Castlevania III Password Algorithm

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #6

scott_s wrote: post #2

As a kid, I was dumbfounded that passwords worked on NES games, and Castlevania III was my first introduction to the concept. I still remember staring at the screen not comprehending how putting in this combination of icons would get me my game back. I knew there’s no way they could manually create a password for every game state, but I also had no conception of discrete states, algorithms and hashing, so I literally…

Faxanadu passwords were the worst. Upper case, lower case, numbers, and some punctuation. It was, however, able to represent your inventory, location, money, etc. Pretty much a full state in ~24 characters, which I thought was very cool.. but 10-year old me didn't always write down the mantra correctly. You can read about this system here: http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/...

Post by ranaexmachina » Sun, Jan 03, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #12

fullstop wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faxanadu passwords were the worst. Upper case, lower case, numbers, and some punctuation. It was, however, able to represent your inventory, location, money, etc. Pretty much a full state in ~24 characters, which I thought was very cool.. but 10-year old me didn't always write down the mantra correctly. You can read about this system here: http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/...

I still think nothing beats Legend of the Mystical Ninja on Super NES. If you are playing a two player game and obtain a password, it's a full 60 characters you'll have to enter. For comparison, the Guardian Legend was 32 characters (like Faxandu) and Metroid was 24. I never played Magic of Scheherazade; looks like that weights in at 43 characters.

Post by greenknight » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 3:34 AM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #34

ranaexmachina wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Golden Sun series had a password system to transfer your progress from Golden Sun 1 to Golden Sun 2. If you wanted to transfer everything it was 260 characters. At least you only had to do this once and there was an option to use a link cable instead.

If memory serves, the Golden Sun games gave you a choice of three different levels of detail of data transfer via password.

Post by elihu » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

fullstop wrote: post #6

scott_s wrote: post #2

As a kid, I was dumbfounded that passwords worked on NES games, and Castlevania III was my first introduction to the concept. I still remember staring at the screen not comprehending how putting in this combination of icons would get me my game back. I knew there’s no way they could manually create a password for every game state, but I also had no conception of discrete states, algorithms and hashing, so I literally…

Faxanadu passwords were the worst. Upper case, lower case, numbers, and some punctuation. It was, however, able to represent your inventory, location, money, etc. Pretty much a full state in ~24 characters, which I thought was very cool.. but 10-year old me didn't always write down the mantra correctly. You can read about this system here: http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/...

Post by fullstop » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

dole wrote: post #32

fullstop wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faxanadu passwords were the worst. Upper case, lower case, numbers, and some punctuation. It was, however, able to represent your inventory, location, money, etc. Pretty much a full state in ~24 characters, which I thought was very cool.. but 10-year old me didn't always write down the mantra correctly. You can read about this system here: http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/...

River City Ransom passwords were terrible as well. Lower, upper case, accents.