hidden cleverness inside games

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

what situation while playing through a game suddenly caused you to say "damn that was clever of the developer?"

ive been playing through dragon quest viii and there was these monsters with rather odd names. some hours later i find out why they had such weird names. it was something like mum boe jum boh, i just found that stupid but cleaver.

another time i was playing mgs 2 i think and got into a certain memorable battle. the solution to winning this battle was not brawn or skill, but doing something right outside of the box. it was probably one of the greatest innovations ive ever seen and was like "damn that was clever."

[Kire]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

clever, not cleaver.

[Crimson Knight]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

You know what would be really clever? If you described the specific situations you thought were clever karr.

[Ryner]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

Yes, I agree with clever Crimson.

[Hyper Dingo]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

I like the cleaver man in Maniac mansion.

Actually I've never played that fame. Is he in it?

[Patryn]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

Actually I've never played that fame. Is he in it?

I think it's just a bunch of people singing and dancing, with Debbie Allen.

[John Mora]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

This is the topic where we all mispel.

[Chad]

Re: hidden cleaverness inside games

Vice City.

You can find a cleaver behind the Well Stacked Pizza shop in Washington Beach.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

clever, not cleaver.

cleaverly deducted, and fixed.

[marcus]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

This is actually a good topic (cleaver jokes aside) because I feel that "cheekiness" in videogames is underappreciated. It seems like older games were relatively tongue-in-cheek and even the most serious of games had their clever little easter eggs hidden for dedicated players.



Classic moments in NetHack.

-If you're carrying more items than your strength allows and try to switch dungeon floors (I.E. walking down stairs) there's a chance you'll fall down the stairs.

-You had the command to "dip" items. If you dipped a bottle into a bottle, you'd get a message "It's a potion bottle, not a Klein Bottle."

-Later in the dungeon, you'd fight the annoying gorgon that could petrify you with its gaze. If you killed it and typed "decapitate" or something, you'd cut its head off and you could petrify other enemies by using it as an item.



I don't expect many people to have played Beyond Zork, but text adventure games were always famous for finding ways of interacting with players... especially when you cursed at the narrator. In Beyond Zork, cursing makes you lose your intelligence until you reach the point where you become mentally retarded and have to restart.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy also did something like this. If you died at the beginning (getting hit in the head with a brick or something), then the game would spend five or so turns describing your death. If you tried to talk back, the narrator would be like "Nobody hears your shouts of protest... you're dead" and "You're awful talkative for a guy in a body bag!"

There's tons more I can bring up, but I want to close on the "That's one doomed space marine" easter egg from Duke3D.

[Loki]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

Beyond Zork came with a bound book called "The Lore and Legends of Quendor" which would give information on all sorts of various things you might encounter and often provided the crucial information you needed to defeate them.



The Eldritch Vapor featured in Marcus' screenshot wouldn't ever hurt your HP but rather would steal an item every turn and drop it somewhere on the Moors. If you couldn't suceed in beating it before it took all your stuff it would snatch you away and game over! Anoying, but not very tough, unless you ran into the Crewl Puppet while fighting it. Then it's pretty much a lost cause.



The Dust Bunnies were another clever foe. You couldn't beat them by wailing on them with your weapon or spells. You had to drag a bear skin rug to them, drop it, walk over it, and touch them. I love how the game was designed like a hack and slash RPG but rarely did just attacking a baddie work. You always had to think of a clever trick or a non obvious way of using your tools to succeed.

Gosh, Beyond Zork was a great game.

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

When you first play Super Paper Mario, try turning down Merlon every time he asks you to embark on the quest to save all worlds.

*** SPOILERS ***
You get the Game Over screen. And since there's no save point that early, you have to restart the game from the beginning.
*** END SPOILERS ***


That gag was the cornerstone for my Garbage Contest RPG. Once I played Super Paper Mario, I gave up.

[John Mora]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

I almost did that in the beginning, but I figured, "Wait, he's really gonna do it." So I played his little game.

Called Super Paper Mario.

[Riotsword]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

Is there a way to play any of the Zork games on modern computers? I've always wanted to try them, but man are they rare.

[Red Dragon]

Re: hidden cleverness inside games

Get's out his 200 floppy disks for Zork.

WARGHAAHAHA!!!!!