15 of the Worst Things People Did Because of Road Rage

A Real-Life Springfield Hockey Team Celebrates ‘The Simpsons’ Once a Year

How Are Raccoons Not Incredibly Sick All the Time?

20 of the Biggest Dirtbags in Sitcom History

Jon Hamm Roasted Amy Poehler After Her OBGYN Died

51 Interesting Backstories for Famous Video-Game Features

All those bleeps and bloops came from somewhere!

51 Interesting Backstories for Famous Video-Game Features

September 30, 2023

Video games don't just magically come to life fully formed, they’re the product of many people working tirelessly to create digital worlds and the challenges located within them. Games, of course, are constrained by the technology available to these designers at the time of their creation — and one of the greatest tools in their arsenals is knowing how to cheat a little bit.

Super Mario Bros. appears most frequently, and is maybe the best example of how to make a lot happen with very few resources. Nearly all of Mario's characteristics — his hat, his overalls, his mustache — exist to give his little animated sprite more definition. The bushes you run past on the ground? The exact same art as the clouds. And don’t get us started on the long road of Luigi becoming more than just Mario’s palette-swapped twin…

50

Overwatch

GRACKED.COM Overwatch sound designer Paul Lackey wanted the game's hit confirmation sound effect to be satisfying to hear but couldn't find one, until he opened a bottle of beer one night. Не then reversed the sound and programmed it into the game. TECATE — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

49

Geometry Wars

GEOMETRY WARS STARTED AS AN ANALOG STICK TEST. While working on the Xbox prototype hardware, the developers of Project Gotham Racing encountered issues with the analog sticks on the controller. They decided to make a test app in order to find a fix for the problem and input it into Project Gotham Racing. This test app ended up becoming Geometry Wars. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

48

Achievements

: CRACKED.COM EXPLORERS' CLUB ACTIVISION CHOPPER N COMMANDOS E W S THE ACTIVISI BUCKET BR ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED Patch Adams Video game achievements started out as real-world merit badges. Fans of early Activision games could take a picture of their high scores and mail it to the company. Activision would then send them a patch that highlighted their accomplishment. Eventually, this method of showing off was digitally incorporated into the games and gaming platforms themselves, thus morphing into the achievements we waste our precious free time over today. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

47

Doom II

John Romero's head behind the Doom II end boss was a joke the artists put in, thinking Romero wouldn't know. The head is behind the spot you shoot to kill the boss. Romero found out and, to tell them he knew, he made the boss speak (backwards): To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

46

Centipede

CENTIPEDE Think you're a space ship shooting lasers, in Centipede? You're not. You're an elf named Oliver who lives in a magical forest. You usually get along fine with the centipedes, but a wizard enchanted them to attack you. Now you're fighting them off with your wand. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

45

Asteroids

ASTEROIDS Spacewar is just like Asteroids, only better- + and it came first. Spacewar was a two-player game where you could shoot the other player, there was a black hole in the middle of the screen, and the star field was based on actual star fields. Asteroids: 1979. Spacewar: 1962. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

44

MechWarrior Online

CRACKED.COM In 2013, a special mech was introduced to Sarah's Jenner MECHWARRIOR was released to honor the memory ONLINE of Sarah Parries, a five-year-old MWO enthusiast who was taken by brain cancer. Designed with things she loved, it cost $10, and all proceeds (more than $122, 000) were donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. JR7-D(S) 10% ХР BOOST GENERAL WEAPONS G EQUIPMENT TONNAGE 35 LEFT ARM Medium Laser x2 ENGINE 300 XL LEFT TORSO Beagle Active Probe TOP SPEED 138.9 kph CENTER Streak SRM x2 MAX ENGINE TORSO 300 RATING RIGHT ARM Medium Lacer x2 ARMOR 214 [Ferro-Fibrous) HAROPOINTS INTERNAL — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

43

Katamari Damacy

CRACKED.COM Katamari Damacy's eternally disappointed King of the Cosmos has the body of ballerina Tetsuya Kumakawa and the face of FREDDiE MERCURY — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

42

Dead Space

The corpses in Dead Space are medically accurate. After the producer deemed the initial designs for the corpses not scary enough, the developing team modeled them using photos of actual car crash victims and war casualties. CRACKED COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

41

Devil May Cry

CRACKED COM A bug from another game inspired Devil May Cry's iconic feature where the main character can suspend enemies mid-air using continuous attacks. Coot ! e During the development of Onimusha: Warlords, they discovered a bug that caused the enemy to stay floating when being attacked. They thought it was kind of cool and adopted it for Devil May Cry. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

40

Batman: Arkham Asylum

A developer on Batman: Arkham Asylum spent two years on nothing but the titular character's cape. YOU ARE UNDER CLOSE SURVITILANCE - They had to create 700 different animations and sound effects for the cape. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

39

Kirby

KIRBY Kirby was a placeholder for a to-be-designed + character. Game designer Masahiro Sakurai dropped a circle into his game as he was designing it, figuring he'd flesh out the character later. Eventually he decided he liked the little sphere as-is, and added a few little details to give it personality. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

38

Atomic Bomberman

ATOMIC BOMBERMAN Atomic Bomberman almost had a really + filthy mouth. EAT MY DUST AND LICK MY CRACK. 11 I'LL BREAK YOUR TIME FOR A F#CKIN' HEAD WITH F#CKIN' DIRTNAP, A RATCHET. YOU SH!TF#CK. WOULD YOU GUYS KNOCK OFF THIS MACHO SH!T AND HA! YOU'RE HURRY UP? F#CKED! The disk contains voice tracks for a number of seriously nasty exclamations, all done in the voices of the characters. They weren't incorporated into the game, but the unused tracks were there. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

37

Super Mario Brothers

SUPER MARIO The Chain Chomp monsters in Mario games + are based on a dog. When Shigeru Miyamoto was a child, his neighbor had a chained dog who constantly barked. + CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

36

Donkey Kong

DONKEY KONG Donkey Kong was supposed to be the hero, + not the villain. M DK The game manual explains that Donkey Kong was Mario's pet, and he escaped because Mario mistreated him. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

35

Minecraft

GRACKED.COM The sounds Minecraft's ghasts make are the sound designer's vocalizations and the noises of his cat being disturbed in its sleep. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

34

Diablo

51 Interesting Backstories for Famous Video-Game Features — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

33

Uncharted

Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series originally looked a lot like Johnny Knoxville. Developer Naughty Dog based the character model on the Jackass star, but later decided to go for a less goofy approach, and turned the handsome up a few notches. The final product became a mixture of Knoxville and Drake's voice actor, Nolan North. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

32

Fallout 3

Fallbut 3 GRAGKED.COM Due to nuclear warfare still being a sensitive subject in Japan, the Japanese version of Fallout 3 does not give the player the option to detonate the Megaton nuclear bomb. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

31

Final Fantasy

FINAL FANTASY Final Fantasy got its name because its creator + figured he was done. Square was out of money after a + string of unsuccessful games. Hironobu Sakaguchi chose the name Final Fantasy because he thought it would be his last game. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

30

Farmville

FARMVILLE Farmville F is a shameless ripoff of a game called + Farm Town. Farmer Farm LEARNING DE ROPES Farm Town Farmville HAMP Farm Town debuted just months before Farmville spammed its way into Facebook history. The gameplay and visuals are virtually identical. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

29

Grand Theft Auto

GRAND THEFT AUTO Grand Theft Auto was inspired by a bug in + another game. Race'n'Chase Game Design Version 1.05 March 22. 1995 с 1995 DMA Design Ltd Rockstar released a driving game called Race'n'Chase, and early testers panned it until they found a glitch. It + was a bug that caused the police to try to run players off the road. So instead of running missions, players screwed around while the police tried to run them off the road. And GTA was born. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

28

Adventure

ADVENTURE The first Easter egg was created by a disgruntled + Atari employee. ADVENTURE معر VIDEO COMPUTER SYSTEM GAME PROGRAM 3 GAMES VIDEO THREE SKOD LEVELS ONE PLAYER SALE created Warren Robinett, the programmer on Adventure, knew he wouldn't get credit for his work. So he created a secret room with his name written on the floor. By the time it was discovered, the games had hit the shelves. Atari decided to tell people it was a hidden feature, and coined the term Easter egg. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

27

Starcraft

STARCRAFT During development Blizzard had trouble keeping the harvesting units from bunching up together like L.A. traffic because of their pathfinding. 0 of 100 Oas 22/26 counter Decivated Terran Refinery NU Veapene der 4992 700/750 Their good enough fix was to make harvesters the only units in the game that can walk through other units. CRACKED COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

26

Atari 2600

The brown-on-blue color scheme in the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man was a result of the company having a rule against black backgrounds for non-space games. 396 SHARP KAD-M may CONDETTE - Programmer Tod Frye later said if CRACKED.COM he had known how important a blue maze on a black background was to Pac-Man's iconicity, he would have broken that rule. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

25

Counter Strike

Counter Strike started out as a free Half-Life multiplayer mod that was created by two college students. A year later, the mod got so popular it was immediately acquired by Valve, the company that created Half-Life. A 1905 ВБ DE R 201 402 CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

24

Space Invaders

SPACE CRACKED.COM INVADERS IN THE ORIGINAL GAME DESIGN YOU FIRED AT ROWS OF LITTLE SOLDIERS, HOWEVER TAITO DECIDED THEY DIDN'T WANT TO SEND THE MESSAGE THAT SHOOTING HUMANS WAS ACCEPTABLE, AND 80 THE CLASSIC ALIENS WERE BORN. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

23

Five Nights at Freddy's

Scott Cawthon created Five Nights at Freddy's animatronic mascots after his previous game was mocked for being inadvertently terrifying. LB PN Cawthon developed a kid's video game called Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. that featured a beaver that many critics labeled: a scary animatronic. This got him to question his career path before ultimately saying, you want something scary? I'll give you scary. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

22

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog was initially a rabbit. Developer Yuji Naka wanted to give the character a somersault attack, but later figured that it'd make zero sense for a rabbit to do so with its long ears, because it'd hurt itself while doing the attack. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

21

Okami

got its iconic art KAM I style thanks to Playstation 2 limitations. At the start of development, Okami was using realistic graphics, but due to the game having big open areas that players could explore the developers realized they would have to thin out a lot of the content to make the game run. So they settled on the Japanese ink-wash style that we all love today. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

20

Oblivion

Oblivion's original Radiant Al was too smart to ship. In one case, a quest became impossible to complete in testing because skooma addicts kept killing a quest NPC to take the skooma from his corpse. Seriously, sometimes it's gotten so weird it's like dealing with a holodeck that's gone sentient. - Emil Pagliarulo, Bethesda designer CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

19

The Konami Code

GRADIUS The Konami code was left in the game + by accident. в A START Gradius was so hard that Kazuhisa Hashimoto couldn't play to test it. Не eventually added a simple set of button presses to give himself a full set of power-ups. Не forgot to delete the code before the game was released. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

18

Tomb Raider

TOMB RAIDER Lara Croft has a big chest because of a mistake. Artist Toby Gard, one of the people in charge of designing + Lara's character, was editing her dimensions. When he decided to increase her bust size by 50%, he mistyped 150%, and an icon was born. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

17

Space Invaders

SPACE INVADERS Space Invaders' increasing speed is because of a + hardware problem. Even after a year working on the hardware, the invaders moved really slowly. They only sped up when there were fewer of them on the screen, because they'd been shot. Hence the slowly accelerating pace. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

16

Super Mario Brothers

MARIO Everything about Mario was created to + conserve pixels. Mario's creator Shigeru Miyamoto added: A hat, so he wouldn't have to draw hair, a nose and mustache, so Mario's face wouldn't just be a blob, and overalls, to give Mario's arms definition. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

15

Pikmin

CRACKED.COM Nintendo's hit real-time strategy/puzzle game, Pikmin, was born from a tech demo featuring Mario. Dubbed as Super Mario 128, the demo featured 128 copies of Mario running around all at once to show the hardware power of GameCube. The idea was later used to develop Pikmin. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

14

Donkey Kong 64

Donkey Kong 64 was bundled with the N64 expansion pak because of a single bug. NINTENDO EXPANSION PAK DONKEY N OnlyFor INCLUDED! KONG64 - - - the Deeogram de - - Para E - .. DOLBY AVENUE G COLLECTOR'S EDITION YELLOW GAME PAK SURROUND PAL VERSION DONKEY NINTENDO IKONIC The mystery bug caused the game to crash randomly unless the pak was inserted. The game didn't really need the pak, but Rare convinced Nintendo to include it at great expense to fix that one stubborn bug. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

13

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog can't swim because Yuji Naka, the co-creator of Sonic, assumed that hedgehogs can't swim. TIME 2:15 RINGS 1 He's wrong. CRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

12

Stardew Valley

CRACKED COM STARDEW VALLEY began as a C# exercise. Computer science graduate Eric ConcernedApe Barone wanted to improve his coding skill after his job applications got turned down. So he decided to create a Harvest Moon clone as a coding exercise, and ended up creating a hit indie game. — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

11

The Legend of Zelda

LEGEND OF ZELDA The beta version of Zelda let you choose either a sword or a boomerang. IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS. The game was also originally meant to be set both in the past and the future. Link got his name because he was meant to be the connection between the two. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

10

Monkey Island

MONKEY ISLAND Monkey Island was inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean, and vice versa. In 2000, ILM began conceptualizing a movie based on The Curse of Monkey Island, which was inspired by the Disneyland ride. The movie never got made, but writer Ted Elliott went on to write Curse of the Black Pearl. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

9

Marvel Superheroes vs Street Fighter

MARVEL SUPERHEROES vs. STREET FIGHTER There's a pervert in the Japanese version of Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter. He's an older man named Norimaro who dresses like a schoolboy. Не spends his time trying to take Chun-Li's picture. If you beat the game with him, he steals her panties. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

8

Silent Hill

SILENT HILL The creepy fog in Silent Hill is there to hide the + game's slow load time. It sets a creepy atmosphere, and prevents players from seeing monsters until the last second, but it's actually there to conceal the fact that the scenes take a while to render. + CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

7

Borderlands 2

Axton from Borderlands 2 is bisexual thanks to a code screw up. When playing as Axton and reviving another player, there's a chance a flirtatious dialogue will trigger. This was only supposed to happen when reviving female characters, however, a coding mistake resulted in him flirting with male ones as well. After people voiced their disappointment that it was just a mistake, the writers officially made Axton bisexual in the DLC. GRACKED COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

6

Super Mario Brothers

CRACKED.COM WALL JUMPING STARTED AS A GLITCH. In the original Super Mario Bros, if Mario ran against a wall in midair, he would briefly register as being inside the object, which made the game believe he was on solid ground, allowing him to jump again. Developers liked this feature so much that they left it intact for ten years, until it became an actual in-game ability — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

5

Pac Man

PAC-MAN WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED PUCK-MAN PUCKMAN LU HIGH SCORE 2500 2590 OSCAR JCKMAY UNCH OUT!! Pubble engle THE NAME WAS PUCKMAN - CHANGED FOR AMERICAN RELEASE TO PREVENT VANDALS FROM CHANGING THE P INTO AN F. GRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

4

Super Mario Brothers 2

L M Originally, Mario and Luigi were identical twins When Luigi was introduced in Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. his character was just the same as Mario, but green. L The Luigi we all love exists only because of the Super Mario Bros. 2 U.S. release, which was actually a reskin of an Arabian-inspired game called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic. Luigi was redesigned to replace the tall, lightfooted Mama character from the original Japanese title. GRACKED.COM — Spoiler: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

3

The Legend of Zelda

LEGEND OF ZELDA Zelda originally had you defeat an enemy by + screaming at it. EEK! Originally the Japanese NES had a microphone, and the way to defeat a Legend of Zelda monster called Pols Voice was to scream into the mic. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

2

Super Mario Brothers

SUPER MARIO (ETC.) Mario's mushrooms look like hallucinatory Amanita + Muscaria mushrooms. Developers needed a way to make Mario fit into the game environment properly, so they picked mushrooms. They claim the resemblance to the psychedelic shrooms is coincidental. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

1

Metal Gear

METAL GEAR Metal Gear is a stealth game because it started + out on a slow system. It was originally designed to run on a computer called an MSX2, which could only support a few characters (and bullets) at a time without crashing. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Games We Grew Up On (With Weird Backstories)

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

Movies & TV

Ralph Wiggum’s ‘I Choo-Choo-Choose You’ Card Was a Real Valentine

Movies & TV

Barbra Streisand Confronted Laraine Newman Over Her ‘SNL’ Impression

Movies & TV

Eric Idle Hijacked a Movie Review Show to Praise ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’

Movies & TV

20 of the Greatest Found Pieces of Lost Media

Movies & TV

‘Cobra Kai’ Never Dies… But It Does Have to End

Movies & TV

5 Things Cop Shows Get Totally Wrong

VIRAL ON CRACKED

1

25 of the Funniest Reasons People Had to Stop Having Sex

2

Horror Movie-Type Stuff (That Really Happened)

3

15 Biggest MCU Blunders of the Last Decade (Give or Take)

4

18 Celebs Who Nuked Their Careers

5

Projects That Celebrities Definitely Didn't Think Through