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Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

mrwint.github.io

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Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#11

Post by vladms »

g4zj wrote: post #6
_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

Besides not being a one time activation, it was not a "one key". The game would ask you for "N-th word on the M-th paragraph on P-th page", at each start for example. We are talking about an age where you would not have scanners or mobile phones with cameras.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#12

Post by jermaustin1 »

g4zj wrote: post #6
_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

It wasn't individual per install. Anyone with the game manual could find the word or code in the book. Some games asked for a random word from the manual on boot, so you couldn't just share the code, you needed to share the entire manual (or decompile or something to find all the words it is looking for).

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#13

Post by ClearAndPresent »

g4zj wrote: post #6
_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

One that comes to mind was the manuals and bits and pieces that came with Infocom text-based adventure games. They were nice bits of cruft to have alongside the actual game but in certain instances puzzles within the game could only be solved by referring to something on the card, or booklet, supplied with the game. I can't recall if it was The Hitchhiker's Guide, or Leather Goddess of Phobos, but the requirement popped up quite deep into the game.

They weren't license keys, persey, as all the printed material was the same, but a tacit test as to whether you had bought the actual game, or just copied the disk.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#14

Post by StanislavPetrov »

_mlbt wrote: post #8
g4zj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

Yes because the license key was easy to write down on a sticky note and provide it with the copied floppy disk. With this mechanism you either needed to have a copy of the entire manual, or at least all the answers to the questions it would ask.

I remember one of the later Wizardry games (I believe it was Return of Werdna) came with a pamphlet full of codes that was printed on very dark brown paper that made it very difficult to make legible photocopies.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#15

Post by llm_nerd »

_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

SimCity had a hard to copy (at the time) red/black card with city populations, and during the game it would ask you for the population or name of cities based upon a graphical indicator lookup. If you failed the check it would inflict an unending series of disasters on your city.

There have been a couple of times even in modern games like Civ 6 where everything goes so wrong I wonder if somehow it erroneously flagged itself as pirated for some reason.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#16

Post by pjc50 »

g4zj wrote: post #6
_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

It was effectively a "distributed" license key, broken into a large number of parts and structured as a challenge-response, so that it would be difficult to answer without a full photocopy of the manual.

My favourite variant of this was F-19 Stealth Fighter asking you to do aircraft identification, which you could get from the manual .. or any library book on US warplanes.

Least favourite was some game (TMNT?) which printed the codes in gloss black on matte black.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#17

Post by Ayesh »

vladms wrote: post #11
g4zj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

Besides not being a one time activation, it was not a "one key". The game would ask you for "N-th word on the M-th paragraph on P-th page", at each start for example. We are talking about an age where you would not have scanners or mobile phones with cameras.

To the adult me, this sounds tedious and not really worth. But the teen myself, I'm sure I would totally do it even I have to solve some riddle.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#18

Post by llm_nerd »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #12
g4zj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this functionally different from a typical license key or activation key?

It wasn't individual per install. Anyone with the game manual could find the word or code in the book. Some games asked for a random word from the manual on boot, so you couldn't just share the code, you needed to share the entire manual (or decompile or something to find all the words it is looking for).

And the manuals usually themselves had "copy protection". Many were printed in variations of dark colours, such that any easily accessible copier would just copy a black page.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#19

Post by guappa »

_mlbt wrote: post #3

My favorite copy protection scheme was where you needed to enter some text from the printed manual that came with the game. The disks were easy to copy but the manuals required significant effort. I also just really miss printed game manuals.

It was massively annoying even if you had bought the game though.

Also later games that wanted the CD to be in the drive to be played.

Re: Uncovering the mechanics of The Games: Winter Challenge

#20

Post by Reason077 »

"The “Razor1911” crack (1991)

Finally, we get to the only crack that actually works properly. Congratulations to Razor1911 for being the only ones not fooled by the game’s trickery."

No surprise here! I was never all that deep in the Warez scene, but every nerdy kid in the early 1990s knew that Razor 1911 were the most l33t game crackers around. It was kind of a mark of quality on any game. If Razor 1911 released it you knew that not only was it cracked competently, it was probably a good game too!

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