Gilligan's Gold (Commodore 64)

Gilligan's Gold would have been a fairly unremarkable Bagman clone, had it not been for its anti-piracy message and the circumstances surrounding it.

Anti-Piracy Message/Revisional Difference#

The game's initial release batch displays a nasty message should the player force a soft reset while the game is loading. This can be done by shorting pins on the serial or user ports, a common method of cracking games at the time.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROTECTED BECAUSE IT WAS VERY HARD TO WRITE AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE LITTLE 'NIPPLE' LIKE YOU COPY IT. I HOPE THAT YOU LIKE PLAYING WITH YOUSELF BECAUSE YOU MIGHT AS WELL DO THAT RATHER THAN TRYING TO COPY THIS PROGRAM! I SUPOSE THAT YOU THINK YOU ARE REALY GOOD GETTING THIS FAR INTO MY CODE, BUT REALY YOU ARE NOT BECAUSE THIS WAS THE EASY BIT

! THATS RIGHT THINK YOU ARE INCREDIBLE, YOU LITTLE TWAT YOU ARE LUCKY THAT I DONT ERAS THIS BIT EH

I HOPE THAT YOU HAVE TRIED TO RESET THIS PROGRAM! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HAD TO LOAD IT BACK IN AGAIN??? DID YOU SEE THE YOUNG ONE'S THIS WEEK YOU KNOW 'SICK'? YOU ARE A REAL TIT! GO AND WRITE YOUR OWN 'BAGMAN' HA! I WOULD LIKE TO SEE INTERCEPTORS COCKUP OF THIS PROGRAM! ANYWAY PISS OFF.

The problem is, should the game detect any kind of loading error, the same reset routine is called. This, combined with said initial batch having mastering issues, resulted in many legitimate purchasers witnessing this rant. Ocean eventually addressed this problem by shipping later batches of the game with a different loader, Novaload, and removing the hidden message entirely; this story would often be told to new employees at the company as a warning not to insert these kinds of rants in their games.

(Source: Tom Roger Skauen / Paul Hughes)

On a side note, the mention of The Young Ones having just aired the episode "Sick" ("DID YOU SEE THE YOUNG ONE'S THIS WEEK YOU KNOW 'SICK'?") dates this message to shortly after Tuesday, June 12, 1984.

References#

Screen Test: GILLIGAN'S GOLD - Personal Computer Games, September 1984↩︎