Yes Virgina, the “Adventure magic dot” DOES exist on the iPhone
I had wondered aloud whether the iPhone port of the Atari 2600 game Adventure contained the legendary invisible “Magic Dot” that, when discovered and brought to the appropriate secret location, would reveal a screen with the game’s creators on it. This was the first hidden “cheat” I ever encountered (heard from a friend of a friend of my older brother – no innternet back then) and finding the dot was a big deal back in 1980. Well, sure enough, faithful Macenstein reader William did what I did not have the patience, free time, or desire to do… he found the dot!
“Just like the original. Fun to reminisce, but I can’t see keeping it on my iPhone. I did remember how much I hated that bat. But the best is being eaten by the dragon then having the bat pick up the dragon with you in the dragon’s belly — you get taken on a rapid flight over all the various places in the game.”
Nice job William! Yes, the bat sucked, as did accidentally dragging the bridge with the magnet and getting it stuck in the maze. Ahh… good times. Well, here’s hoping this is just the first of the 2600 ports we’ll be seeing on iTunes. I personally am hoping to see the 2600 classics Riverraid, Pitfall, Kaboom, and of course, Indiana Jones.
I love this hack. I have one of those Atari joystick style TV-games which features Adventure. I wanted to see if it was a direct ROM rip so I went on the invisible dot quest myself. Sadly, when you take it into the in-zone, the authors name is missing. It looks like it was clipped out to get back those two bytes of space. 🙁
This was the best Atari game of all time because of that odd dynamic. You can be eaten at which time the game should be over. But the bat might still come by and pick up the dragon, taking you on a belly-flight through walls. AWESOME.