| Atari Video Computer System / 2600 |
ADVENTURE
· EASTER EGG: Famous “secret dot and room”. One game 2 or 3, find the dot in the Black castle’s catacombs. Next, drop the dot and two other objects (except the bridge with the sword, Chalice, or magnet) in the room down and to the right of the Gold castle. Pass through the barrier to reveal the message, “Created by Warren Robinett” (picture #1). A dragon can also be used instead of 2 objects. You can also pass through the lower right barrier underneath, although there’s no room behind it. Adam Clayton wrote to Atari in August 1980, describing how to find the dot and unlock the message, a year before Electronic Games magazine confirmed its existence, and nearly 2 years before Atari published the details in their Atari Age magazine. Warren even kept a copy of Adam's letter! {Adam Clayton}
· EASTER EGG: Alternate method - Having the dot on the entrance screen to the secret room is not required. The program only checks to see whether or not it's been relocated to any other screen other than where it's originally located. Once moved, the bridge can be used to gain entrance to the secret room via the catacombs below it. {Nukey Shay}
· If you are eaten by a dragon, the sword won’t have any effect on it (picture #2). If the bat picks up the dragon (with you in it) and you’re still holding the sword, you can actually still kill other dragons if you fly into them. Also, sometimes when a bat is carrying you & the dragon, you’ll start flying at high speed all over the kingdom (even into some locked castles), and you might even have a bit of control over which direction he flies! {Tony Roy and Scott Stilphen}
· You cannot be eaten by a dragon if you are pushing down on a wall. {Jamie Lantry} Also, if you stand at the very edge on the right side of the screen, dragons can’t eat you, and they’ll disappear if they try. {Scott Stilphen}
· The bridge can be used to get on top of castles (picture #3). It can also be used to get into the secret room (picture #4), but you’ll be trapped between the 2 barriers unless you’ve touched the dot.
· Flicker-fest - place ALL items (secret dot included) in the Gold castle (hint: use bat to get the dead dragons inside), leaving the Chalice for last (remember to precede Chalice into the castle or you’ll miss it!). {Russ Perry Jr.} For even more flickering, place all the objects outside the castle (the gate is another object), a room in one of the dark mazes, a room with a barrier, or in the secret room.
· The bat can be locked away in a castle. You can also lock a castle’s key inside of it. Use the key to close the gate and drop the key on the gate before it completely closes. {Scott Stilphen}
· Put the magnet on top of the gold castle, bring the chalice to that screen and drop it, and then leave before it gets pulled across the gate. Wait a few seconds and then return. The game won’t end, even though the chalice is now inside the castle! You have to either enter it, or press RESET.
· Start a game and then press SELECT to get the selection screen. Pull down and your character will appear (picture #5). {Ray Wilmott}
· Different “victory” music can be played by hitting SELECT immediately after putting Chalice in the Gold castle. {Scott Stilphen}
· With the chalice above you, if you go to enter the gold castle and drop it at the same time it touches the gate, it will end up in the castle and the game will instantly end (no music will play)!
· There is a room in the maze of the White castle that has what appears to be an entrance/exit at the bottom of the screen, but you can’t go through it (picture #6). {Scott Stilphen}
· Order of magnetism (highest to lowest): gold key - white key - black key – sword – bridge - chalice. Magnet can be used to drag items across castle gates, dropping them inside. {Scott Stilphen}
· BUG: Objects and dragons can wrap-around horizontally, and sometimes vertically (picture #7). For a wrap-around trick, put the bridge through the top wall in the Gold castle. {Scott Stilphen}
· BUG: Freezing Yorgle (yellow dragon) - If you place the gold key on Yorgle’s head (picture #8 – see inset for exact positioning) he will become paralyzed! You can also trap him between 2 rooms by using the gold key and the sword – dragons fear the sword when the Right Difficulty switch is set to A. For example, place the gold key on one side of the gold castle and the sword on the screen below it (down in the opposite corner). Lure the dragon to the center of the screen with the sword and put the switch on B. The dragon will run up (away from the sword) and stop when it gets to the top of the screen (picture #9) {Paul J. Champeau}
· BUG: Freezing the bat - To do this trick, first make sure that the bat is flying in a straight left-to-right pattern on any wrap-around screen (such as the area below the yellow castle). Next, make sure it’s consistently exchanging 2 items (other than dragons or the magnet) in its flying pattern. Each time the bat switches items, the one being dropped will move towards the right side of the screen. Eventually the item will wrap-around. As soon as it’s fully visible on the left side, the bat will freeze in a flying motion the next time it attempts to take the item, and won’t move as long as no other objects are shown to it.
· BUG: If too many objects (more than 2) are in a room, it may be difficult or impossible to pick up an object, open a gate, or kill a dragon.
· BUG: Due to an error in the random object placement code, there’s a 1-in-18 chance that the yellow key will start out inside the yellow castle, making the game unbeatable. This only happens in level 3. {Warren Robinett}
· BUG: When you bring the secret dot in the room with the upper-left barrier, the barrier will disappear although you still can’t move beyond it.
· FRYING: Get a different-colored “selection” screen, or one with other items/dragons/bat on it (whatever objects appear in that room, those objects won't be in the game when you play it. So if a dragon ends up in this room, he won't be in the game. If all objects are in the room, you'll be all alone in the kingdom.). Start a game at any level and the black "barriers" may have moved to where you can get around them using the entrances at the top and bottom of the screen. Also, the layout of the kingdom will be quite different in some areas, and most of the time all castle doors are wide open! {Tony Roy}
