the cutting room mirror

Crystal Crazy

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Crystal Crazy is the Mac-exclusive sequel to Crystal Quest.

High Scores#

A fresh copy of the game has a single entry on the high score table (Mike, with 92,950 points), but some of the names that filled the other 19 slots during development survived in the HIGH resource. (Alasdair Klyne was the game's coder.)

  1. Mike
  2. dfh
  3. (Anonymous)
  4. Bollocks
  5. Bollocks
  6. Bollocks
  7. Bollocks
  8. (Anonymous)
  9. dddddd
  10. (Anonymous)
  11. Bollocks
  12. Bollocks
  13. (Anonymous)
  14. Alasdair
  15. Bollocks
  16. Bollocks
  17. (Anonymous)
  18. RONAN KLYNE
  19. RONAN KLYNE
  20. RONAN KLYNE

Beta Expiry#

This remnant message reveals an apparent working title.

Meat-Themed Strings#

The game contains three custom resource types with no clear purpose beyond humor: Paté, Pork, and Spam. Each contains a single resource with ID 69.

Paté#

Paté 69 consists of the phrase:

Two and one-half badgers please

This is a quote from the Red Dwarf episode "Quarantine", in which the android Kryten is damaged and babbles nonsensically. ("No, I'll eat them here," he adds.)

Pork#

Pork 69 contains a few words mixed with ASCII control characters:

(null)(EOT)Spam(null)ECode(null)(EOT)Code(null)(linefeed)Code(null)(formfeed)

Spam#

In version 1.0.3, Spam 69 contains 32 bytes of human-illegible data:

1827 6905 9C18 3084 61F1 0201 39F3 168F 7138 02BA 888F 4D5C DEA6 577E 9434 C400

The final version released, 1.0.6, lacks any Spam resource.

The Spam references more likely allude to another Britcom than the term for unwanted online messages, which at the time of the game's release had barely made the jump from chat rooms to newsgroups.

The relevance of the number 69 to the theme of eating meat is left as an exercise for the reader.

Other Strings#

The trash-compacting walls that sweep the screen on bonus rounds go unnamed in the instructions, but are internally known as:

IronCurtain

The game contains a single STR resource, ID 1, which mysteriously reads:

Armadillo

Msg resource 1, "Ready Message", says:

ready, Yank

The game was developed by a team of Brits for an American company, so this message might have been meant for the latter.

Install Dialogs#

Crystal Crazy needs to install a certain INIT (think "DLL") to run in older versions of Mac OS. The names of the relevant ALRT resources show the game's inner monologue during the process.

Contents of Install Dialog

Internal Name

To run Crystal Crazy on a machine using System 6, you need to have a special Startup document in your System Folder.

Would you like Crystal Crazy to install this for you?

OoooooIThinkIBetterInstallAnINIT

The Startup document was installed successfully. You should now Restart your Macintosh.

RestartOrDieScum

The special Startup document that Crystal Crazy requires does not appear to be operating.

Either you have not Restarted your Macintosh since it was installed, or maybe you have too many applications open.

ISaidRestartYouStupidBastardID

The Startup document could not be installed.

OhSweetArseholesICouldntInstallItID

Revisional Differences#

Version 1.0.5 added audio support for PowerPC systems; it's unknown whether other changes were made.

Version 1.0.6 (4 June 1999) lists a single change in its Read Me: "Fixed high applause volume at conclusion of game."