Prize games

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I remember reading ads of Gyron, the first to complete the game would win a Porsche.

I recently read about another game, The Code:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=6095 .

"The first person to crack the code would win £2500, with 10 runners-up winning £25"



Do you remember any others 'prize games'?

[PeterJ]

Eureka had a £25,000 prize.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1661

[R-Tape]

I wonder if the £25000 ever materialised in either case?

The Prize had a substantial cash prize if you give the code supplied on completion, I can't find the amount though.

It's reassuringly naff and we'll worth a few plays.

[Morkin]

Pimania of course had the famous Golden Sundial of Pi. A great story and a good way to stretch the competition, as you could only claim the prize on a particular day of the year..! As far as I'm concerned you should have got a prize for getting off the first screen..

£25k and a Porsche seemed like incredibly valuable prizes for back then.

[MatGubbins]

From what I remember.....
Moon Cresta had a high score competition to win a video recorder.
Mountains Of Ket Trilogy had a video recorder up for grabs for completing all 3 parts.
Splat! had a high score prize to win £500.

[MatGubbins]

4x4 Off Road Racing had a Kawasaki KDX200 motorbike competition, it's in the advert, but I can't see anything mentioned on the inlay.

[MatGubbins]

Hareraiser had the golden hare of masquerade or £30,000!

[MatGubbins]

Jet Set Willy had a nice reward for getting the correct number of objects....

"In exchange for this information we will present the winner
with six champagne glasses and a case of Don Perignon
champagne. In addition to this a Jet Ranger helicopter will
pick you up for a flight above your town when you will get
the chance to meet Mathew Smith the author of Jet Set Willy
and the other No. 1 selling Spectrum game from Software"
Projects - Manic Miner.

[RMartins]

I could probably bet that all these were just marketing stunts, probably impossible to achieve or get right, and they could always say you were wrong

I really doubt any one has ever won such a prize.
Altough some look feasible by looking at the code.

[MonkZy]

Hareraiser had the golden hare of masquerade or £30,000!

I remember reading Masquerade as a child, the artwork was wonderful. I googled it because I never did find out if the prize golden hare was ever discovered. The chap who created Hareraiser apparently cheated his way to the hare by gaining some location information from Kit Williamsons ex girlfriend. At the bottom of the Hareraiser Wikipedia entry is a link to a retro gaming atricle that lists a few more games and the outcomes of each prize giving :

http://www.adamdawes.com/retrogaming/rg ... towin.html

It would seem most prizes were honoured, but not the golden hare. The game was too crap to make sales, prize or no prize The hare was sold to pay off the liquidators.

[Bizzley]

LOJIX was an early (1983) release from Virgin Games that was a simple Pentominoes-type puzzle. Virgin - according to the inlay- were placing 50p from each copy sold into a Bank Account, the entire contents of which would be paid out to the first person to solve the puzzle. It really was pretty easy so when I managed to solve it I though I'd get in touch with Virgin to stake my claim. Unfortunately according to the person at the other end of the phone I was the second person to have solved it so, sorry, no payout.

Unfortunately, having had dealings with Virgin Games later on, I am more than ready to believe that this was something told to every person who said they had solved the puzzle. Cynical old me.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Jet Set Willy had a nice reward for getting the correct number of objects....

"In exchange for this information we will present the winner
with six champagne glasses and a case of Don Perignon
champagne. In addition to this a Jet Ranger helicopter will
pick you up for a flight above your town when you will get
the chance to meet Mathew Smith the author of Jet Set Willy
and the other No. 1 selling Spectrum game from Software"
Projects - Manic Miner.

I'm sure they made the JSW bug on purpose!

[godeater85]

Hareraiser is completely solvable.
The first part of the game is a map of the Harrods department store, a hint about this was given in one of the game magazines, when the TV presenter went there from the program about this kind of games and treasure hunt.
But the second part could be "passed" only for the BBC micro platform - it was there that there were "rooms" with the name of the owner of Haresoft (before that he was anonymous) and the digital code that was needed to receive the prize.

the hare was in Harrods Bank, used as collateral for opening Haresoft.

if someone knows how to look at game resources, he will also find this code in all versions of the game. but the ad and articles were hinted at "for the whole family" and it was emphasized that "can be used on the school computer" and "we did two parts so that people of any age could win".