Difference between revisions of "Ten Pin Alley/Hidden content"

From Sega Retro

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*'''Animated Alley Load:'''
 
*'''Animated Alley Load:'''
 
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*'''Pan Camera with aim:'''
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"Options" on the main menu will also change its name to "Options Plus".
 
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Revision as of 10:50, 20 March 2023

Back to: Ten Pin Alley.
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This list is incomplete.
The following list has been marked as incomplete. If you can, please complete it.

Note: Many of these "Easter eggs" were revealed by Saturn programmer Nathan Mates on his personal website between 13th November, 1998 and 5th Feburary, 2000[1].

Options Plus and More Options Plus

TenPinAlley Saturn US OptionsPlus1.png

TenPinAlley Saturn US OptionsPlus2.png

TenPinAlley Saturn US OptionsPlus3.png

Highlight "Options" on the main menu and hold L+X+Y while selecting with A or C. This will add two new menus: "Options Plus" and "More Options Plus" with the following settings:

  • Meter Shaking:
  • Postal Edie:
  • Scoreboard Contrast:
  • Meter Foulup Guides:
  • Allow Uneven Teams:
  • Beginner Tournaments:
  • More lane decorations:
  • Character reactions:
  • Meter Visible:
  • Alley Color Cycling:
  • Flashing TPA Sign: Enable or disable the flashing Ten Pin Alley sign on the main menu.
  • Animated Alley Load:
  • Pan Camera with aim:

"Options" on the main menu will also change its name to "Options Plus".

Developer messages

TenPinAlley Saturn US Text.png

Highlight "Credits" on the main menu and hold L+X+Y while selecting with A or C. This will display a very long set of messages from programmer Nathan Mates, detailing technical details, thanking people and things and listing some of his favourite music:

Message contents 
SALUT LES PURCHASERS D'UN SEGA SATURN!
    Have you ever seen such a thing on the Sega Saturn?  Well, *I*
haven't.  Anyhow, you've found the fun scrolltext from Ten Pin Alley
Saturn... this is one of many easter eggs. So I had a little
fun! You should appreciate them.

   This scrolltext has NOTHING to do with the management at Adrenalin,
ASC, or the like. It's just a programmer sitting behind a keyboard too
bored stiff to program, but still wanting to do "something" for the
game. Oh well, this is just fluff. If you don't like this, then press
a button on the gamepad go get out of this and forget you ever saw it.
 
    DISCLAIMER: this product contains matter, and therefore has a
small but finite chance of spontaneously "tunneling" into a completely
different thing, one which may not bear any resemblance to that was
advertised. Ain't quantum mechanics great? :)

    And first a word from our sponsor: Jesus loves you and died for your
sins. Nothing you can do can get you to heaven except for faith in him.
You may think you can get along fine without him, but God's just being
gracious in keeping you alive long enough to get a clue.

    Those of you who've seen the PSX/95 version of this game will note
the lack of "Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum" video, as well as the
unanimated logos at the start. Well, ASC, the publisher, initially
promised to fork over the $ so that we could get a rather nice (rhymes
with Puck) movieplayer going. I spent a while getting it working. Then
ASC decides to get cheap-ass on us, and didn't want to spend the money
anymore. Thus, you get Nathan's 5-minute hack of still frame and a
CDDA track. Yeah, I don't think it looks that great either, but it was
that or get the game out even LATER. Blech.

    Technotes! platform-independent physics code: 8869 lines of C (and
headers) in 21 files. Saturn-specific code: 22141 lines (709K) of C
code. Just for the curious. Yes, this game's essentially written in
straight C, using the SGL 3.02 libraries from you-know-who. Runs at
30fps with no noticeable slowdown in the game (I know parts of the
menus run under 30fps, but I don't care :). 

    A word to those who'd like to contact me: I am online, and I get
enough email anyways, and drooling fanmail might be nice, but I'd
rather not get much of that. So, keep it to a minimum-- just go tell
all your friends to buy Ten Pin Alley for the Sega Saturn, and also
post glowing reviews (jut kidding-- if the unthinkable happens and a
big bug ships, then feel free to cut me down in public)
online. That'll make me a lot happier than any email.

    If you've pirated this game, you owe me and the company $$$. Pay
up, scum.  You're not helping the price of games any. If you pirates
had any real guts, you'd shoplift on videotape. Ooooh, you might get
caught. And have to pay the penalty. But, then you'd be a pirate who
cared enough to stand up for your beliefs, rather than a sniveling
coward pirating games and getting your jollies from .jpgs.

Joke from the programmer:   
Q: How can you tell that Bill Clinton is lying?   A: His lips are moving.

    [Did I need to mention I've got about 300K more Clinton jokes
online? No, go find them yourself. Plenty of web search engines
exist. In fact, I've got over 22MB of humor online]

     Hellos to the guys in the office: Matt, for recoverting all the
art at least 15,000 times until we were happy with it, and never yet
going postal on me. Greg and Peter, for getting the sound efx
converted according to my specs (I *TOLD* you we could pull it
off. And get that cassette tape out of the jewel box for stores! The
Saturn does sound better than that :) Mark M, for buying lots of food
to keep me going during all the late night programming sessions. Ofer,
Alex, Dave for the code I borrowed from your versions, and being
generally cool people to waste time with.  Alan, Ian, Bernie for all
the original art. Mark C, for bouncing ideas off of, and hammering on
a few pests. Randy and Tim for fixing and/or replacing all the
equipment that spontaneously fell apart on my work machines-- current
tally is 2 SCSI drives, 1 SCSI controller, 4 IDE CD-ROM drives, 1 SCSI
cable, 1 Mouse, 1 case, and at least 20 copies of Windoze 0.95. Jay
(another 'Techer!)  for founding this rather fun company, Adrenalin
Entertainment.

      Special thanks to Linus Torvalds and the rest of the Linux project
for making a far more stable OS than anything out of Mickeysoft, as
the computer AI coding required a *LOT* of number crunching, and
Doze95 couldn't cut it. Since our physics engine is real nice and
portable, it compiled right away and ran without crashing the whole
OS. 20-30% faster execution with gcc -O2 versus VC4.2 full opts on the
same hardware. Remember, you don't have to bend over for the pretty
icons in the OS; real geeks don't need anything more than a vt100.

      Also special thanks to the makers of caffeinated sugary soft
drinks, candy, and other snacks. An IV drip of nutrients, and I could
be at work 14 hours a day without moving. Hmmm; better get me a better
chair before I try anything like that.  

     In case you haven't fed this CD to a desktop computer or
workstation yet, go try it.  Poke around; you might find some neat
stuff on it. And if you're stuck with a small (640x480) screen,
sorry. Go find one of many graphic utility programs for computers to
resize them down. I'd rather ship with the extra quality, as you can
shrink pix without problems, but blowing up stuff makes them look
rotten. As a bonus, I've managed to put on some of the *VERY* old
original design art for the game that became TPA. Yeah, you'll see
the PSX controller on it, but just ignore that. 

   Also hellos to the Colliderz team here in the building. Get your
game out already, lots of people are wanting to play it! And hellos to
TK Yang, the other inhouse Saturn programmer for bouncing some ideas
off of, and explaining random crud. Good luck with your web sites! 
[Oops. As of this writing, Colliderz is in trouble... If/when it
makes it out the door, then you'll see it]

   Well, that list of 'around the office' includes quite a few folks
who have left the building. Best wishes to those who've gone on to
greener pastures...

   And computer type folks outside the office: SEGA DTS (Hi EDTS) for
putting up with all my questions, and only RTFMing me a few times when
necessary.  ASC for putting this game on the shelves. Sega of Japan's
AM* divisions, for really raising the bar so high for quality Saturn
games. [And the idea for a rather fun easter egg... return of the
monster anime-sized heads :]

     Folks *really* outside the office: hello, Mom & Dad. Thanks for
raising me, sending me to college, etc. One of these days you'll be
able to understand what I'm doing... maybe. :) Hi, Jeremy.  Also
hellos to the congregation of Hope Chapel, Sepulveda Blvd, Hermosa
Beach, CA. Special hellos to the Pastor, Zac. (He's covered like 20
verses of the book of Hebrews while TPA's been in development. Maybe
he'll finish a chapter by the next milennium shows up in 2001 :) Hope
Chapel is a cool church!  Show up one day, willya? I usually attend
the 7PM Friday service, mostly since that's one of the easiest ones to
wake up for :)

    Q: What do you need to do to go to hell?                               
A: Absolutely nothing.             You do need to do something to go to
heaven: accept Jesus into your heart and believe in him.


   Special thanks to all the manufacturers of caffeinated soft drinks
and candy for making this game possible :)

   Games making the honor roll of ones that have slowed TPA/Saturn's
development down somewhat: DN3D + PPak, TR PC/3dfx, WC2 (plus a few
hundred extra levels just to prove that the computer's AI really
sucks), C&C:RA, Df, SS/Sat, and a few more. All game titles are
copyrighted to their copyright holders, and have been
acronymized/misspelled to avoid any potential legal problems. Your
mileage may vary. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Go play what you want
to play. If you don't like this, then press a button to stop reading
this and go do whatever's legal that makes you happy.

    Music making the honor roll of things I listened to a lot in
development, in no particluar order. [Well, the order in which the
piles of CDs current lie on my desk, which isn't much of one] Babylon
5 Soundtracks 1 & 2. Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories. Please Save My
Earth.  Bubblegum Crisis Vocal collection 1 & 2. The Echoing Green:
Defend Your Joy & Aurora 7.2. Alphaville: *. Tenchi Muyo: *. Video
Girl Ai: *. _Dune_ original soundtrack. _Batman_ soundtrack. _Blade
Runner_ soundtrack (the real one by Vangelis, not the cruddy original
one). Macross +: *. _Les Miserables_: 2-disc London cast. Rhythm
Saints: Contiuum. Tangerine Dream: Tryanny of Beauty, Turn of the
Tides, The Dream Mixes, Best of Berlin, Fushigi Yuugi: *. Pet Shop
Boys: *. Paradigm Shift. Beethoven Symphonies 1-9. Haydn Symphonies
93-104. Plus a bunch more I've swapped out to home. Oh well... [Those
of you keeping track can see that there's a heck of a lot of anime and
electronic stuff in there. For some reason, I just want that when
programming; more classical stuff is listened to at home.]

     Hellos go out to the irc #*****iigs crowd... [No, we don't want
tourists around our channel. You have been warned that we'll /kick,
/kill, and shred losers who drop by.] IRSMan and Abaddon for random
technical info from guys with a bit more experience than myself (plug:
go buy Nadden 9* (whatever's the latest and greatest) for Saturn/PSX,
Russki Strike/Saturn, etc). thrig (no relation whatsoever, and darn
good at VF2 :), Zelix (cool Christian brother), HdwrNut (gimme the Zip
FAQ already :). notbob, derex & gdr (GNO/MEn), HalB (Raggerfall is
cool, err... bugfix #53,453,121 makes it cooler :) belgorath & daver
(How many times have you guys SoLDoUt this week? :), markm (thanks for
breakin.. err beta'ing TPA) flux, The_Phog, plaque (Trust me, BDK's in
the game!)  Fever, siris, qbot (no such nick: hellos), jsanford (get
out of that corner and find a job you like!), jalapenio, drechsau and
the other ex-Winternyet.com types...


       [ This space for rent     Oops, too slow in sending your cash to
me... will just have to remain empty. ]


       Yes, I'm online. AND YOU SYSTEM ADVOCATES CAN ALL SHUT UP
ALREADY! GOT IT??? If you really cared for your system, you'd just be
playing it a lot more and shutting up, but I think you're compensating
for lack of body parts by badmouthing systems unnecessarily. And
TPA/Saturn is VERY much a 3D game, and the Saturn's handling it just
fine, thankyouverymuch. Each game system has its benefits and
disadvantages. Just play the games you like, and you won't have to
spend pointless time bashing others. From a programmer's standpoint,
they've all got the quirks that make them painful to program, so
that's why they pay us the $ to deal with it. I've gotten to the point
where I kinda like programmning the Saturn, but don't care what the
next game is for. I play most of my games on my PC-clone at home (3dfx
voodoo chip seriously rocks) [Well, you'd have to pay some top $ to
see me doing a 2600 title, but that's pretty dead nowadays. Vectrex,
hmmmm... :]


   Enscribed on the tombstone of an Athiest: "All dressed up and nowhere
to go."  

    Notice to polygon-rights activists: polygons *WERE* harmed,
deleted, collapsed, crunched, and otherwise abused during the creation
of this game.  Same with enough bugs to restock a third world
country. So we abused them.  So we killed them. Like we care; that's
our job here. If you're concerned about the "rights" of polygons and
bugs, get out of your granola-eating, birkenstock-wearing idiocy and
get a life!    

   For those of you who've stuck it out this far in the scroll text, a
little easter egg. Set player in slot #4 to the name 'Refract' and
start a game. Ok, so I had some fun with transparancies, after Alex
(TPA/PSX type) complained that the PSX's control over transparancies
wasn't as great as he wanted, something about not enough levels. And I
have 32 here, heheheh. There's still a few more bonuses I'm NOT yet
telling you about here :) Sorry, no bonus alleys, but there's a
special version of a character on the CD.

     You can also look for the next Bowling game being developed here
at Adrenalin, published by T*HQ hopefully in 1998. PC and PSX only for
now, sorry Sega. [Well, SoJ seems to have reasonably clueful people in
control, and their market position's reflected that. However, in the
US, ...]

     Message repeats....  5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

PC content

Art

Load the disc into a Windows PC and you can find a number of issues in a BONUS folder. These are a mixture of pre-rendered wallpapers and design documents:

King James Bible

The full King James Bible exists on the disc, and can be found in the README folder. It is split into 66 separate TXT files, with a 67th acting as an intro:

INTRO.TXT contents 
Note: the following is a copy of the King James (Authorized) Version of
the Bible, quite out of copyright by now. Not placed here by any group
that drops Bibles in hotels/motels/etc, just by your humble little
programmer. Hopefully, you'll find it useful.

Any errors in splitting up the 4MB file I got off the web are purely
mine.

References

  1. http://www.visi.com/~nathan/games/tpasaturn.html (Wayback Machine: 2008-04-15 02:53)


Ten Pin Alley

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