This may be common knowledge, but why does Maze Craze have the flashing lights/colors before each stage? It totally trips me out.
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The Official 2600 Easter Egg and Programming Mysteries Thread
Started by Tempest, Jul 22 2010 7:57 AM
55 replies to this topic
#52 OFFLINE
Chris++
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God of Thunder
- Location:Albuquerque
Posted Tue Jan 3, 2012 4:33 PM
The maze starts out as a simple grid of uniform squares; the new routes are being drawn randomly between them while the screen flashes. Why the maze-forming process is being hidden is anyone's guess. Maybe it's completed more quickly than it would be if the screen were accurately refreshed during each cycle.
#53 ONLINE
Nukey Shay
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Sheik Yerbouti
- Location:The land of Gorch
Posted Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:22 PM
Like other early "complex" games, the display kernel is skipped altogether during the routine. Although this does speed up the process at least twice as much to run the routine in question, a more-important advantage is that the program does not need to use any temporary ram memory storage to draw the display...so that can be utilized here instead. This also makes the display less-confusing to a player...some games may be altering other display variables as it "thinks" (Video Chess), or make the game more of a challenge (Maze Craze's paths are done in reverse - which would reveal the correct path as someone watches it being generated).
The color-shift deal was put there only because it doesn't "cost" anything to do it...just update COLUBK with whatever value happens to be sitting in a register once in a pass or so (and serve as a visual reminder that the game has not crashed...I guess).
The color-shift deal was put there only because it doesn't "cost" anything to do it...just update COLUBK with whatever value happens to be sitting in a register once in a pass or so (and serve as a visual reminder that the game has not crashed...I guess).
#54 OFFLINE
Chris++
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God of Thunder
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Posted Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:18 PM
Ah...nifty! That's good to know. I've wondered about the specific reason for that for nearly twenty years. (But not...y'know...the whole time.)
#55 OFFLINE
Syntaxerror999
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- 398 posts
Moonsweeper
Posted Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:17 PM
Heres a small easter egg for adventure... Sort of.
On the game select screen, if you hold down/right on the joystick, the player will appear and you can move around the screen. There is not much more you can do.
Also, if you try to go through the fake passage in the hidden message room and hold up/right you can get to the other side of the message.
On the game select screen, if you hold down/right on the joystick, the player will appear and you can move around the screen. There is not much more you can do.
Also, if you try to go through the fake passage in the hidden message room and hold up/right you can get to the other side of the message.
#56 OFFLINE
Kittenmommy
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- 63 posts
Star Raider
- Looking for the sword so I can kill Rhindle...
- Location:Land of Confusion
Posted Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:37 PM
Syntaxerror999, on Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:17 PM, said:
Heres a small easter egg for adventure... Sort of.
On the game select screen, if you hold down/right on the joystick, the player will appear and you can move around the screen. There is not much more you can do.
Also, if you try to go through the fake passage in the hidden message room and hold up/right you can get to the other side of the message.
On the game select screen, if you hold down/right on the joystick, the player will appear and you can move around the screen. There is not much more you can do.
Also, if you try to go through the fake passage in the hidden message room and hold up/right you can get to the other side of the message.
If you take the bridge with you into the secret room, you can use it to go right through the fake passage and into the blue maze!
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