The Amiga's Hidden And Funny Developer Messages | Kim Justice

Piracy was rife on the Amiga, with almost every game getting cracked by various scene groups. Developers weren't fans of this and they often left messages and rants for them in the code -- sometimes angry, but usually hilarious. Enjoy these gems!
My Twitter: / kimxxxjustice
My Patreon: / kimblejustice
My PayPal: www.paypal.me/kimxxxjustice
My Twitch: / kim_justice
My 2nd channel: / @kimandsophia8079
Important links:
The Cutting Room Floor: www.tcrf.net
Codetapper's Amiga and C64 Site: www.codetapper.com
MomentVM (thanks for the great music!): / momentvm
Amiga Addict: www.amiga-addict.com/
(This is an extended version of an article that I originally wrote for the 1st issue of Amiga Addict back in 2021)
0:00 Intro
3:36 Mad Professor Mariarti
4:09 Xenon
4:59 Dragon's Lair
6:22 Naughty Ones
8:00 Blood Money
9:03 Suspicious Cargo
10:27 Fire and Forget
11:12 Perihelion
13:56 Eco Phantoms
15:02 Street Gang
15:47 Mr Blobby
16:03 Saint & Greavsie
16:51 Richard Aplin
17:27 Final Fight
22:13 Lotus 2
22:53 Cannon Fodder
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#kimjustice #retrogaming #commodoreamiga #gamingfacts #gamingsecrets

[@Kim_Justice]

Ah, the good old days of copied floppies. How many did you have? Were you a part of the Sun Hill Cowboys, or some other group? Have a good shout in the comments, and thanks for watching. :)

[@goldstrings6295]

Still happy to see the video's coming... wow, it's gotta be ten years of reviews now... grafter! 💯 Been listening since the very first flashback mega weeview !

[@noakesy316]

I've still got mine! 207 copied floppies and 34 original games. Amiga 500+ ....it's the same colour as an 80 year old chain smokers teeth but still works as well as the day I had it 32 years ago!

[@Lollero200q]

Sounds lame

[@meh3247]

Nice try, FBI. >Insert visible winking emoji...

[@wakkru]

Still have Jaguar XJ220 and Ambermoon original at home. Whom you can see their age in the meantime....... (As with me😁)

[@bob23301]

Ironically today it was the pirates and hackers who have made it possible today for all those games to still be around, because without them all these games would have been gone by now.

[@heavysystemsinc.]

Probably the interesting part of piracy though is the afterlife, when all of the original companies ceased to exist or copyrights are lost in a sea of acquisitions, the pirated versions that still float around are the only way to perform any meaningful archeology into the software libraries of these games. If we wait for the actual companies to do it, they'll charge an arm and a leg, do a half assed job and be absolutely incomplete in terms of the catalog. I mean, seriously...does anyone actually expect Konami to release the arcade version of Rollergames? Are they even legally able to if they wanted?

[@GregDaniel78]

One of those pleas which was directed to "consumers" of cracked games actually worked. I got hold of Thalion's Lionheart via nefarious means and reading the readme, I knew the writing was on the wall for amiga development in general. I saved up and bought that expensive bastard. And boy was it a worthy purchase. Not only was it an amazing game. I *saved the amiga games industry*.

[@djcactus]

There were a few shops where I stay where they just had lists of games they would put into blanks for you. Open in broad daylight, no shame. They even sold you xcopy if you wanted. Crazy

[@MickeyD2012]

The world used to be a better place, filled with happy people. It wasn't perfect, but people were happy.

[@noakesy316]

I still remember that feeling staring at the X Copy screen dreading the red X of doom

[@Nolasco.]

I remember the developers of Machinarium (Amanita design) did some constructive message from their part to players to prevent the game being pirated. I bought two physical copies and one digital to support them. Machinarium is such a great game ☺️ Thanks for the video Kim 💕

[@LarixusSnydes]

Amanita Design is one of my favourites. Such lovely drawn characters and great storytelling... I own copies of all of the games they have published so far.

[@YukaTakeuchiFan]

Hey, I didn't copy that floppy... _gets shifty eyes, and quickly gets away in my downloaded car_

[@angrycandy5441]

Guys, CDs are almost impossible to copy. It's all over.

[@TruckerJenkins82]

That X-Copy screen brings back a heck of a lot of good memories

[@syrus3k]

So many glowing lightbulbs of success

[@TruckerJenkins82]

@@syrus3k All the boxes filled with those little green 'o's of delight.

[@marksims3904]

The Amiga, we shall NEVER see such times again. The ideas, the originality, the beauty of 68000 machine code. The blitter, devpac, protracker, x-copy III, Deluxe Paint..........Directory Opus. And the keyboard was a joy to type on, you couldn't make a mistake because of the way the keyboard was designed. LOVE the Commodore Amiga.

[@raymoreton3184]

Agreed with that, since the first times I set eyes on one I wanted one and when I managed to save up and buy my first (used that is) at school it has been my fav machine it's just an incredible experience that kids now I don't think will appreciate properly because they did not see the development and experience going from lower quality things to better, they do make improvements but not like it used to be.

[@gavinburnett5641]

Agreed - the A500 keyboard was the best I have ever typed on - soft and precise.

[@bradallen8909]

@@gavinburnett5641The A500 keyboard sucked! The keyboards from the 2000, 3000, 4000 were far superior.

[@TekMerc]

Fairlight, Skidrow & Paradox. Seeing all those old intros is pure nostalgia.

[@otaking3582]

Earlier today, I was trying to signify my street cred by mentioning the secret Final Fight epilogue that Richard "Mad as a Hatter" Aplin added, in which Mike Haggard contracts a fatal disease after molesting sheep. I think they thought I was crazy and just ignored that part...

[@Peter-MH]

And this sort of thing still goes on! I’ve read a number of messages left by former employees in firewall configs at work over the years!!

[@zarchieboy]

Awesome as always Kim! 🎉 And to my big surprise an upload credit for me in there.. glad you found use for the Crionics upload I did more than a decade ago ❤ Still got over a 1000 floppies with all my wares from back then .. X-Copy was king together with a few extra external floppy drives 🎉 Greetz from Denmark 😊 /Zarch (of Triflex+Addonic, Passion, Royal, Hellfire, Prestige aaaaand Red Sector Inc.)

[@twankistevenson3884]

Gotta admit while I had a ton of "Completely legitimate compilation tapes (TM)" I actually never had any Amiga pirates as far as I can remember (then again all my friend were on SNES or Megadrive by then). Great vid as always Kim

[@Jayfive276]

It was Automation, Pompey Pirates and The Medway Boys menu discs that filled my Atari ST games case back in the day :)

[@poco_a_poco_music]

Exactly the same here. Also, thank you for owning an ST

[@RetroUnlim]

Ahhh the good old days of taking my Amiga 1200, along with my friend carrying a small television on the bus every Sunday evening to my local towns Computer Club, buying blanks and copying the latest games. Unethical now, but back then it was but just a young man’s dream ❤😁 Great video Kim!

[@misterdedlift4879]

That was the roast equivalent of Mike Haggar's piledriver.

[@kragle88]

This is awesome Kim! Enjoyed every second! Cracktros were part of my growing up with Amiga and wouldn't have been the same without them in a way... Good to hear the other side of it too!

[@red2]

I remember back then piracy was rife. One day a policeman knocked on my door and he heard from someone I had a certain copied game (I shit myself).. but he hadn't come to arrest me he wanted a copy! True story.

[@fighter604]

Naaaaah, that must have removed 10years from your life

[@Codetapper]

3:36 Mad Professor Mariarti 4:09 Xenon 4:59 Dragon's Lair 6:22 Naughty Ones 8:00 Blood Money 9:03 Suspicious Cargo 10:27 Fire and Forget 11:12 Perihelion 13:56 Eco Phantoms 15:02 Street Gang 15:47 Mr Blobby 16:03 Saint & Greavsie 16:51 Richard Aplin 17:27 Final Fight 22:13 Lotus 2 22:53 Cannon Fodder

[@Kim_Justice]

I knew I'd forget something. Do you mind if I put this in the description please?

[@Codetapper]

@@Kim_Justice Of course not, go for it. Can you also fix the link to the two websites up above containing the hidden messages, as you haven't put the https prefix so they aren't actual links like the others. Also if you do another follow up, Llamatron is a great one with the Oh F---! message 🤣

[@Kim_Justice]

Ta very much :)

[@jesusnuclear]

4:45 My apologies for being fussy, but minor typo here. The name of the spanish company is "Dinamic". I know the right word is "dynamic" (or dynamis in its greek origin in any case), but I guess Ruiz brothers (founders of Dinamic) wanted to spanishize it. Anyway, very interesting vid, thank you, kim!

[@GadgetUK164]

Fantastic idea for a video =D Some great hidden messages there!

[@skywalkerranch]

Never admit to having a floppy. Great stuff, Kim, as usual.

[@nobodyhere22500]

Perihelion was such a cool game. In the end they had one up on the people trying to crack the game though: There was a computer terminal you had to access in the game in order to progress, usually by finding in game hints on the word you needed to type to access the terminal. But one of the hints was in the instruction manual, and since it was part of the gameplay, not the copy protection, you could play a cracked copy just fine but not progress after a certain point. If you like Eye of the Beholder style games, Perihelion is one of the great hidden gems on the Amiga.

[@Andulvar]

Game developers back than thought cracking a game should have taken the same amount of time it took to write the game. In reality you're just finding a few key files and either removing them or telling the system that they're there and to play the game. Good to see that you posted one of the old crack teams on there that are technically still around, though it's always been a different group of people. Though today their cracks are garbage and should be avoided. For those interested in Atari cracks, look up Automation.

[@galahadscxscoopex5190]

Jesus wept, tell me you dont understand cracking without telling me you dont understand cracking.

[@mgtproductions9524]

I used to pirate type in programs from the early 1980s by copying them in pencil from magazines from WH Smiths on Southend High Street. It was a lengthy process but it worked for me.

[@Satori2046]

What a fantastic video. Never heard of these hidden messages :) But I got to say, glory to Fairlight :)

[@Larry]

YOu don't sub to me then :P

[@trip2themoon]

I'd never heard of them either but I did love a good cracker's intro. Fairlight and Medway Boys are the only names I remember. Medway Boys were ST. Probably because both were so prolific on their respective systems that their names stick in mind. What I took from this is that some of the developers were bitter that the cracker's intro was actually better than the game itself. Final Fight was terrible on the Amiga.

[@Zoulz666]

Had a teacher in school growing up that had an Amiga and tons of disks. Me and a friend would sometimes pop over and bother the poor dude to copy games.

[@MOSMASTERING]

I got my Atari St as a replacement for my ZX Spectrum when I was about 8 years old. So many amazing memories. My dad knew someone from work who was part of a ‘computer club’ in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. We would drive to his house every couple of months with piles of blank disks and he would do me Automation, Pompey Pirates, Flame of Finland and other group compilations. It was epic. I can’t remember his name, but he had an incredible set up with 2 disk drives so copies were pretty quick. While my dad and him chatted while the copies were being done, I’d hang with his kids and watch films. Amazing times..

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

And to think that if it weren't for these pirates, most of these games would be unplayable and/or completely forgotten these days.

[@andrecondesso8057]

This is one of the Best videos i've ever seen! Kim just nailz it in the vivid way he represents various personalities and moods,of the authors of these odd hidden msgs.its fantastic i've watched twice in a row.tks

[@joecincotta5805]

Love this episode so much... Nicely done 👍 Bonus points for the cracktro footage

[@ihateevilbill]

Hi Kim. Love your videos. Im not the kind of person that will go out and watch everything a youtuber uploads. However, you and Larry Bundy's videos give me a warm and fuzzy feeling and a strong feeling of nostlagia. Its like sitting in my room when I was a teenager watching shows like Bad Influence and Games Master. Keep up the awesome work my friend.

[@TimChuma]

I can remember some copied games also came with a photocopy of the copy protection

[@mattedsmith]

In the relatively niche hobby of Amiga and retro, I don't think you could have found a more niche topic Kim. Excellent video!

[@redhat9691]

Very cool video, there's absolutely an increase in production value and audio, nice work

[@adammc2]

Really enjoyed the video, Kim-thanks for sharing it! Also, I appreciate the links provided. While I find Codetapper's online presence dissapointing (he's a total troll on social media), his website does offer a useful collection of resources. It's unfortunate that his personality doesn't quite match the quality of his content.

[@terriblecoughing4767]

Great vid. Feel better, Kim and hope to see you back livestreaming soon.

[@MysteriousChunk]

I remember a demo disk with three games where it let you enter y/n to run each game. If you said 'n' to each one, it would then say smthing like "idiot. Wander endlessly in the effluvium of dos". That's how I learned what the word effluvium meant.

[@suvetar]

Had to read the Amstrad CPC text and found myself listening to Pink Floyd again ... Good afternoon all around, Thanks Kim!

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

Pirating Amiga games who would do such a thing?

[@alphabetaxenonzzzcat]

I think I remember the "Fairlight" cracking group from Scandinavia, as I had a few games off of them(Pinball Dreams being one of them).

[@Waccoon]

17:30 - Absolutely beautiful. "Amiga Disk Drives Inside and Out": oh gosh... I have that book downstairs and indeed the code inside is wretched.

[@mikeyandwho]

Richard Costas is Ricky or Rick Costas programmer of Eco Phantoms and Global Effects

[@MegaWayneD]

Great video, Kim! There's something hilarious about the way you say "TWAT!" I have copied floppies from back in the day but I've just bought an Amiga 2000 and that came with a serious amount of copied floppies, I could honestly tile my walls with the things.

[@JesusKrispies]

The only demo art I recall anymore was from whoever cracked the copy of Ironman Off Road I had. Looping animation of a devil sodomizing a cherub, implying that their hacker group was bumming some other hacker group. Y'know, in retrospect it's no surprise at all that this is how the internet ended up

[@WeirdWonderful]

So...how long DID it take for a full crack of Perihelion to come out ?

[@Blackadder75]

3 weeks

[@retrorobbins]

Oh yes the special hidden messages, for I to have came across many of these messages in humble Spectrum games ,😉 usually at the start where the program loads,hack the Loader hack the game.. do you remember the badge that was giving out to young children on a certain Sinclair magazine, encouraging people to grass on their friends ( sprogs beat the bugs ) . I wore it with pride, it was my secret badge of hacking honour 😂😂 as always fantastic video really enjoyed watching thank you kindly

[@jasoncreighton5140]

My fav hidden messages on Spectrum games, one was where the programmer was moaning that it was Rods to turn to make the tea, another was about a copper that kept stopping the programmer every week

[@jonbourgoin182]

You make videos about topics I didn't even know I wanted to know about until you release them. I noticed that you seem to be good friends with Larry, which is great because I sort of consider you to be his sister channel in a way. I hope that makes sense in a positive way.

[@exidy-yt]

Alien Breed really does look like the biz. It came out just as I sold my Amiga to finance my first PC so I never got the chance to play it during it's heyday, I have to go give it a go now. Great summary of the inside of the Amiga scene! I was on the periphery and wrote a couple of those scrolling parallax messages to fellow groups in my area, but that was about it. Being based in Vancouver Canada, only Australians were farther away from the core of the scene then us. Nonetheless, good memories.

[@p0k314COM]

One of the best of your videos.

[@sambagogo777]

Piracy never broke any console I ever owned but with PS1, PSP and PS3 Sony's crappy build quality certainly did!

[@rlacombe]

Ahhhh the glory days of copying discs. It was part of the culture and part of childhood.

[@C64_Mat]

I genuinely, literally didn't know a single friend who had an original game. Everyone who had a 16bit micro just had plastic boxes full of blue disks with hand written labels.

[@VBrancoPT]

Reminds me of that quote, "Winners don't use drugs". In this case... if you use cheats, you're a loser.

[@TimChuma]

Hopefully you get to write something on this in the ZZAP Amiga issues coming up. I loved the story they had on "Jesus on Es" in the annual and people on KZbin saying they taped the music and "used to rave on the bus" to it

[@happy2bhardcore420]

interesting to hear the Lotus II hidden message - knew of the trivia but hadnt 'heard' the message. Also - utter Banger of a track! must be a top 40 of Amiga theme songs - chuck Rock, Dizzy, Supercars II, Pinball dreams, Lotus II

[@MatthewJohnCrittenden]

The classic misspelling of Professional in a rant ... Fun times back then as a kid in the UK.

[@TYNEPUNK]

wow, loving this, went and read the final fight one. Makes me laugh, especially since it was written in 91.. seems quite modern.

[@MirageEP]

Guess those guys from Morbid Visions were Sepultura fans...

[@sambagogo777]

"Soopa Fannycon" PMSL

[@meh3247]

Ah those were the days... _That I was absolutely not a part of. At all. Ever. Nope. Not I..._

[@mattbroadbentmusic5602]

Awesome video once more ❤

[@ReigningSemtex]

Good stuff Kim

[@alexstokoe2542]

Remember the Championship Manager copy protection remaining intact so we all passed round a list of the scores you had to type in to pass it. Pretty sure Game 5 on Page 29 on the Championship Manager Italia 95 was 2-0. And that's just reminded me of how for some annoying reason a load of great strikers on there were turned into wingers [Del Piero MA R, Tino MA L] for some reason. Grrr.

[@tomkrawec]

This is fantastic.

[@grongy6122]

Damn, Randy Linden is pure class.

[@KarlHamilton]

Lovely stuff

[@colinthomson7518]

I love listening to your voice your videos are spot on and very Interesting.

[@richtakings3359]

1:18 Andy Crane was on drugs.....it's the only possible explanation. The phrase "Almost impossible" means...Andy? Come on Andy it's an easy one.

[@georgemaragos2378]

And no mention of amiga quick nibble program with the pirate theme song

[@davel231]

Love the System Shock reference!

[@mehere3013]

red sector music on the great Giana sisters was good , and it took them ages to crack the game aswell

[@admiralbees1690]

The music and graphics from the cracking teams gives me a bigger case of the memberberries than the actual games

[@Blackadder75]

didn;t you read the message: half assed pseudo house tracks and lame metallic deluxe paint kitch.. . :D

[@admiralbees1690]

@@Blackadder75 I didn't say they were good. I inferred I remember them fondly as part of my childhood.

[@Blackadder75]

@@admiralbees1690 I was just joking, repeating the words of one of those butt-hurt coders in the video

[@admiralbees1690]

@@Blackadder75 Sorry mate. I didn't mean to be so spikey. You have a good day.

[@davelister1]

The Amiga, what a time and that Xcopy brought back memories

[@davedogge2280]

Before I watch this video, I'm not even going to write here what the secret password for Amiga New Zealand Story was for infinite lives.

[@antonysnook4932]

I got a game for my AMIGA 500 in College from a friend of mine in College. He gave it me in a box at break and it was live on surveillance Vidio. A Police officer who walked around caught me and nearly pressed charges. Now i am going to watch free movies and TV on Pluto and Tubi.

[@dragonchaserkev]

What was it about a young Violet Berlin? I hear angels sing whenever I see her.

[@radek4634]

Damn, and I thought todays developers were sad, selfabsorbed people, but the ones from those old days top it all. As a kid I only had a few original games, that was always a big expense for me. And you know what? Half of them were unplayable for me, despite the fact that I seriously considered these purchases. Some were too difficult, others just looked cool only in screenshots and reviews written by people who got these titles for free and didn't care, and during the game it turned out that they were not very playable, not to mention the ones with bugs. And the titles that I remember today with nostalgia are none of the original games that I bought. Games that I remember today I had and know only thanks to pirates. I have many of them on gog today, not to play them, but to have them in my collection, even a virtual one. Therefore, if I were to send a message from myself from the past to developers from the past, it would be - fuck you too.

[@Larry]

Was there any hidden hacker goading in Bloggo's Pow! as well? :D Aplin's commentary even bleeds into the level select cheat for Final Fight!

[@Melsharpe95]

From my Speccy days in school: A bunch of us got together and decided what games to buy as a group. We made sure not to buy the same games but all get different ones. We'd then borrow each other's games and put them all on a single cassette. We'd borrow that tape to the kids who had no money so they got to play games too. In 2022 games industry revenue was worth $184.4 billion. So my little gang of 12yr olds didn't have that much of an effect, did it?

[@RolexTharsus]

"X-Copy 2 - Maraud it Professional"

[@Right_Said_Brett]

Some of these developers were Interneting before the Internet was a thing; all this talk of "You have no personality, no life and you live in your Parents' basement". XD

[@Phoenix2312]

Ahhhhhh! I have to admit... Miss these developer messages... I was never in the "Scene" - But I did see many being published in Magazines back in the day, and they were so fun! I wish that Developers - Or Rather publishers as they pull all the strings now - would let Developers and Coders leave these in once more!

[@syrus3k]

Who could forget skid row

[@TheJesterGuy_]

I wonder if those people who've written those anti-piracy messages coming back to read them nowadays would either do a hearty laughter or feel secondhand embarrassment after reading such messages since mostly of them aged like fine milk, and now their games they worked so hard for now can be only played through pirated copies or being rich enough to venture yourself into acquiring them through the likes of eBay. I also wonder how they feel that nowadays you don't even own the games you buy but a license to play them, and some of them featuring such aggressive copy protection like Denuvo. Looks like time has once again proved who was right all along.

[@michaelsalisbury1960]

the one thing i would like too know is why the atari st had multiple pirate games on one disk and the amiga usually just one

[@gavinburnett5641]

Did anyone have an original copy of X-Copy? Could you actually buy this program? A mystery of the Amiga world.

[@teofilled]

fun fact: Morbid Visions used slightly altered graphics ripped from the legendary Hardwired demo's intro.

[@dawbsNoLongerRGR]

I am ashamed (now) to admit that probably 99% of my Amiga games were backups...... I've made amends now, I promise.

[@JuanPerez-cs1gx]

played tons of warez games back in Uni. Although I am grateful thanks to these groups and certain websites I could play games when I didn't have money and the only PC games available for a while in stores in my hometown were Flight Simulator expansions and Myst, the elaborate "dick measuring contest"/"territory marking intros" attached to someone else's product felt kind of embarrassing. The screeching "music" added to some of the intros and installers didn't help either.

[@GuitarAnthony]

Sweet sweet XCopy. I miss you so.

[@5cyndi]

19:34 lmao 🤣

[@Touhou-forever]

Amazing

[@808v1]

yes Kim Justice!

[@faenethlorhalien]

Let's be honest: gaming wouldn't be where it is if it weren't for piracy. Piracy has HELPED the industry, actually. Just imagine Windows. Even Gates, in the end, had to concede and admit that pirated versions of the systems helped it become the default OS for 90% of the users. Also, piracy happens mostly because it's easier and BETTER to get pirated material than original one. If original soft is easily accessible and affordable, people are willing to pay. Just see the success of Steam. I for one never pay for any games that come with Denuvo and similar DRM that tanks your GPU performance and punishes your cpu and gpu fans. Always pirate such games, so that publishers get the message that they need to start treating potential customers like innocents, and not as potential pirates, because the current situation for me is a self-fulfulling prophecy.

[@Blackadder75]

this. when I was young , most big box PC games costed €100-€130 in 2023 money (adjusted for inflation) that is just bonkers!!! If they were lets say €30, I would have bought a bunch, but they kept increasing the prices... So we just copied them

[@mikeyandwho]

Medway Boys rule ! Great vid

[@evlofenn]

I feel it takes a fellow Brit, of which I can tell from these comments there are a number of here, too enunciate the word 'Twat' correctly. In this video Kim gives us several wonderful examples, bloody good show!