The game Deadly Towers for the NES has always held a special place of mystery and fascination in the minds of both myself and a close friend of mine. I remember playing it while I was sick from school long ago, and, believe it or not, being completely immersed in the atmosphere of the game. I now suspect that the game’s intriguing intro music had much to do with it, giving the game a much more epic feel in my mind than actually exists on cartridge. Also, I was always mystified by the myriad small black windows on the tower backgrounds, which always made want to peek inside and see what was in there.

My overwhelming nostalgic love for the game is kinda funny because, years later, upon seeing if there were any fan sites for Deadly Towers, I realized that everyone other than me and my friend seems to utterly hate this game. In fact, the ever-colorful Seanbaby said it was the #1 worst NES game of all time on his site. Wow. I definitely wouldn’t go that far (but of course, Seanbaby always goes as far as he can — he probably wipes his butt with Deadly Towers cartridges…just because he can). But make no mistake: Deadly Towers is no gem, either. One of the reasons it is loathed by many is that it is insanely frustrating and difficult. Some of the first enemies you encounter in the game require you to stand in the same spot for a minute, hitting them about fifty times with your wimpy starting sword to kill them. Most of us who played it at all would have killed ourselves long ago if not for the famous “EF or FE Code” (thank you, Nintendo Power) that gives you one of the bells pre-burned and the best armor and weapons (To use the code, start the game, die, then add “EF” or “FE” to the start of your password). Using that trick, the game actually becomes bearable to play for someone who’s not swimming in mystical nostalgia.

So imagine my surprise when, back in 2003, my best friend called me up and announced that he was going to beat Deadly Towers — without cheating. “Gasp! Are you insane, man?!” I stumbled, almost dropping the phone as I fell from my chair. No, he replied…he took it as a challenge — a challenge to his gaming might, endurance, and ability. He wanted to be one of the twelve people in the world to actually complete the game as intended (ten of which are former Japanese grade-schoolers, no doubt, who seem to have a sadistic drive to consume even the most insanely difficult games). With no strategy guides or maps available to guide him, not even on our precious Internet (save for the 1st dungeon map in the manual), he set out on his mission. I set out along with him, playing it simultaneously as we talked on the phone, but I eventually gave up half-way through. It was just too tedious for me. Over the next month, he not only completed the game entirely, but mapped all of its completely useless dungeons (which you don’t even have to enter to beat the game), and found most, if not all, of the secret exits in the towers, which contain special weapon upgrades and the like.

So without further delay, I present to you, published for the first time ever on the Internet (in English, anyway), The Secret Maps of Deadly Towers [cue mind-blowing music]. And what’s more, instead of spending countless hours transcribing them into some legible computerized format, I am presenting them in the artist’s original hand, for extra charm and authenticity. Their format might also give you more of an idea as to what an epic accomplishment this really is. The intrepid artist’s name? Ben Johnson. From now on, let these be known as The Johnson Maps.

Yep, those were the days: when we all had to make our game maps by hand.

How come there’s no “Dungeon A” map, you ask? Because it’s already mapped in the Deadly Towers manual. Oh, and the maps are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format for easy printing (didn’t want you to have to fiddle with printing letter-sized JPEGs, you know).

Dungeon Map B (Click image for PDF File)

Dungeon Map C (Click image for PDF File)

Dungeon Map D (Click image for PDF File)

Dungeon Map E (Click image for PDF File)

Dungeon Map F (Click image for PDF File)

Dungeon Map G (Click image for PDF File)

Misc. Notes #1 (Click image for PDF File)

Misc. Notes #2 (Click image for PDF File)

If anyone else actually likes this game, speak now, or forever will Deadly Towers roast in the pits of Internet game-punditry hell!

A few weeks ago, while playing through my Atari 800 game collection, I discovered a rare gem that I’d never played before. It quickly made my way into a top ten list of most underrated games of all time (well, for the Atari 800 at least). It’s called Dandy Dungeon, a 1983 release through the Atari Program Exchange (APX) written by then-MIT-student John Palevich. At first glance, it appears to be a Gauntlet clone with primitive graphics (the Gauntlet of which I speak is the 1985 Atari Games arcade release), but it turns out that Gauntlet, not Dandy, is the clone (apparently, Mr. Palevich wasn’t too happy about Ed Logg stealing his design and sued Atari Games over it). I had played another game just like Dandy before for the Atari 7800 called Dark Chambers with exactly the same gameplay, but different graphics. Well, it turns out it’s no co-incidence — Dark Chambers was written by John Palevich as well, commissioned by Atari Corporation later on. As an interesting bit of trivia, Atari Corporation and Atari Games were two separate companies by the time of Gauntlet’s release in 1985.

So then, why is Dandy so cool? I’ll give you my first three reasons: it plays like a dream, it supports four simultaneous players, and it includes a built-in dungeon editor! The included dungeon designs aren’t very good, I’ll admit, but the ability to design your own dungeons overcomes this weakness (plus, I found six Atari 800 disk images with dungeons designed by different people — see below). Gameplay is smooth, robust, and the controls are great. Also, like in Gauntlet, slugging it out with three other friends is priceless. Finding good four-player games for the Atari 800 is tough, so I’m very happy about this feature.

What makes Dandy like Gauntlet and, yet…unlike Gauntlet? First of all, similarities include running around a dungeon shooting monsters with up to four friends, collecting food, using potions (bombs) to kill masses of monsters (who just so happen to come from generators at times). Also, you depart each dungeon level at an exit and descend to a lower dungeon level. The most obvious difference between the two, to me, is the fact that your health doesn’t tick down over time in Dandy like it does in Gauntlet (an ingenious feature to swallow up more of your quarters in the arcade — Mr. Logg knew what he was doing). Also, the monsters in Dandy Dungeon have a strange hierarchy that is slightly hard to explain. There are different “levels” of monsters. Each level, or strength, per se, looks different, but they all behave the same (they don’t shoot, just run at you). The higher the level of monster, the more shots it takes to kill it. But with each shot along the way, the graphic for the monster changes down to a lower level of monster, until it dies. For example, there is a “little man” monster who takes only one shot to kill. Then there is a “smiley face” monster that takes two shots. However, when you shoot the smiley face monster, it turns into the little man monster, who in turn only takes one shot to kill. It’s weird, I know…Dark Chambers is just like this too. Luckily, Ed Logg had the sense to change this confusing design feature when designing Gauntlet (which has discrete types of monsters that each have different characteristics). Also, in Dandy, you can save the food you collect for later use, which is nice — in Gauntlet, you eat it immediately, whether you need it or not.

If you’d like to play the game, get a good Atari 800 emulator (I recommend Atari800WinPLus) or an SIO2PC cable to play it on a real Atari, then download the disk image. If you want different dungeon map packs, here they are: Pack 1, Pack 2, Pack 3, Pack 4, Pack 5, Pack 6. Finally, here’s a note on gameplay that’s not immediately evident: to use collected food, press 1 through 4 on the keyboard, where the number you push is the number of the player who wants to use stored food. The same goes for bombs, although you hold down the SHIFT key while pressing the number. You can also shoot bombs, of course, for immediate effect.

Have fun! Please feel free to share your comments on the game below in the comments section.

[Update: 11/17/2014 — I changed the SIO2PC link from sunmark.com (now long since gone) to a link to AtariMax that works. ]

I know this site is called Vintage Computing and Gaming, but what this site is really about is celebrating the history of computers and video games. I’m interested in the history of computers and video games over all time: past, present, and future. What is current now will soon be in the past, and part of history. Those of us who ponder the history of video games can’t help thinking ahead and wondering what will come next. Well, one can’t get a glimpse of the future of an industry without knowing its past. That’s why amateur enthusiast-historians like myself are here.

It has been said many times that the video game market has grown up with the gamers who purchase and play the games themselves. For example, take “Gamer X,” born in 1975, who played his first video game console, an Atari 2600, at age 3. Then maybe he moved on to a Commodore 64 around age 8, switching later to a NES at age 12, then a SNES at age 16. By the time he hit 1995 and the launch of the PlayStation in the US, that gamer was 20-years-old. That 20-year-old was probably no longer content to play the same video games he did at 3 and 8, although he probably still loved them for nostalgic reasons. No, that person was at a completely different stage in his life with different dreams and a new worldview. As Gamer X grew up, video game complexity and maturity grew up with him, matching him almost perfectly along the way. He had Atari 2600 games with the simplicity for a toddler to pick up and play, NES games with more depth and imagination for adolescents and early teens, then the SNES with its more violent fighting games and deeper and more emotionally rewarding RPGs for mid- to late-teenagers. Then along came Sony. With the launch of the first PlayStation, Sony was the first company to aggressively go after the late-teen and early-adult gamer market. This was a huge surprise to the whole world of “older folks” (i.e. Baby Boomers and above) at the time, because until then, everybody thought video games were strictly for kids. Why did they think they were for kids? Because kids were young, flexible, and open-minded enough to embrace video games when they came into their own.

At this point, we’re due for a stop off at the present. Even today, in 2005, with the average video game player being 30-years-old (also see this), and — surprise — with Gamer X at 30, video games as an entertainment medium are still being misunderstood by the generations that have come before it. But this behavior is not new; other forms of popular entertainment have experienced similar growing trends…and growing pains. The rock and roll record-smashing of the 1950s and 60s was similar to what’s going on today with social conservatives and alarmist politicians pointing their pens at violent and sexual video games. Remember Elvis? Neither do I — I’m only 24. But I’ve read some books and I know that when he first shook his hips on TV, the whole world of over-40-year-olds thought teenagers everywhere would instantly collapse into social decay, never to recover. It’s been the same story with every generational gap and entertainment medium since the dawn of time. You can look back in the history of TV, music (rap and jazz are good examples in addition to rock & roll), movies, theater, books, paintings, and poetry, and you’ll see the same trend as you do with video games today. It’s the same old story: the older generation in power just doesn’t understand, and frightened governments everywhere, knowing magically what’s best for people under 30, want to make state-parenting de rigueur.

Well, guess what? Gamer X isn’t going to stop growing, aging, and maturing. By the time people who grew up with video games take positions of authority, the current controversies over games as an entertainment medium will, for the most part, cease (to be replaced by some other concern, no doubt). Rock and roll music, once shunned, misunderstood, and censored by the WWII generation, has grown up with the Baby Boomers until we regularly see 60-year-old rockers like Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones drawing crowds of thousands.

Now, back to the present for a moment. At 30, Gamer X is currently enjoying PlayStation 2 games, with ever-growing depth and maturity. But soon (if he doesn’t already), he’ll have his own wife, kids, and family, and his priorities will change again. What happens when Gamer X reaches 40? At 40 years of age, I bet he’ll probably still want to play video games. But will Gamer X be content to run around and shoot hookers, kill virtual people, and steal their cars like he does today in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Or will he want something different? He’ll probably work hard all day and come home exhausted — to a wife to attend to, kids to play with, and bills to pay. Will he have time to play that 100-hour RPG any more? Or does he want something more casual and less involved? Maybe he wants to tend a farm. Maybe he wants to sculpt clouds and float casually through the air. Or maybe he craves more driving simulators for his pending mid-life crisis. And what if he doesn’t have time to master the super-sophisticated, glowing, 20-button control pad that is being peddled to teenagers of the day? Maybe he wants to simply wave his hands in the air (like with the upcoming Nintendo Revolution controller, perhaps), and control things more intuitively. Well, I don’t think Gamer X will have to worry, because I firmly believe that the video game industry will grow with him to meet his changing needs and desires along the way.

But why stop at 40? Eventually there will be video game systems and content suitable-for and tailored-to a market of 50-, 60-, 70-year-old gamers and beyond (Gardening simulators, anyone? :P). In 2055, when Gamer X is 80, there will be millions of people his age that have grown up with interactive digital entertainment as a way of life. They will want new games to play, and digital entertainment companies, eager for their Social Security dollars (if SS hasn’t collapsed by then), will provide them. This will give the phrase “gaming grandma” a whole new meaning.

Finally, our short story of Gamer X’s gaming life ends one day in 2082, when he is 107 years old. There, in a richly decorated room (with Star Wars posters and antique Spawn action figures), he lies on a bed, jerking, moving, and definitely occupied with something. Concerned, his 10-year-old great-grandson enters and poses a simple question:

“What are you playing grandpa?”

“Heaven 2.0, son. Now leave me alone, I’m busy!”

A detailed look into one of the best games of all time

v1.0 – by Medarch

I would say ‘greatest,’ but that usually means influential, which Archon hasn’t been particularly. But that only serves to solidify its uniqueness. Billed as a combination action/strategy game upon its release in 1983, Archon ends up being far more action-oriented, but the diversity of characters from the fantasy realm and their combat attributes the game employs should be enough to dazzle any self-respecting game geek.

Answering the call of my own inner geek, I have exposed Archon‘s mechanisms and hidden numbers through days of experimentation with the game’s original and best version, that for the Atari 800. The description, analysis, and numbers below pertain only (as far as I know) to the Atari 8-bit computer version of Archon.

Recently I’ve been thinking about building a new Archon-type game for Windows. The first step, I figured, was to find a detailed FAQ on the original, but since apparently none exist, I had to make one myself. And so this report was born…

Overview / Rules

Archon is a war between the Light and the Dark: two armies of creatures and persons of myth and legend, called by the game ‘icons.’ Each side begins with a force of 18 icons, with 8 different types per side. The Light and the Dark do not share any types, yet the teams are very evenly matched. The armies alternate turns, maneuvering for position on a chessboard-like Strategy Screen. On a single turn either one spell may be cast, or one icon moved. Turns may not be passed. Whenever an icon is moved to a square already occupied by an opposing piece, a battle ensues on the Combat Screen, where each different type of piece has its own hit points, attack damage, and so on, detailed below. The winning icon keeps the square, while the loser is eliminated from the game (both icons may be destroyed in the battle, in which case both are eliminated).

Each side aims to occupy the five ‘Power Points’ on the board or to completely eliminate the opposition. Victory can also be achieved by casting the Imprison spell on the opponent’s last remaining icon. The game can end in stalemate as well in either of two ways: the last two icons destroy each other in battle, or there is no progress for a certain number of turns. (‘Progress’ here means battles or Spells cast, and the number of turns is at least one full cycle of color-change (12 turns per side) but depends on the number of pieces left and has been difficult to determine in some cases.) Games usually last between 50 and 100 turns per side if the players are well-matched.

[ Continue reading The Secrets of Archon » ]

The Game Genie is without a doubt the coolest peripheral I’ve ever owned for the NES. When I was bored with regular old NES games, I could essentially “reprogram” them with the device and make them more interesting. Tired of being told by game designers that I had to play the games their way, I delighted in manipulating game mechanics. After all, I thought, I bought the game, and I should be able to play it however I want (“Game Genie: empowering the gamer since 1991”). Before long, the codes included in the official Game Genie booklet got boring, so my brother and I made up our own. This resulted in some particularly reality-bending codes, the best of which I have included here. Some of these codes might have been discovered by other fellow Game Genie enthusiasts since then, but I assure you, these are straight from my circa-1994 spiral-bound, home made Game Genie Book.

This second entry on GG codes deals only with the US version of Super Mario Bros. 3 (the first entry is here). Unfortunately, I didn’t have as many SMB3 codes in my book as I thought I did. Still, these are definitely neat. Try them out yourself and have fun. Also, feel free to share your own codes in the comments section.

Code: OOKXGLIE
Tired of getting hit and losing the rare Swimming Purple Raccoon Mario power up? Well tire no more, since this code makes it permanent!

Code: ANKXGLIE
Permanent Mario Shoe, as I like to call it. Exactly like Kuribo’s shoe, but different. You’re black and white, invincible, always small, and hopping around, but your shoe looks like a green Mario split in half. Awesome.

Code: POKXGLIA
Permanent regular Mario. No, not invincible — just small. All the time. It’s tough being a short, stumpy man.

Code: XNKXGLIA
Introducing…Black and White Mario! This is like having permanent Kuribo’s shoe powers, but you always stay small, you don’t hop around, you look like Mario, and you’re intangible and invincible. You can stomp piranha plants too.

The Game Genie is without a doubt the coolest peripheral I’ve ever owned for the NES. When I was bored with regular old NES games, I could essentially “reprogram” them with the device and make them more interesting. Tired of being told by game designers that I had to play the games their way, I delighted in manipulating game mechanics. After all, I thought, I bought the game, and I should be able to play it however I want (“Game Genie: empowering the gamer since 1991”). Before long, the codes included in the official Game Genie booklet got boring, so my brother and I made up our own. This resulted in some particularly reality-bending codes, the best of which I have included here. Some of these codes might have been discovered by other fellow Game Genie enthusiasts since then, but I assure you, these are straight from my circa-1994 spiral-bound, home made Game Genie Book. This first entry on GG codes deals only with Super Mario Bros. More specifically, the Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt cartridge was used to make these codes. Try them out yourself and have fun. Also, feel free to share your own codes in the comments section!

Code: LUIGIO
Totally whacks up the graphics, and the game freezes at the third pipe. Why use it? Just because you can (…it spells Luigi-o).

Code: YLYYYA
Permanent ice-skating Mario. This was always one of my favorites. Everything else seems fine.

Code: SOSSSO
You get an extra life with every stomp, on every type of enemy. Awesome!

Code: OZOPPI
Coin blocks are in weird positions, but inside every one is a mushroom / fire flower. You can only have one power-up on the screen at a time though.

Code: PISPEG
This is hilarious: the regular floor is replaced with water. Mario falls down and dies not only on the first stage, but the title screen as well.

Code: OZTLLX
Ah, one of the classics. With this code you can be regular small Mario and still have the fire flower. You can’t break blocks though.

Coming Soon: Game Genie codes for Super Mario Bros. 3. There are some awesome ones for it in my personal code book, so stay tuned.

Over time on VC&G, I’d like to introduce vintage gamers to obscure, overlooked or never released in North America games that are worth playing. And unless you live in Asia, you’ve probably never played Moon Crystal, as I believe it was only released in Japan. It’s a shame this title didn’t come to the US — it’s a grade-A quality game, with incredible gameplay, graphics, and animations. The only beef I have with the gameplay is that it takes a long time for your character to turn around (a lot longer than the instant 180 in most games), and that takes a lot of getting used to. All of the monsters and the main character have very fluid animations, with more frames per movement than I think I’ve ever seen in a NES game. Moon Crystal also has a great story-telling intro and detailed, animated, and colorful cinematic cut-scenes between stages (ala Ninja Gaiden).

I haven’t played much past the third stage yet, but I’m looking forward to the rest of the game. So far the difficulty level hasn’t been too hard. The style of gameplay is pretty typical action platformer, where you jump around and stab enemies with your sword. You can also get power ups over time to become stronger, which is nice. The main character has a really neat ability taken straight from Prince of Persia — the edge grab. You can jump up to a platform that’s too high for you to jump to conventionally by pressing up on the control pad while jumping. Your character can then grab onto the nearest ledge and pull himself up. This comes in handy as a last-second save: if you underestimate your jumps over an open abyss, you can hold down up and grab on to the side of the edge before you fall in.

Moon Crystal is one of the best Famicom games never released in the US. But don’t take my word for it — try it out! Unless you can find the original cart for the Famicom and have a means to play it, you’ll probably have to stick with the emulator route. But where can you get the game? I guess you’ll just have to find it yourself. But once you do, it’s definitely worth a play.

Here are some more Moon Crystal screenshots:

Straight from RedWolf’s vintage text file archives: It’s the original Atari Jaguar Press Release! Sure, you can probably find this elsewhere on the web, but I downloaded this text, as you see it, directly from the official Atari Forum (GO ATARI) on Compuserve in 1993. I was a huge fan of Atari at the time, and news of a new system from them was extremely exciting — exciting enough for me to archive the press release for over twelve years. It’s an entertaining read.

Sunnyvale, CA – June 1993 – Atari Corporation, the founder of the video game industry and the creative force behind some of the world’s best known titles, has announced the launch of a revolutionary new multi-media entertainment system, the ATARI JAGUAR. The launch will be supported by aggressive advertising, promotion and marketing efforts to be centered in the New York market in the Fall, with a national roll-out of the product within one year.

The ATARI JAGUAR, housed in a futuristic casing, is an interactive multi- media system based on an Atari-designed proprietary 64-bit RISC processor. The 64-bit system is four times the technology currently seen in the market today. The ATARI JAGUAR features over 16 million colors in 24-bit true color graphics and produces shaded 3-D polygons to be manipulated in a “real” world in real time. The ATARI JAGUAR also has real time texture mapping and creates spectacular video effects.

The sound system is based on Atari’s proprietary, high-speed, Digital Signal Processor dedicated to audio. The audio is 16-bit stereo CD quality and processes simultaneous sources of audio data, allowing for very realistic sounds, as well as human voices, which are essential for future multi- media applications.

The ATARI JAGUAR is truly expandable and will include a 32-bit expansion port which allows for future connection into cable and telephone networks, as well as a digital signal processing port for modem use and connection to digital audio peripherals such as DAT players.

The unit will also have a compact disc peripheral, which will be double-speed and will play regular CD audio, CD + G (Karaoke), and Kodak’s new Photo-CD.

Currently, there are multiple software titles in development, which will be available on MegaCart ™. Atari, known for such groundbreaking 3-D titles as Battlezone 2000 (r), and Tempest 2000 (r), will issue spectacular new versions for the ATARI JAGUAR. New 3-D game titles will include Cybermorph (r), Alien vs. Predator (r), Jaguar Formula One Racing ™ and many more. Atari will license third party publishers to join the Jaguar family.

“The ATARI JAGUAR system will revolutionize the state of home entertainment as we see it today,” said Sam Tramiel, president of Atari. “The idea of a 64-bit system is earthshattering and kids and adults will be amazed at both the imagery and manipulative capabilities. And we are proud that our entry into the multi-media entertainment category will be fully made in America.”

The ATARI JAGUAR will retail for approximately $200 and will be available nationwide next year. The ATARI JAGUAR packaged unit will include one software experience and a Power Pad (r) Controller with a ten-key pad, and other special features.

Atari Corp. manufactures and markets personal computers and video games for the home, office and educational marketplaces throughout the world. Atari headquarters are located at 1196 Borregas Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94089.

Hehe.. “The ATARI JAGUAR packaged unit will include one software experience.” I like that part. And this — “The ATARI JAGUAR features over 16 million colors in 24-bit true color graphics and produces shaded 3-D polygons to be manipulated in a “real” world in real time.” Putting the word “real” in quotes isn’t too reassuring. Why not just say “virtual” instead?