

Secondly when using a rapid fire joystick within a mesa you could get the dirt to rise and a small hole appear which Indy could disappear into.  Does anyone know what this was suppossed to mean or if Indy could use the hole for any reason?

All sorts of strange things happen when using autofire with this game. The DP site listed above details some of them. I didn't see the one you listed tho. It's probably just a glitch in the program...maybe an unconditional branch that isn't taken due to the status register holding no flags (or visa-versa).

 

 

 

Thirdly was it ever proved that all the thieves in the flying saucer mesa turned into little ETs at a certain time and if so how exactly was this achieved?

Again, I'd venture that this rumor was just due to confusion over details. A yar is in ET. A yar is above the cliffside of the large mesa. It's not out of the realm of chance that those two facts were mixed up a bit.

However, HSW (or was it BP?) mentioned an as-yet undiscovered easter egg which was supposed to be triggered by having three specific objects in your inventory when inside a mesa. Searching through the game program code revealed nothing...so the routine that was handling this easter egg might have been removed (if more space was needed) prior to the game's release.

 

 

 

Fourthly did anyone manage to prove the existance of a Yar within the Black Market and if so how was this achieved and finally it was said that the second grenade was used to reseal the hole within the entrance wall that the first grenade made yet I was never able to seal it up so if this was the case how was it done?

The second grenade was put in the game to insure that you could open the hole again...just in case you used the secret exits to get out of the holding cells in the Room Of The Shining Light. Just using either of the grenades on the wall will cost you adventure points at the end tho...so it's better not to use them at all. You can still enter the temple by using the headpiece while running along the marketplace's right border.

[Rom Hunter]

Foxsolo,

I played the game several hundred times and I never witnessed one of these rumors.

I never played the game with a rapid fire joystick, though.

 

Edited May 15, 2005 by Rom Hunter

[Nukey Shay]

True...but the same was said about ET's easter egg.

 

Um...except the "several hundred times" part, maybe.

[Foxsolo2000]

Thanks Nukey for the advice. There is a key bug, not sure if it is the one you heard of though. If you gather 6 items and then headed to the treasure room and stood in a certain way on the Chai you could create the image of a key by using the chai and the head and body of Indy. I once read on the Atari news letters in the UK that Atari said that this was a clue.

Rom, out of the five questions the one with the hole appearing under the dirt by using a rapid fire joystick was the only one that I could uncover. It worked in any mesa and once the grappling hook had been discarded Indy could disappear into the hole for reasons unknown. Howard Scott Warsaw himself was reputed to have said that even he wasn't sure how many things to find that he had left in the game.

[Foxsolo2000]

Also there were at least four, possibly five different dots in the game. What were they for? Were they just glitches or something more? One dot as already mentioned made the game crash so was this intentional or just a glitch? Anyone care to hazard a guess?

[Atari Charles]

Parachuting was alwys where I would die. I could never make it into that side wall. Very tough game.

[Foxsolo2000]

Rom, you said you had played Raiders hundreds of times. Perhaps you can provide the answer to the purpose of the Spider Room? Just what was its purpose for it seems to have none except being pointless. You dont even have to enter it and nothing is gained by doing so basically why was it added or am I missing something altogether?

[Rom Hunter]

It's not a must-visit room to solve the game, but if you use the secret exit in the Room of Shining Light (in some cases you have to), you have to walk through the Spider Room.

 

[Nukey Shay]

It's not a must-visit room to solve the game, but if you use the secret exit in the Room of Shining Light (in some cases you have to), you have to walk through the Spider Room.

 

855811[/snapback]

 

 

Just using the exit portals will cost you points. Therefore, it's not something that you should try to do if you can help it.

 

IMO the spider room was put in the game because it attempts to provide an additional tie to the film. Indy encountered spiders on the way to the treasure at the beginning of it. You might as well ask why the valley of poison was put in the game (since it didn't appear in the movie). Just another room to explore and cost you a life if you aren't careful.

[Rom Hunter]

Just using the exit portals will cost you points.  Therefore, it's not something that you should try to do if you can help it.

True, but if you are unwise enough to end up in a dungeon without whip, loaded revolver or Ankh, then you have to.

IMO the spider room was put in the game because it attempts to provide an additional tie to the film.

I think so too, Nukey.

 

[Foxsolo2000]

Funny how you never think about these things until someone points it out to you. I had forgotten about the spiders at the very start of the film. The same is true of the valley of the poison for that too was not in the film. Thanks for the information.

[Rom Hunter]

I had forgotten about the spiders at the very start of the film.

Shame on you.

 

[+Propane13]

Hmm... perhaps I should add a small request--

Can someone take a small video of them getting into a Mesa?

 

Then I could study it and become a master.

 

-John