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Commonly known as easter eggs, many games have some unusual discoveries in them. It's a way for developers to let off steam in what can otherwise be a high-pressure environment, and to stamp some personal impressions into the game. We did this with GRIP too, perhaps more than most. Many of these discoveries will have gone unnoticed to the casual player I'm sure, but to those that are willing to explore there are a few surprises that await you. Let's take a look.
There are a good number of references to popular culture embedded in the game, some obvious, some not so obvious. For example, there's a very oblique reference in the track called Mindbender, aptly so because of its twisting and turning nature. This name came from an old TV series called UFO which by some happy coincidence was first aired in the same year that I was born. I never watched it at the time of course, at least consciously, but discovered it decades later having been an avid fan of Space 1999 and wanted to see what this UFO series was that preceded it. I then became a fan of this very quirky series too, it was very much of its time but looks deliciously odd today. There was a particularly crazy episode called Mindbender, the name of which struck a chord, and after which this track took its name.
The track named Impact was a strong reference to a very similar track found in the original Rollcage called Contact. It was one of the first tracks that you encountered in the game and one of the most satisfying to play. For me, Contact perhaps epitomises my memories of Rollcage more than any other, and it was naturally very gratifying to add an analog of this track into GRIP. It was a respectful homage, acknowledging unapologetically where it was that GRIP came from.
The ignition sequence on the HUD that appears at the start of each race also contains quite a few references. This is an interesting discovery as most people won't have read these closely as they appear so quickly and players will tire of reading what they think is the same text over and over. But there they are there all the same, hiding in plain sight.
INIT GRIP REFRESH DAEMON
- in recognition of the
INIT DOOM REFRESH DAEMON
message that popped up during the original Doom's loading sequence. This particular message was a bit obscure because no-one really knew what a refresh daemon was back in the day. A few years later when the source code was released it turned out that this message was indicative of absolutely nothing - it was just a bit of nonsense, as is our tribute.
There are also a ton of references to Prodigy lyrics hidden in there too.
NOW GET YOUR FIGHT ON
- From Get Your Fight On
COME PLAY MY GAME
- From Breathe
PSYCHOSOMATIC ADDICT INSANE
- From Breathe
LET'S SEE WHAT YOU'VE GOT
- From Roadblox
LET'S SEE YOUR TYRES HOT
- From Roadblox
All of these messages were embedded within the game quite early on. It came as quite a shock that just after the game's official release when the Prodigy lost one of its leading men, Keith Flint, or Keef as everyone knew him. We were both born in the same year, but he never quite made it to 50, a thought quite close to my mind when I passed that milestone myself later that year. Life is short. He deserved longer. I'm just glad we got to pay this small tribute to him, albeit unknowingly at the time, and that in some small way a part of Keef lives on in GRIP as well as in the minds of the millions of followers he left behind.
The Spearhead projectiles often have messages chalked on their surfaces, much as bombs dropped during WWII often had graffiti scrawled upon theirs. Sometimes these messages are even customised to who the attacker was, "With love from Codemonkey" just one example. You should get Ansel out to check out what other messages you might find lurking in there.
Some more substantial feature discoveries can also be found within the game. Try gunning the Wanted poster found on District 404 with your Raptor and you'll get a great Instakill weapon easter egg. You might notice that the poster in itself is a bit of an easter egg in that it features yours truly alongside my partner at Caged Element. That was the only personal image that we sneaked into the game, as far as I know.
Another feature is the Hyperspeed easter egg that gives you a lot more speed and acceleration than the game normally allows. The name Hyperspeed in itself is also a popular reference, to the Prodigy music track of the same name. Quite a few of the race tracks in our game are not quite suitable for this kind of speed however, and will require a lot of braking and a lot of concentration on your part. It'll test your mettle. To gather this particular feature you'll need to break through Mach 1, while driving on the ceiling. Yes. This isn't at all easy, but your best bet is to head to Speedbowl and give it your best shot in there. You'll need to be in Time Trial game mode ideally, have a Firestorm to start the run before you get onto a straight, then a charged Firestorm, hit all the Speedpads and use your vehicle Boost all at the same time in order to break that Mach 1 barrier. Needless to say, you'll also need to have Wild engine power switched on and be using one of the fastest vehicles in the game - grab the Tempest here if you want to increase your chances of success.
The last gameplay feature that we added was called Frogger. To attain this one you'll need to head to Haze and find the semi-hidden neon sign that resembles a frog. You find this, smash into it with your vehicle and the easter egg will be yours. This one changes the behaviour of the launch capability of your vehicle, which normally thrusts you upwards to change the driving surface for example, swapping from floor to ceiling. With Frogger enabled however, it thrusts you forwards at a rate of knots too, making the game just a little bit mental. All good multiplayer fun though.
There are some more esoteric discoveries waiting for you on the command line too. Try loading the game with adding some of the following to the command line beforehand.
-coldsteel
changes the rendering mode to a nice Film Noir monochrome.
-packingheat
will do a similar thing but with a more colourful heat-inspired theme.
-inouryouth
is a tribute to those who came before. In the PC version of Rollcage Stage II if you entered the correct key sequence then a home-brew music track was played when you viewed the game's credits. This very same track, sung by some of the original Rollcage crew, will also be played as you view GRIP's credits too. It seemed really strange to me the day I coded this up, to hear those voices from the past, singing loudly in this game of our's. I don't mind admitting it was a teary moment, reaching back into the past like that and forging a conjunction with the present. Memories of working on Rollcage came flooding back, for many of us they really were halcyon days. You wonder where the hell all the years have gone, and what happened to the men behind the voices you hear, here. Maybe in another 20 years I'll be thinking the same things about GRIP too. Life really is short.
But perhaps one of the most surprising discoveries of all is the one that is staring you in the face at the start of every single race. Check that screen display inside the race parking structure and you'll see a scrolling list of text. These aren't just meaningless words. These are the handles of some of our most supportive players that were with us from the very beginning. Players to which we owe a debt of gratitude. It was the very least that we could do, to include them in the game in this way. A game to which they have given so much. And so to everyone that has given us a hand in getting to where we are, we thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.
[Posted 11/06/2019] |
