I am fascinated by secret mechanics in retro games, especially those which are not discovered until many years later due to disassembly. I feel that these secret mechanics are one of the elements that set retro games apart from modern games, as these types of mechanics are rarely seen in modern game design.
Specifically I'm talking about game mechanics that fit the following conditions:
Not explained by the game, or explained too cryptically to be of use.
Consistent, not random.
Used frequently.
Not easy to intuitively learn. (For instance, anyone will naturally notice that every 6th enemy in Zelda 2 drops a magic refill)
Hard to tell apart from randomness. A normal player could beat and master the game without suspecting the hidden mechanic exists.
If understood, would greatly help in casual and unassisted play.
Examples:
Appearance conditions for the 1-up blocks in Super Mario Bros. 1
"10th enemy has the bomb" technique in Zelda 1
Pokemon's EVs and IVs
Bubble Bobble's item counters
Faxanadu's item appearance conditions
Secret audience reactions in Punch-Out
Please tell me about other examples of these types of mechanics that you happen to know about. There are many famous games I have not played, which I am not familiar with.
In many older Final Fantasy games, random events are on a fixed cycle of 256 possible results (basically, the devs tried to write an RNG and failed horribly). This gives you huge control over pretty much everything that happens in the game once you're aware of it, especially because many of the games have an easy way to throw away unwanted results to fast-forwards to the useful ones.
It's not actually a big enough boost to be useful, but I was surprised when I disassembled the Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow code to discover that the Heart Pendant makes hearts more likely to drop, and the Gold Ring makes gold more likely to drop. These are analogous to the Soul Eater and Rare Rings which are more explicitly documented.
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Mitjitsu wrote:
In Smash Bros Brawl your attacks become less effective the more you spam them.
I'm pretty sure this one is pretty obvious and not at all hidden. It's also in every Smash game.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
Not sure it's exactly what you're looking for, but the EXP system in NES Kid Icarus is both hidden and non-intuitive (beyond just killing more enemies is better.)
L-cancelling (and possibly wavedashing) seems to fall into this category, as it definitely was intended, but remained unnoticed for a while and is very often used.
Mighty Bomb Jack is the king of this, especially the Japanese version. Even the basic game mechanics are chock full of it, but then there are the secrets. Basic ones involve jumping off of random tiles twice to reveal chests, but there are also some in the Japanese version where you have to jump like 10 times or something? I can't find a good reference for it right now, just various people saying you have to "jump fewer times" in the English version, but I know it's absurd. And then there's a really opaque level warp mechanic you have to understand and use correctly to get the good ending... this game is nuts.
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
Ah, yes, it is!
So then...
Can you give me some examples of video game enemy behaviors that are not deterministic?
I don't know of an example off the top of my head, but for consoles where two different components are timed in different ways (such as via two different crystals), tiny changes in temperature that cause the relative sync to change could lead to nondeterministic behaviour.
Reading uninitialized memory, as some NES games do (like Final Fantasy 1), can also lead to nondeterministic behaviour. When you power off/on a console, memory is not in a predetermined state.
(Usually when people say 'deterministic' in the context of video game behaviour, they mean 'without even trying to rely on an RNG or anything else that is not visible to the user', though there can be exceptions in the case of simple and easy to manipulate RNG/hidden state like FF1's.)
Ah, yes, it is!
So then...
Can you give me some examples of video game enemy behaviors that are not deterministic?
If you think that Radiant was being cute about determinism (since almost all videogames are deterministic in the sense that they don't have truly random sources of entropy), each of the Pac-Man ghosts in fact has a different programmed behavior. Red chases Pac's current position, and gets faster when there are fewer dots left to collect. Pink targets a position 4 spaces in front of Pac. Orange chases Pac until it gets close, at which point it flees. And Cyan has a weird target selection system that's based on how close Red is to Pac. But they're all deterministic and manipulable by changing how Pac moves.
"Random" enemies in the videogame sense of random (i.e. still subject to the constraints of the PRNG) are all over the place. Zelda's darknuts, Final Fantasy's monsters (aside from the heavily-scripted bosses), the cross-tossing guys in Ninja Gaiden, zombies in Castlevania, etc. etc. etc.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
I knew about the programmed behavior.
It also relies on the PRNG.
So if that counts as deterministic in the sense of video game randomness, then my question remains.
Warning: Might glitch to creditsI will finish this ACE soon as possible
(or will I?)
In many older Final Fantasy games, random events are on a fixed cycle of 256 possible results (basically, the devs tried to write an RNG and failed horribly). This gives you huge control over pretty much everything that happens in the game once you're aware of it, especially because many of the games have an easy way to throw away unwanted results to fast-forwards to the useful ones.
To say they "failed horribly" is definitely selling them short. RNG calculation was too computationally expensive back then (both due to low processor speeds and the fact that the Mersenne Twister was not developed until 1997), and for the vast majority of players, a cycling system is more than sufficient.
I knew about the programmed behavior.
It also relies on the PRNG.
So if that counts as deterministic in the sense of video game randomness, then my question remains.
How does it use the PRNG? I was under the impression that the only factors controlling the ghosts are a) Pac's position, and b) the current time, as the ghosts cycle regularly between their normal chase patterns and a "flee to a designated corner" pattern. But as far as I'm aware neither is pseudo-random. I'll admit to not being very educated about this game though.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
To say they "failed horribly" is definitely selling them short. RNG calculation was too computationally expensive back then (both due to low processor speeds and the fact that the Mersenne Twister was not developed until 1997), and for the vast majority of players, a cycling system is more than sufficient.
An LFSR is very computationally cheap even on older consoles. (An LCG can be even cheaper, on a console with hardware support for multiplication.) There are other RNG designs than the Mersenne Twister.
Meanwhile, there are Final Fantasy games which have random tables for which some of the results literally can't happen, as there's no seed that produces them. Additionally, the probabilities of various low-probability events are a long way away from where the developers intended them because the RNG is biased.
I knew about the programmed behavior.
It also relies on the PRNG.
So if that counts as deterministic in the sense of video game randomness, then my question remains.
How does it use the PRNG? I was under the impression that the only factors controlling the ghosts are a) Pac's position, and b) the current time, as the ghosts cycle regularly between their normal chase patterns and a "flee to a designated corner" pattern. But as far as I'm aware neither is pseudo-random. I'll admit to not being very educated about this game though.
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Another one from The Legend of Zelda is killing 16 straight enemies without getting hit will get you at least one (and theoretically as many as 8) fairies. I wrote it up under "Fairy Horde" in the movie submitted yesterday.
These are all really awesome examples, and I enjoy reading up about them. The Kid Icarus EXP system is one that I simply forgot to mention and should have listed in the first post.
I have some open questions:
Have any of Zelda's bonus mechanics made a return in Link to the Past, or any future Zelda games?
I have heard that in Final Fantasy 2, your stat increases during level-ups are tied to the actions you performed (for instance, taking lots of damage will boost your EXP). Would this be considered secret, or is it spelled out somewhere explicitly in the game or the manual?
In Metroid 1, wasn't there a secret mechanic which dictated whether or not the seahorses in Norfair would spit fire, or was it pure RNG? Does the Metroid series have any secret mechanics?
Nice topic. Not everything I have to say quite fulfills your criteria but here goes:
In Kirby games, the ability roulette goes through a preset sequence of abilities and the starting point is determined by what you swallowed or what started the mix. This can be abused in casual play/console speedruns.
In Kung-Fu Master / Spartan X (GB), item drops depend on number of enemy kills and aren't apparent since all those counters overlap.
health refill - every 20th enemy in level 1-3, every 4th enemy in level 4-6
hearts - every 50th enemy
1-up - every 90th enemy
bomb - every 3rd enemy in level 3, every 8th enemy in level 4-6 (only dropped by shooters and Asians)
Wario Land 2, a silver coin is dropped every 64th frame or so if an enemy is killed that frame.
I know some cases where many people didn't know certain game aspects or mechanics even when you would think they are obvious. E.g. in Master Karateka (GB), you can obtain items and use them by pausing and pressing Select.
In Survival Kids (GBC),
- You can only get the Weird Berry if you a) fixed the hut and b) didn't take the monkey on the raft. Nobody I asked knew those conditions.
- In order to survive the raft trip, you need a full canteen, 31 or more health, and 3 food items. Only certain food items will do. Nobody I asked knew those conditions.
- The other kid's affection towards you directly depends what items you give to him/her and it doesn't matter how often or when you give an item. It only matters what you give him and it affects what endings you can get.
- If you give a poisonous or confusing mushroom to an alligator without knowing that it's poisonous or confusing, it will not affect the alligator. If you ate such a mushroom and suffer the effect, and then give it to an alligator, it will affect the alligator. Nobody I asked knew this quirk.
In Dragonball Z Legacy of Goku, your punches only do damage every split second or so, when it makes a cracking sound. Pretty much nobody I talked to knew it behaved like this and all players would just mash the punch button and assume they dealt damage.
Not so obvious, Dragonball Z Legacy of Goku has odd level up requirements. See here and check "level up requirement". Between levels 10 and 21, you need small (and inconsistent) amounts of experience to level up. But for level 22 you suddenly need more than your experience total was at 21.
In Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga,
- single brother hammer attacks in battle will vary between 3 possible values. I think it depends on the RNG.
- the Thwomp gamble game in the cave where you have to break 1 out of 3 rocks to get a prize. The prize is actually determined at the moment you enter the room, by RNG. The player is fooled into thinking it matters which rock you break.
- in the Japanese version, there are heart blocks that replenish HP and BP. You can do the money trick and heal for free to slowly but surely get infinite money.
In Super Smash Bros Melee,
- a Pokémon out of a Pokéball will not appear twice in a row.
- Mr. Game & Watch's side-B (Judgement) will not show the same number twice in a sequence of 3 numbers. See here for more information. This behavior is the same in Brawl but it was removed in Smash 4.
- Mewtwo can be unlocked depending on time played, I think. And it accounts for all controllers plugged in. So if you have 4 controllers plugged in, you can shorten the time until Mewtwo is unlocked considerably. See here.
In Monkey Island 3, checking certain places over 30 times will trigger easter eggs. In fact, that game has a ton of easter eggs.
Have any of Zelda's bonus mechanics made a return in Link to the Past, or any future Zelda games?
I don't know for sure but I think OoT and Majora's Mask item drops run on RNG.
