iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steps to activate: 1) Ensure no credits are inserted. 2) At startup, hold P1 reverse + P2 forward until the gameplay demo begins. 3) Then hold P1 forward + P1 start through one full attract mode loop. 4) The hidden credits will appear.

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41 years after release, I've discovered how to show the hidden developer credits in Demolition Derby (Bally Midway, 1985). Until now, it was unknown if they could be shown in-game. Bonus: a hilarious zoom on the uncensored "trophy woman" image. (steps in reply)

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In Time Pilot '84 (Konami, 1984), a hidden message "BY KONAMI 1984" will appear at the top of the screen if you press all 4 joystick directions simultaneously while fighting the boss. As far as I'm aware this is completely undiscovered. (In MAME, you must launch with -joystick_contradictory)

The arcade game Road Fighter (Konami, 1984) has several undocumented anti-piracy mechanisms that can affect gameplay or crash the machine. Most amusing: One has a random chance of flipping the game screen upside-down after at least 200 coins have been put into the machine. That's it, nothing else.

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Use Player 1's controls to edit, P1 Start to change pages, and P2 Start to save and exit. Afterwards set the DIP back to "Don't Erase" and reset. Qualification settings are now saved to NVRAM. The so-called "unused" string "QUALIFY IS BACK UP RAM" now appears at boot. Ain't that neat!? (3/3)

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Steps to activate it: 1) "World Records" DIP -> "Erase on Reset" 2) Reset machine 3) Hold buttons 1 & 3 for Player 1 and 2 simultaneously 4) At "PUSH SERVICE SW", press Coin 3 You are now in the qualification editor. (2/3)

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The tcrf.net article for Hyper Sports (Konami, 1984) claims it has an unused string suggesting Konami planned to let operators store difficulty settings in NVRAM. It goes on to say "this functionality seems to have been dropped". Turns out it's real - just undiscovered for 42 years! (1/3)

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New undiscovered easter egg in Konami's Hyper Sports (1984). In attract mode, enter: P1 B3,B2,B1; P2 B3,B2,B1; P3 Start; P4 Start; P3 B3,B2,B1; P4 B3,B2,B1. When the next demo starts, "© KONAMI" appears in the lower-left corner. Never documented before.

TnF/Hyper Sports initial entry Easter Eggs

I say extremely obscure as this was documented by user 'cmonkey' on the UK Video Arcade Collectors forum, but it doesn't even turn up in searches (in English or Japanese) unless you use very specific queries. So it was basically found here and then got buried: www.ukvac.com/forum/thread...

ukvac.com

I was browsing through the TnF code and found an Easter Egg in the initial entry section of the game. Make sure all switches on both dip switch banks are set to the ON position before you start this (it's only activated this way) Start a 4 player game and enter initials as follows :- P1 - ISI...

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Konami's 1984 arcade game "Hyper Sports" has an extremely obscure, virtually unknown easter egg. Start 4P mode and enter the names to spell out "ISHIHARALAB.", then hold down all 1P buttons and 2P Buttons 1 & 3. "THIS GAME IS DEVELOPED BY KONAMI" appears, and the machine softlocks. Who is Ishihara?

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And yes I'm using an invincibility cheat + RAM editing to demonstrate it in the video

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I honestly have no clue where it's from either. My thoughts are unfinished/WIP sprite from a future Konami game, or just a programmer self-insert joke

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Details I can't fit in above post: Killing one takes 6 shots, and the timer starts as soon as you kill one. Even on higher difficulties/loops of the game, there's not even 16 of them present, so while the code for this bonus is there, I have no idea how it's possible for a human player to achieve

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More Mega Zone (Konami, 1983) oddities: The "unused" 10,000-point sprite actually appears if you somehow manage to kill 16 purple pincer enemies before a hidden timer runs out (basically impossible) My guess: an unfinished bonus meant for the purple rolling ball enemy, assigned to the wrong one.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Yeah, post was too small to fit it but I thought the trigger mechanism for it was unknown, until I finally saw it mentioned here: www.gaminghell.co.uk/GuestCharact... The alien's trigger mechanism is previously unknown, as far as I'm aware.

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The alien (blurry closeup taken with 2002 nokia camera phone)

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

More new Mega Zone (Konami, 1983) secrets: • Fly through 32 or 33 horizontal turrets, then stop: future turrets spawn as Pooyan wolves. • Keep the two umbrella-looking turrets at the bottom alive, then kill the boss: a bowing alien appears. Touch for 5,000 points. Which game is the alien from?

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The other undiscovered scoring secret in Mega Zone - if you collect one of the regular diamond power-ups on the ground while your score is EXACTLY any multiple of 200,000, all enemies instantly die, and your tank gets a free upgrade. This has never been discovered before, in English or Japanese.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Found an insane new undiscovered easter egg secret in Konami's 1983 Arcade game "Mega Zone". Shooting the large eyeball enemy normally gives you about 3000 points. But if you manage to shoot it with 0 score, you get 30,000 points (!!) Undiscovered for 43 years. More to come!

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The 1980 Arcade game Moon Cresta contains an unused enemy mechanic where Cold Eyes (waves 1&2) would shoot beams at you, and if they hit, your ship's movement speed is temporarily slowed. This can be restored by patching 0x1082 and 0x216B from 0xC9 (RET) to 0x00 (NOP).

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

NEW DISCOVERY: The Japan-exclusive, officially Disney licensed GBC game Minnie & Friends: Yume no Kuni wo Sagashite contains a hidden message "I AM MIKKY KILLER" that can be seen by setting the level name string index to the very last entry.

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Reposted by mills5

Kars @karoshimyriad.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

VNDB founder Yorhel passed away on March 17, 2026. He created the website in September 2007, which eventually became one of the largest visual novel databases on the internet. vndb.org/t24787

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

I’m sure they would’ve preferred a different font but had technical limitations. The original Japanese font is too large to sufficiently put an English script in.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Honorable mention to HELL NIGHT and BIKE MAN

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

I like this magazine in the background of a 加奈…おかえり!! CG that's just titled GIRL's

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

(2/2) The fifth file OMAKE5.BMP" is another disguised archive. Use the MS-DOS tool ish to unpack it into thanks.lzh, which contains BOTUMISA.BMP and THANKS.DOC, a hidden message from the director. I've attached both as well as an AI English translation of the message. I'm not the first to discover.

mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

(1/2) In Doukyuusei If, the Sega Saturn port of elf's 1992 dating sim 同級生, there's a file called CLASS.DAT that looks like a normal game file. It's actually a disguised .LZH archive. Open it with 7-Zip to find 5 .BMP files. The first four are bonus art not found in the game, attached here.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

It could very well be; I had no clue TOSE was a company.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

On the ToHeart2 Desktop Accessories disc, there's widgets that show a character from the game and a clock - like an anime Bonzai Buddy with less features. I found an easter egg: click it exactly 5888 and 8888 times (!!!) to get popup messages from “SADTICE” and “KEN,” presumably the programmers.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

I had NO idea that the full source code for ToHeart2 was publicly available! Leaf was required to publish it due to using XViD, which was licensed under GPL. So for a while, Japanese players could pay 600 yen to have Leaf mail them a CD-R with the source burned on it... github.com/autch/aquapl...

github.com

GitHub - autch/aquaplus_gpl: AQUAPLUSがGPLとして公開した4作品のソースコード。送付CD-R内のファイルをそのままミラー。

AQUAPLUSがGPLとして公開した4作品のソースコード。送付CD-R内のファイルをそのままミラー。 - autch/aquaplus_gpl

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

ToHeart2 XRATED版のミニゲーム「ドキドキぱにっくライブラリ」のデータに、使われていなさそうな画像が2枚ありました。 Two (presumably) unused images sitting in the data files of ToHeart2 XRATED's minigame "ドキドキぱにっくライブラリ". #TH2 #ToHeart2 #AQUAPLUS

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

PC-88のADVゲームの中には、自己言及的なユーモアがあって大好きw Some PC-88 adventure games have this self-aware humor in the writing that I really enjoy, lol. #PC88 #PC98 #カクテルソフト

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

The 2008 Windows visual novel BIFRONTE～公界島奇譚～ contains a hilariously sloppy anti-piracy check: it looks for Daemon Tools installed in the default installation folder, and then blindly runs "daemon.exe -unmount 0", automatically unmounting ALL virtual drives.

🍞 Brad 🍞 @baust528.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Reposted by mills5

Please play "The Dog Island" I promise you it's a rollercoaster.

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Reposted by mills5

Game Vecanti @gamevecanti.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Some CG used exclusively in the PS1 version of "Doukyuusei 2". [同級生2]

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Some interesting books on Saeki's shelf in Bible Black -La noche de walpurgis- (visual novel), including the Voynich manuscript

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

If you are a visual novel developer affected by the recent itch.io changes, and your VN was free-of-charge, I can mirror + provide a direct download link to your VN on my webserver, completely free of charge. I may recompress your files into a new archive format (rar, zip) to reduce size.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

A Japanese developer of a visual novel on the closed-source Ikura GDL engine left the entirety of the descriptions for what the engine's opcodes do in the .exe file's strings. Can't complain about that.

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mills5 @mills5.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Harmless anime girl CG, or cryptid??