[HN Gopher] The games Nintendo didn't want you to play: Tengen
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The games Nintendo didn't want you to play: Tengen
Author : luu
Score : 234 points
Date : 2022-04-17 14:40 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nicole.express)
(TXT) w3m dump (nicole.express)
| [deleted]
| ilamont wrote:
| Wow, amazing research. I didn't even know I lived through a
| golden age of arcade games or home consoles (not sure which the
| author was referring to).
|
| I was confused by "Klax", thinking it was a pirate version of old
| Colecovision platformer Zaxxon but it was actually quite
| different. I didn't experience NES until 1988. Up to that point
| (<5 years after early home consoles like 2600, Intellivision and
| Colecovision had petered out) people of my age cohort had hoped
| that the pre-Windows PC platforms like the Atari 800, Apple IIe,
| or the first Macintosh would provide good gaming experiences but
| we were mostly disappointed. There were a few bright spots like
| Dark Castle and Choplifter, but the chasm between those
| experiences and what you could find in the arcades were
| significant. The NES was a huge development.
| valiant-comma wrote:
| Wow, Choplifter takes me back. There was also the excellent
| Rescue Raiders. Spy vs. Spy on the Apple II was pretty good for
| multi-player fun (using one computer and keyboard), as well.
| micheljansen wrote:
| Klax was actually a very good game. I spent many hours on it as
| a kid, as it came on a dodgy 60-in-1 Gameboy cartridge someone
| brought me from Asia.
| tom_ wrote:
| Yeah. Klax was great. I spent a lot of time playing it on the
| BBC Micro as a boy - possibly one of the last games released
| for the system. My high score was in the millions.
|
| I was surprised to later find out just how many other end-of-
| life platforms it was ported to:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klax_(video_game) - who even
| signed off on all of this nonsense?! In particular, I have no
| idea why they bothered with the Atari 2600 version... how
| much did they make from that? Though I'm glad they did,
| because it's actually surprisingly good.
|
| (The ZX Spectrum version is decent too! You'd think it'd
| struggle, what with all those colours, but it's well done.)
| runevault wrote:
| I actually had the crazy shaped Gauntlet game as a kid. Managed
| to get to the final boss once but never with the full password.
| dimator wrote:
| I remember this! It was a black cart, and it stood out like a
| sore thumb.
| incanus77 wrote:
| I had it too (same shape) and it was definitely the hardest
| game, though I did beat it once with the wizard. While SMB 3,
| Zelda 2, and the Castlevanias were my favorites and clearly in
| another league, Gauntlet was outstanding to me at the time,
| especially the music.
| runevault wrote:
| Yeah Gauntlet holds a special place in my heart, which got me
| to buy the... remake? that came out on PC a few years ago. I
| respect a game that is savage and willing to stick to that.
| Though a fair bit of how insane it was may be tied to the
| arcade roots where they wanted you to keep feeding in
| quarters.
| etrevino wrote:
| My parents got me the Tengen version of Tetris back in the day.
| They didn't know the difference, of course, and neither did I.
| What I remember is that it looked different from my friends'
| version and it had two player. Pretty neat stuff. I don't know
| where all of my games went, unfortunately.
| mackman wrote:
| Yeah this finally clears up why I have memories of a completely
| different NES Tetris game than I could find any reference to
| online. I thought this was one of those Mandela effect
| situations.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I don't understand the security chip.
|
| So it expects a series of numbers. If you record those numbers,
| you are violating Nintendos copyright. But asking for them from
| the copyright office to use in court and then productionize them
| is okay?
| yosefjaved1 wrote:
| Atari actually got the code illegally from the copyright
| office. Here's a video discussing that portion -
| https://youtu.be/fLA_d9q6ySs?t=11m37s
| Arainach wrote:
| No, taking the code from the copyright office wasn't OK, but by
| the time the court cases were making progress the NES didn't
| really matter any more and they settled outside of court.
|
| Also, recording the numbers doesn't necessarily work. The chip
| is essentially an algorithm.
|
| I haven't dug through the source to understand the algorithm,
| but imagine a basic scenario where the algorithm is "challenge
| * 3"
|
| If the challenge is "1 2 3" and you record a response of "3 6
| 9", that response won't work if the next challenge is "2 4 6".
| If you actually dig into the chip and copy their algorithm,
| that can be copyright infringement (yes there's clean room
| reverse engineering, but if the logic is convoluted enough that
| can be rather difficult and take time)
| jrockway wrote:
| Clean room reverse engineering is for the case where you want
| to translate source code to source code and prove that you
| didn't just copy and paste it. (It's pretty easy for two
| people to generate the exact same bytes of source code for
| any given algorithm. The documentation around clean room
| reverse engineering is to prove that you independently came
| up with the same thing. The code is copyrightable, the idea
| isn't.)
|
| If you open up some chip and look at it under the microscope
| and translate the transistors you see into C code, that's not
| copyright infringement. (But it might be patented. Patents
| are super weird in that if you come up with an idea
| completely independently of someone else, and the other
| person patents it, you're not allowed to use the idea!)
| tedunangst wrote:
| The source, since I was curious.
|
| https://hackmii.com/2010/01/the-weird-and-wonderful-cic/
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| Tengen pirate tetris, sadly, was the good implementation back in
| the day
| bullen wrote:
| The whole thing reads like a tragic waste to me. Too bad you
| couldn't code assembly on a C64/Amiga out of the box properly
| either. Now with the Raspberry 4 we finally after 40 years of
| corporate shenanigans have something where kids could make their
| own games and instead they are playing mobile games.
|
| I'm making an open 3D action MMO engine to sort this out. If your
| computer does not have a keyboard/mouse it's useless for
| eternity.
| criddell wrote:
| Assembly is nice, but not necessary.
|
| I don't know about the Amiga, but the C64, Atari, and TI
| computers of the era either booted into a BASIC prompt or you
| could get there with one or two key presses. Many of us spent a
| lot of our youth making games and sharing them with our
| friends.
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed with your overall point, but I have to mention that
| out-of-the-box C64 BASIC was so crippled, most game related
| I/O had to be done via POKE and PEEK, i.e. not really basic
| and as low level as it gets.
| DerekL wrote:
| The Amiga did come with Basic, but in 1990, they switched to
| Rexx.
| hnusersarelame wrote:
| Minecraft? Roblox? VR Chat? What about the thousands of
| independent games made by kids and young adults that are
| created and posted to Itch.io and Steam every day? Does that
| not count for anything?
|
| >I'm making an open 3D action MMO engine to sort this out.
|
| Yes, I'm sure this will be the Unity killer that everyone is
| waiting for. _rolls eyes_
| foobarian wrote:
| TBH this sounds exactly like Roblox. MMO being the key part
| there.
| the_af wrote:
| Even before the Raspberry, with the rise of open source
| programming languages and libraries (or even commercial
| toolkits that are cheap), there was the possibility to make
| some pretty complex games!
|
| And indeed, some people made use of them. But for most people,
| it's easier to play games than to create them, just as for most
| people it's easier to read books than to write them.
|
| But tool-wise, we've been living in paradise for a long time
| now. Whether we take advantage of that is up to us.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > after 40 years of corporate shenanigans have something where
| kids could make their own games and
|
| have access to literally dozens of free game engines and are
| making their games en masse
| roastedpeacock wrote:
| Anyone care to comment how hard it would have been for a third-
| party to reverse engineer the 10NES chip at the time rather then
| perform the 'easy' way and obtain the source code under
| questionable circumstances from the copyright office?
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| My favorite unlicensed are then Wisdom Tree games. I have the
| bright blue Bible Adventures cartridge in my collection. It
| sticks out so badly and is such a terrible, terrible game... That
| it is one of my favorite thrift store finds for the console :)
| pjscott wrote:
| My personal favorite of theirs is Super 3D Noah's Ark. It's
| essentially Wolfenstein 3D -- they licensed the engine and
| everything -- but instead of shooting Nazis with guns until
| they die, you instead shoot food at animals with slingshots
| until they fall asleep from satiation.
|
| (It was originally supposed to be a straight-up adaptation of
| the movie Hellraiser, but they decided this was insufficiently
| Christian after it became clear that it would look like a cheap
| knock-off of Doom, which was released during the game's early
| development.)
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I was about to bring this up! I got one of these absolutely
| terrible games in the mid-90s (long after the NES was the hot
| thing and we had all loved to the SNES or even N64, I can't
| remember the year) at the Christian book store when I was with
| my aunt and my grandmother, and even at that age (10 or 11), I
| knew it would be both terrible and also terrible in a truly
| wonderful way. It did not disappoint.
|
| I can't remember which one I had now (it might have been Bible
| Adventures but it might have been the one that was the Menace
| Beach clone), except that it exists in my parents basement
| somewhere along with my other oddities of childhood.
|
| IIRC, Wisdom Tree was the first company to bypass the lockout
| chip, before even Tengen/Atari. I have to think the low market
| for those games, unlike Tengen which was for sale at Toys R Us
| like real games, probably prevented them for being caught up in
| some of the legal stuff.
| wincy wrote:
| Hah I remember trying to go into the casinos in one of these
| games would make you take damage. My friend was super
| Christian and we were allowed over to his house on Sunday but
| were only allowed to play these Bible games!
| cbanek wrote:
| The Angry Video Game Nerd's videos about the Wisdom Tree games
| are too good not to mention here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNvQYiM6bw
| q-big wrote:
| There exist two sequels to this video:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dUVZozf-i0
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz0TOQ1BF-M
| calibas wrote:
| If I remember correctly, churches would give these to kids for
| free. It was part of an effort to combat the "satanic
| influence" of normal video games.
| superdisk wrote:
| Another game they made was Spiritual Warfare-- and
| surprisingly, it's a fantastic game. It plays just like a
| sequel to the original Legend of Zelda, and I dare say is
| superior to it in some regards.
| coopreme wrote:
| When I was growing up I didn't have legend of Zelda, I had
| this game. The trivia where you get the question right and
| the guy's bowtie spins, The pomegranate which functions like
| a boomerang, getting punished for going into a bar. All of it
| is awesome.
| funks_ wrote:
| Fun fact: Atari and Tengen are both named after terms from the
| game of Go, the former describing a group of stones that can be
| captured [1], the latter the center point of the board [2].
|
| [1]: https://senseis.xmp.net/?Atari
|
| [2]: https://senseis.xmp.net/?Tengen
| jhbadger wrote:
| And don't forget Sente Technologies, an arcade game company in
| the 1980s founded by ex-Atari employees. _Sente_ is also a term
| from Go -- meaning to be in the strategic position where your
| opponent will have to respond to your attacks.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sente_Technologies
| robador wrote:
| I've been playing go for 25 years and never made the
| connection. Mind blown.
| richard_todd wrote:
| We liked Tengen Tetris so much we "bought" it from Blockbuster by
| telling them we lost it and paying the fee. We couldn't find it
| to buy any other way, and now I know why! If they are rare and
| expensive now I guess that was a good move. I should call my
| parents and ask if they still have it.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| TY so much for reminding me to play Tengen Super Sprint! Was
| searching for the next NES racing game to conquer after racking
| up some ridiculous personal highs in R.C. Pro AM. Just endless
| fun ;)
| glhaynes wrote:
| Love those kinds of games. Don't miss [Ivan "Ironman"
| Stewart's] Super Off Road and its spiritual sequel (which I
| only just found out about the other day!), Danny Sullivan's
| Indy Heat.
| duxup wrote:
| Very interesting I wasn't aware of this during the NES days.
|
| I do wish Nintendo was a bit pickier about clearing games for
| sale on the Switch. On the estore specifically there's a lot of
| low quality shovelware.
|
| I find myself a lot more nuanced about walled gardens sometimes.
| superdisk wrote:
| There was a vast amount of shovelware on the NES as well, it's
| just been forgotten and the gems have persevered in everyone's
| memory. I have an NES mini and I put the entire NES library on
| it, and went through some of them with some friends-- the vast
| majority were garbage.
| perardi wrote:
| It was a long time ago, but this game immediately popped into
| mind when I saw "NES" and "shovelware".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_II_(NES_video_gam.
| ..
|
| I am sure I shoveled a lot of garbage that I rented at the
| video rental store that was inside the grocery store into my
| NES, but that one just stood out.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| There was a bunch of crud in the GBA system as well. A lot of
| it was fun to play though at the time.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| Quality is subjective. The value Nintendo was preserving with
| their cartridge licensing was the retail price. Too many low-
| cost games taking up shelf space in retail stores makes it
| harder to sell premium games. Games were sold for Nintendo
| consoles at remarkable prices, which encouraged studios to
| invest in high quality games. Chrono Trigger in 1995 was
| released for 11400yen (US$124.50 at the time).
|
| But an app store doesn't have the limitation of inventory. No
| number of low-cost games will impair the ability to sell the
| premium titles. Not needing to worry about dilution, the store
| operator reverts to rent-seeking behavior and will approve the
| most number of games as they can. Or will create artificial
| scarcity by restricting access to popular titles.
|
| When buying physical media, licensing balances the needs of the
| publisher, producer, and customer. But in the digital world
| there's almost no overlap.
| dwighttk wrote:
| >No number of low-cost games will impair the ability to sell
| the premium titles
|
| I think they do in a different way. An expensive phone game
| is $5. Every once in a while a game will try to break that
| mold and they get mocked.
| Jensson wrote:
| That is interesting, there is nothing stopping high budget
| games from being on phones, its just cultural. Genshin
| impact can be played on phones, but it is one of very few
| examples.
| delecti wrote:
| That can't really be a relevant example of an impaired
| high-price game though, because it's free everywhere.
| Jensson wrote:
| You can't have a game be free on one platform and cost
| money on another either, at least I am not aware of any
| such games. So either it is free/cheap everywhere or you
| don't release it on phones.
|
| Edit: And by high budget games I mean games with a high
| development budget, not games that costs a lot to buy.
| Genshin impact is a AAA game that runs on phones, they
| invested $100 million to make it, that is what I meant by
| it being a high budget game.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| If Nintendo invested more in curation, visibility, and
| filtering tools the shovelware wouldn't be such a problem for
| me. I only have so much time I'm willing to look at titles
| and if I see 90% crap I'm less likely to make purchases.
|
| Netflix also has unlimited inventory space and they spend
| tons of engineering effort in optimizing the content they
| show people when they launch the app.
| [deleted]
| sitkack wrote:
| So how do we preserve an ecosystem and prevent what I think
| you are outlining is a bimodal distribution between a vast
| majority of cheap low cost games and a few high production
| value games, is that correct?
| brianwawok wrote:
| If you believe in the free market, the entire game
| ecosystem is free games with pay to unlock features. Or you
| believe in a curated market and let the curator of each
| market set rules.
| car_analogy wrote:
| > I find myself a lot more nuanced about walled gardens
| sometimes.
|
| Getting the keys to your device's walled garden does not imply
| you're compelled to leave that garden. You can stick to the
| official store, that contains only high-quality games blessed
| and vetted by Nintendo.
| singlow wrote:
| Not that I like walled gardens, but I do think that once you
| open up the door, many quality titles will skip the store
| which otherwise would have listed. So the garden is now
| incomplete. You haven't just given access to the things you
| previously blocked. Now some users will need to venture
| outside to find apps that otherwise would have been in the
| app store.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| The games Nintendo didn't want you to play? Tengen didn't want to
| subject themselves to Nintendo's rules and quality control, and
| decided instead to work around Nintendo's lockout chip. Nintendo
| isn't really at fault here.
| abeisgreat wrote:
| A lot of the story regarding the Tetris split between Nintendo
| and Tengen is covered in the great Gaming Historian video [The
| Story of
| Tetris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fQtxKmgJC8&t=1s).
| franknine wrote:
| There's another episode from Gaming Historian specifically for
| Tengen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLA_d9q6ySs It talks
| about how Atari abuses the copyright system to gain access to
| Nintendo's protection system source code.
| anthk wrote:
| I had Tengen Tetris on a pirate cart. It was much better than the
| certified Tetris.
| brundolf wrote:
| > Modern consoles maintain their lockout using cryptography. But
| in the 1980's, that would get your console classified as a
| munition
|
| Hahah I didn't think about that
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Modern consoles need to be connected to the internet to work. I
| remember that with the PS2 they only had to hack it once and it
| could run pirated games forever.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Now a lot of games have enough internet features (including
| things like leaderboards or hybrid features, eg Luigi's
| Balloon World in Super Mario Odyssey) that often exploits
| require you stick to a certain OS version, locking you out of
| those features, regardless of if it's a pirated copy or not.
| asdff wrote:
| Not the Nintendo Switch at least.
| ZoomStop wrote:
| Seems down? Here is a mirror:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220410034726/https://nicole.ex...
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| What a great article. The part about other unlicensed game
| manufacturers sending a chip-frying amount of voltage to the DRM
| system is just nuts.
| [deleted]
| drited wrote:
| My father brought home unlicensed games from Hong Kong for my
| brother and I to play on the NES in the 80s. I recall after
| putting in the game and powering on the NES, the screen used to
| flash for a second, kind of like when the reset button was
| pressed. It's interesting to read that the negative voltage to
| evade the DRM may have caused that!
| ndiddy wrote:
| The "voltage spike" method caused a cat-and-mouse game between
| Nintendo and the unlicensed game companies, where Nintendo
| would make a new NES board revision and then the companies had
| to figure out a way around their new current protection. Some
| companies even published directions in their game manuals for
| how to modify the NES console to get around the protection:
| https://files.catbox.moe/9t03p6.png
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Nintendo would make a new NES board revision and then the
| companies had to figure out
|
| I don't understand how they can Do that and still maintain
| backwards compatibility with old cartridges?
| toast0 wrote:
| The changes only broke (some) unlicensed cartridges, it
| didn't break cartridges that had a Nintendo manufactured
| protection chip.
| tedunangst wrote:
| You stick a diode on the reverse fry line, so sending -5v
| resets the console instead of the copy chip.
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