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[Supplement]
It was in the mid 80's & 90's that my brother & I visited various second-hand stores and flea markets looking for Atari carts. One day around 1989 my brother picked up Mountain King from a flea market.
It came without an instruction manual which made it a little tricky figuring out how to play it. And this was before the Internet as we know it. Even when we did figure some of it out, there were still those curious ladders hanging in the air we'd see whenever we jumped really high off the mountain - what were they for??
Once we made it up there, we didn't know what to do in this new Hidden World above the mountain.
We though maybe this was some kind of a sequel to the regular game - an area you get to access after you carry the crown up to the flame.
One day, I was up in the Hidden World and toggled the Difficulty switches to see if it made it easier. And I noticed parts of the pillar ladders blinking! It added/removed small portions of ladders and plateaus. Each switch on the VCS do this in different areas. It made it slightly easier to travel around.
At the time I often used a Sega Genisis controller to play this and other Atari games.
And one day, I used it to get up there. I noticed a few addition red plateaus while arriving at the hidden world that made it very difficult to land there. But I quickly found out it was the Sega Genisis that was adding them, and that a few plateaus could be removed by holding the C button. Then to jump to the blue ladder on the left, you hold the C and fire button. And that's how we found out that Sega Genisis was adding plateaus and ladders.
We noticed the new tall ladders the Sega Genisis had created and tried climbing them. We got to them by travelling the opposite way from blue buildings to blue buildings.
Then I wondered, if the Sega Geninis controller create ladders, what would the Video Touch Pad, Colecovision or other controllers do? We tried them and found out.
We also found a place that added more time and so we could have more time to find a way to crimb higher. Half way up, were several gaps in the ladder that we'd jumped and bounce around to get higher.
I think it was around 1991 that we'd finaly made it up this way and discovered those zones I call 'gateways' in many levels (mentioned at my Main page and the Supplement page).
At one place (level 52), we'd always get stuck. However, my brother discovered that if you tapped the joystick only once very *briefly* in the UP position only, we could then get back out again. And once we got out, we found that the explorer had loss the abbility to stand up on (red) plateaus! Since the majority of the mountain is made up of plateaus he fell and passed right through them. When the explorer fell it reminded me of what sometime happens when frying Pitfall II - the Lost Carvern. Frying Pitfall II often causes Pitfall Harry to fall thru the cavern to arrive back at the top when the screen wraps around. But with Mountain King we didn't immediatly arrive back where we started. There were many levels underneath the spiders' lair. The reason your explorer stops falling in that area is cause he can't pass through (blue) ladders. And it is in those levels that we came across the three little figures mentioned in section A, step 11.
We noticed that while it's possible to make the little fellows move around and switch places, we couldn't make them move on their own. They just stood there as if waiting for input - from a second player? I wondered if this could be a game for two players. Curious, I plugged in another joystick in the right port of the Atari and although it didn't bring them to life, it did do *something*. Additional controlers plugged in the 2th port added/removed portions of ladders and plateaus. Paddles plugged in right port created additional ladders that make it much easier to climb higher pass the pillars. This is the same as the left port but at different locations.
There may be other controllers that haven't been tried that do other tricks. In any case, there definitely seems to be something missing in this hidden world. It's like the game isn't finished.
It's important to note that in the hidden world, nothing happens at ramdom. Although ladders and plateaus seem to appear and disapear for no reason, there is always a reason. Some follow the Time, others follow the Score, others react to your location and still others the controller inputs in either ports. Travelling into one or more Gateways can cause peculiar occurences and changes that may become permanent even if you reset the game (unless you turn the game off/on).
The Atari 7800 can play games made for the Atari 2600. So what happens when Mountain King made for Atari 2600 is played on an Atari 7800? Well, everything looks the same until you get up to the hidden world. It seems the Atari 7800 makes it impossible to create the extra ladders to climb higher as when played on an Atari 2600. Unlike the Atari 2600, the Atari 7800 won't allow the paddles or Sega Genisis controllers to add ladders anywhere. And the Atari Video Touch Pad, Keyboard Controller and Colecovision don't remove ladders/buildings like they do when the same cartridge is played on a 2600. Why the difference?
The only way I know to remove parts of ladders or buildings is to disasemble an Atari joystick and hold down all the buttons (left, right, up and down)together, but it's difficult. Some extra ladders can be created when you take the Flame Spirit up to the hidden world, but it's not possible to climb them as far as I know.
The 7800 also lacks the TV Type switch.
Mountain King is available for other game systems including the 5200. But I'm told the hidden world in that version looks a lot different.
It was never my intention to create a webpage about this but when it became obvious that no one knew about the extent of the hidden levels....I discovered Angelfire.com in Feb, 1999 and wrote up the instructions here.
The details and instructions of what's found are based on notes we made throughtout the many years of exploring.
The insructions have been modified in order to make use of as many controllers as we thought of while exploring. For example, as mentioned in Tip For Tricks section, you can climb higher pass above the buildings using a Sega Genesis controller instead of paddles. This means you don't need paddles at all if you have a Sega Genesis controller!
Also, the instructions only show how to travel to the right a short distance above the buildings. If you know how, you can also travel left by carefully running up & down the building to end up at the building that add time.
I've counted 9 buildings.
Here is our rough drawings we made: http://www.angelfire.com/mt/mountkingatari2600/rougdrawings.html
Thanks to Scott Stilphen for help in verifying the step-by-step instuctions! The step-by-step instructions as written, are based on this.
http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/26mountainking.htm: has a additional
information such as how to stop falling and stand up in mid-air!
Check out an excellent(!) map at:
http://www.mindspring.com/~rhball/gcMKmap.htm
And instructions:
http://www.mindspring.com/~rhball/gcMKing2.htm
Credit for finding the easter egg at the top of the mountain goes to: Patrick Forhan.
I did a few searches in most Newsgroups for all messages posted about Mountain King and found one in particular very interesting. It mentions the easter egg area at the top of the mountain to increase the score. It was posted by Patrick who calls it the
"Unlimited money" area.
To read the original message, go to:
Or,
http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&
In the subject field enter "Mountain King fans?" with quotation marks. And in the author field enter "patrick forhan" with quotation marks.
View the thread and scroll to see the original message posted Feb. 2 1998.
No one appeared to realize what he meant by "unlimited money" because until I spread the word around about this easter egg, no one else knew about it (at least at that time, I couldn't find it anywhere on the net).
I still can't figure out how anyone would happen to find this egg since there is absolutely nothing under the flame to indicate something in that area!
If there's a spot to increase the score in the regular game, who knows, there may also be a spot to also increase the time and it just hasn't been found yet!
For the Mountain King 5200 version, find by subject "5200 Mountain King (query)" posted at net.micro.atari way back in Feb 1984.
http://groups.google.com/group/net.micro.atari/msg/a05ec93b2a49504a
Sr marcovici mentions the programers' initials are hidden at the very bottom (underneath) the mountain mine.
In a Jan 1993 post: "The Riddle of Mountain king" at alt.games.video.classic, darnell8690 mentions calling the company and talking to a Mike Smith who claims to know the programer. And that Mountain King is from a play by Peer Gynt who flys to the home of a troll and that because of the hidden world, there appears to be some similarities to this game.
And again for the 5200, at another newsgroup someone else posted about an invisible chest in the lower levels that when you knelt, it keeps giving you money much like the one in the 2600. Find it by subject "Re: Okay - What's the most addictive video game you've ever played" Posted in Jan 1997.
Many others have found parts of the hidden world of Mountain King. My brother and I don't claim to be the first to have found this.
But who knows what else is waiting to be found!
I suspect that disassembling this game would help in discovering any and all other tricks and more hidden stuff that might lurk somewhere. Has anyone given it a try?
The sound effects in Galazian (atari 2600) are the same as heard Mountain King when you fall.
"The Mountain King Page is great! I remember spending hours as a kid trying to explore the secret world, but never got anywhere as near as far as you (maybe because I didn't have peripherals). I'm totally impressed. Makes me want to dig up my old atari..." (via email, June 2000)
Slightly off topic, but still with video games, I discovered yet another hidden world - this time in SUPER PITFALL for Nintendo NES.
I submitted some details about this at: http://www.gamewinners.com/nes/SuperPitfall.htm .
Follow the instructions carefully at gamewinners.com on how to get inside walls and move thru them. Remember, in order for this trick to work, there must be enough things moving around on the screen you're on.
There's a particular wall to pass thru that leads to up to an invisible place with invisible pasageways. Here's a clue how to find it: From the start, travel right and go where there's water falling down. The invisible passageway is above where the water is *starting* to fall from. It is outside the games' board.
Get inside the wall there and travel up (by pushing jump button) to the invisble passageway and walk around to find the place to get killed. (This is hard to do if you can't see where you are).
And after you get killed you'll suddenly reappear in a very odd area where all items that are found in the regular game, are kept. *Every* item (a frog, a snake, a spider, etc. etc) are frozen in many small squares! Even a small section of water is trapped in one of those squares and if you go there you may end up getting stuck. It's sometimes possible to swim out of the square.
It's very possible that this is a secret place that the game programmers never meant anyone go to this area. Once you're there, it's quite hard moving around. Sometimes you get stuck and it's hard getting unstuck. What is the purpose of this secret area? Why does it exits?
Whatever the reason, passing thru walls is very usefull for taking shortcuts and to get to places without keys!