/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5672503
The deal with that is that they were intending to have a contest.
You had this big fucking bullshit maze of pushwalls, and there's a couple of different possible destinations, one where you would found a sign that says "CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF", and if you did, you would win like a lifetime of free games from Apogee.
They realized immediately on release though that there would be editors and stuff to take the game apart and look at the graphics and the levels, so they just decided to never announce the contest at all.

>>4131486
Funny story, that huge pushwall maze was supposed to be part of a contest, at one of the ends of the maze you can find a floating sign exclaiming "CALL APOGEE: SAY AARDWOLF"

The idea being you were supposed to call them and give them the secret word, then you'd win, or be elligble to win, a lifetime's supply of free games from Apogee.
They ended up scrapping the contest at the last minute though because tools to cheat and to take the game apart and look at it's individual files popped up pretty fast, so they felt there wouldn't be any fair outcomes possible.

In some of the ports the sign graphic is replaced with a pile of generic bones, but most of the ports which has the level still keeps the pushwall maze intact. It's generally not possible to get 100% secrets on E2M8 without some sort of cheat utility, as you'll block yourself off at branching paths. There's something like 100+ pushwalls in there.

It's an odd little artifact of it's time.