Hidden message in Predator

[berarma]

This hidden message reveals information about the development of Predator. I couldn't find anything in this site so I thought I could post it.

https://tcrf.net/Predator_(ZX_Spectrum)

PREDATOR - (c) 1987/8 20th Century Fox.

This program was written in an incredible
two months in Leeds and the last week in a
hell-hole called Southampton - nothing
against the people that live in Southampton,
but we did see only three other people
the whole time we were there!

Well I suppose it's time for a few credits
(and there is only a few!) - here goes ....
Thanks to Bryn for totally bodging the
graphics (only joking) and many thanks to
'Eddy' for giving the team so much notice
for coming to Southampton (ie: 12 hours)
and to 'Ray' for giving us so much money
to spend while we were here
(in other words - sod all).

Also many thanks to 'Stuart' at Activision,
without who we would never have had the chance
to visit such a crap place as Southampton.
Many thanks to the bloke that runs the guest
house we (almost) stayed in (Ray: why did it
have to be so bloody far from the Activision offices).

When you read this message, the ST version
(written by Alaric) may be finished (or maybe not!)
Thanks to Mike for getting me to write a program
to convert HIS screens from ST to C64 format!
and not forgeting the Southampton police for
telling us the way home when we got lost the
night we arrived.

Thanks to 'Saul' for not being there to test
the games when we were. Mind you it was about
3 o'clock in the morning!! Thanks to 'Eddy' for
getting the music to us (about 2 days late).

If you are reading this message, you have either
been speaking to the idiot that wrote the program,
or you've been reading a mag that said that you
press some keys if (or even when) you finish the game.

And what a game! (it was designed by System 3 who are
the biggest load of bodgers around.) .........

And last but no means least, ALL my thanks go to my
girlfriend Liz for putting up with me being in
Southampton for so bloody long.

See you in the next project which could be anything.......

[5MinuteRetro]

This hidden message reveals information about the development of Predator. I couldn't find anything in this site so I thought I could post it.

I used to delight in stumbling upon stuff like this. It felt like peeking behind the curtain. All context as to how or why forgotten, I remember finding a phone number in, I'm pretty sure, the game I, Ball. Perhaps I completed it or perhaps I used my Multiface One to peruse the code (I did that a lot). Anyway, I found this UK phone number. I'm pretty sure it had a reference to it being the number of the programmer, Timothy Closs. Excitedly and nervously, I dialled it. Someone answered. Possibly... probably Mr Closs. Lost for words and not really knowing why I was calling, I spluttered and hung up. So, if you suffered a silent call sometime back in 1987, Timothy, I am very sorry.

(Which also reminds me of the time, as a much younger child, I eventually got through to Swap Shop, on 01 811 8055, and... did basically exactly the same thing. I guess I liked calling people more than speaking to them!)

[5MinuteRetro]

And there it is... (my memory just prompted me to look up the I, Ball walkthrough on YouTube). This is what you see when completing the game, which it's possible I did:

[5MinuteRetro]

And Googling that 'secret number'... it looks like Timothy was selling his Coleco Adam (in the March 1985 edition of C&VG):



Right, I really must get back to work now!

[Ralf]

This program was written in an incredible
two months in Leeds and the last week in a
hell-hole called Southampton - nothing
against the people that live in Southampton,
but we did see only three other people
the whole time we were there!

So they were locked for a week in some room without windows, coding 16 hours per day?

[dfzx]

FWIW I was a student in Southampton and liked it very much. I still live a bit (well, quite a bit) up the road from there.

[Lee P]

So they were locked for a week in some room without windows, coding 16 hours per day?

Sounds about right for Activision, didn't Bob Pape say something similar about the working conditions there?

[goodboy]

This hidden message reveals information about the development of Predator. I couldn't find anything in this site so I thought I could post it.

https://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/i ... sion%20Inc
(First tip)

[firelord]

And last but no means least, ALL my thanks go to my
girlfriend Liz for putting up with me being in
Southampton for so bloody long.

Why didn't he brought his GF to Southampton? He thought that he would be running arround Southampton with his Ferrari and have 5-6 girls with him?

So they were locked for a week in some room without windows, coding 16 hours per day?

At that time no coding room had Windows(TM)

[jpnz]

https://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/i ... sion%20Inc
(First tip)

I posted about that tip a while back - it's not quite right

[akeley]

I know you can "bodge" something (2nd language here) but I've never heard that used to describe a person(s). Cute. Especially considering its origin is from wood-dwelling chair makers (probably a rough lot), so it's a clever way to poke fun at fellow coders.

[ParadigmShifter]

Bodge is pretty common in programming talk it means to fix something in a rushed or unsatisfactory way.

Like the time I had to put a special case for 11th hole of the golf course where they accidentally made the water level to be the highest point of the hole rather than the lowest point lol (so anywhere that looked like water was higher than the rest of the hole). Also when one of the flyby movies (only one) had gamma correction which worked on the Saturn but did not on the PS1 so the flyby was at night lol (bodged solution - brighten up all the individual frames a bit and reconvert it - which one of the artists did and it was waaaay too bright afterwards lol). There were also loads of cases where some of the "green" terrain was accidentally flagged as a bunker... cue some bodged code like "if you are on hole 5, and within 50 feet of the hole, and it says you are in a bunker, make it so you are on the green instead". Problem was they were not able to re-export the data since it was a conversion and I think they had archived all the original 3d meshes and such.

"I've found a bug it may take a while to fix"
"Just bodge it for now maybe we will do a proper fix later (as if)"

[flatduckrecords]

I know you can "bodge" something (2nd language here) but I've never heard that used to describe a person(s).

Pictured: Bodger (left) and Badger (loves mashed potato)

[berarma]

I posted about that tip a while back - it's not quite right

I'm not very good at finding things in the forum it seems. I supposed someone would have guessed the key combination to see the message at the end of the game, as mentioned in the message.

Couldn't this info be added to ZXDB?

[R-Tape]

Pictured: Bodger (left) and Badger (loves mashed potato)

It upsets me most days that it came just too late to be a commercially viable Spectrum game.