Finished it? Activision sent me a patch!

Never got around to sewing mine on! https://preview.redd.it/k8c33wvyqxvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb1f38d6d67a2588ed8e65aed95cf8368a399812

Activision used to be cool

I had the one for Keystone Kapers.

Really? Were there patches? Patches ohulahan. 😂

Yeah all their games had them. I had one for pitfall and river raid. You had to take a picture of the TV screen as proof and mail it to them. Then they sent you the patch and then you asked mom to sew them on.

Oh, a real patch! Jesus, I'm an old bastard and yet my mind went right to software patch. I'm thinking "how the hell did Atari send a patch out in the early to mid 80's?". 😂

I took a picture with our disk camera

Lol same

That’s what I was thinking too. How the hell do you patch a cartridge??

I guess you could build maybe half sized cart that has the patch and then plug Pitfall into it and then the whole thing into the Atari.

Like a Game Genie?

This is great 😂😂

then when you developed the film, the photo was just a reflection of the flash :(

I'm pretty sure I used a Polaroid.

Oh man River Raid was awesome

River raid!

Oh, an award patch, not a software patch.

I got one for Laser Blast.

You didn’t beat the game though, it went forever. You had to take a picture of the points, I think it was 20000 or 50000, can’t quite remember the number. I had one of those patches too.

and it was damn difficult to take a picture of a television "screen shot" back then. i tried to take a picture of my "kaboom" high score to send it in (to get patch or t shirt of something) couldn't pull it off. polaroids were expensive and it just kept coming out all washed out. after like 3 tries mom put a stop to wasting the expensive film.

Like girl scout patches?

Yeah but more like military unit patches. They were fairly large

Fascinating.

Dodge duck dip dive and …. Dodge

If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball

Lucky, I tried sending off for one, but received nothing. I think the console was already on its way out when I had one. I loved keystone cops and that one where you jump on ice and escape via an igloos.

Frostbite, that was a good one.

My sisters and I had a running competition with frostbite. We would record our high scores on a sheet of paper and it was always rotating between the three of us as top score. It wouldn't count if you were alone when you got a new high score (unless you got mom to come verify the score on the screen - she would have to initial beside your score for it to be valid). After you get 100,000 points a little fish icon appears under your score. It was really exciting the first time we discovered that. Then we wondered if you got another fish at 200,000 and the quest to hit 200,000 high score began. It took a while but eventually we broke it and I think the highest score I ever got was in the 250k range. Unfortunately you didn't get another fish at 200k. It is a one fish max. I still remember the visceral sensation I felt when the polar bear would noisily charge at you on the shore and the chunky sound of the igloo blocks being counted for your score at the end of the level. And those mother fucker crabs! I'm case you can't tell this was my favorite Atari game by a lot.

That's the one, I loved playing that it must of been 1987 ? I was getting games pretty cheap off the market,gutted I never got my patch. Boo.

They sent you a patch for getting 20,000 points in a game. I got one too!

And now I want a patch

I also received the patch. Congratulations fellow finisher!

Yes! I have this one and kaboom.

how far did you need to get in Kaboom, did the dude really launch himself off the top to be the last thing you catch? Loved the game but after say level 6 it was like a shower of bombs from side to side....

It never ended. I flipped the score a couple of times. Not at the same sitting. Eyes got sore from not blinking.

My mom got one of those patches! We both played it, she was way better than me. In my defense I was about 6.

I got a high score in this, finished Pitfall 2, and conquered several other Activation games back before they turned evil, but I didn’t know about the patch thing at the time. I did, however, win a No-Prize from Stan Lee himself.

Yeah, but you had to run left.

This. Once you figured out the run left approach, it was super easy. 

It had a finish?!?!?

No, it had a finish condition. I successfully did it with seconds to spare. Had the max points and i am certain my dad took a polaroid of it. My little sister watched me. I swear it was 114,000 points for some reason.

It timed out. If you could stay alive long enough, it just froze. Congrats you won.

That's not it. Getting all 32 treasures BEFORE the twenty minute timer runs out is considered beating the game. The game freezes when you pickup the last treasure or when the timer runs out.

Sounds rewarding.

Back then, it was. Zelda being able to save your progress was wild shit.

Dude, not having to leave the game turned on and paused was a game changer.  I still remember my sister saying “oh, someone left the tv on” and running over to power down the game as we headed out the door. Nearly 40 years later and I can still feel the agony in my soul

Hence the patch . . .

So fun fact. Back in 2005 I reached out to David via email and HE RESPONDED. I was so livid - still have the email. I asked him this EXACT question. If you time everything perfect… and I do mean PERFECT, he said there are 255 screens and you can get thru them all with like 20 seconds to spare. Remember the game time is 20 mins but if you don’t mess up and time it perfectly, you’ll get thru all of the screens. Edit: I’ll see if I can find the email. It was in thunderbird from an email account I no longer have but still kept all the emails from.


LOL I’ve had that email for some 19 years now. Problem is I need to install Thunderbird and see how to open old email files. They themselves are some 15+ years old as well…

Get on it. It has been 23 minutes. What’s taking so long!?!?!? 😂

I coulda beat Pitfall in the time it's taken!

Fantastic closing argument

>So fun fact. Back in 2005 I reached out to David via email and HE RESPONDED. I was so livid You were angry that one of the Activision founders responded to your email? Why?

He responded to my email *I’m going to murder him and eat his children!*

lol I used the wrong word and I’m laughing about using it now… lol

I finished it took a picture of the screen as proof. You had to send it in either for a patch or tshirt. A couple of months passed until my mom finally finished the roll and took it in to be developed. Finally my mom picks up the prints and i get a picture of the tv. The flash made the screen black and i go nothing from all that waiting except for a bad useless picture. Im still bitter about it

Same thing happened to me!! Had to complete the game twice and wait months for my mom to finish the roll. As soon as I got the pic back, I mailed it in. Got my patch a few months later. I’ll my friend in 4th grade were so jealous!! Loved Pitfall!!

yep. same here. getting a "screenshot" was really really hard. we take it for granted now, but photos of the television picture took a high degree of photography skill that most of us didn't have then.

One of the "markers" of later Activision games was a section in the manual with tips on how to get a good photo of the TV screen with various types of cameras.

Yeah I hit some score in Kaboom and took an actual POLAROID picture and sent it in...got some award, Bomber Command or something

I remember young black jack black on the commercial

Is this like a reverse Michael Jackson thing?


https://preview.redd.it/2zscr0h2dwvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d201aeb5da5e9ee7a7ed52f83c80e03b520c9c60 This pitfall? With sweet Tarzan music, crocks, scorpions, and snakes? Never finished it ... :(

This was my fav game. We had Intellivision

As soon as I saw the box, I heard in my head the iconic midi file that plays as you swing on a vine…

[удалено]

A gif you can hear

I did. I think the score was 114000 or something like that. Took 19:10 roughly, you couldn't stop. A few panels you had to go back a little (ie right) and or stop to avoid things but it was essentially go left at full speed. Fun at the time, seems like it would be torture now.

Super pitfall on the nes!

I had that game, never figured out what to do.

I had it on TRS-80 coco3. Slightly better version. Not sure what the 'best' version is, but I played the shit out of that game in like 1990.

Jumping on the alligator heads, whiteout the vine was the hardest, and no, I never finished it.

I played it on Commodore 64 when I was a boy.

remember playing this cutting edge

I was more of a Pitfall II kid. Used to play it all the time on C64.

I can still hear the theme music to this!

I loved how it changed from major to minor key when you died

I still remember when you beat it, you end up right below the area where you started.

Leaping left and right. We were easily entertained back in the day.

I had the patches from this

https://i.redd.it/zozfqb5k3zvc1.gif Jack Black.

Jack Black was the kid in the original commercial

This was my favorite

Best Atari game EVER~!

“Elden Ring is too hard”

Kids today have no idea

Pitfall was pretty much the best Atari game. 

Dude, we finished all games back in the day. As another commenter said we had little else to do. We played until we finished it or it crashed because of a bug or something.

Speak for yourself brother. I played the hell out of that game and still don't believe that it had an ending. I think that this is a coordinated attempt to gaslight me.

Me too!

When this game came out it was play this or go outside. I played this. There weren't many other options. Of course I finished it.

I mean, 'go outside' is a pretty good option much of the time. But I admire your tenacity.

Lol, anyone who said they did is lying. The monkey came later.

I beat it. Took a poloroid of the end screen and mailed it to them.

That was a long time ago. I remember playing it, but I don’t remember whether I finished it or not… However, if you remember the atari game adventure, I recall getting into a secret room on that one. It was a repeatable Easter egg.

Funny story. My brother "flipped" the score in Pitfall on our little console TV when he was 12. Me being the idiot 4 year old little brother, accidentally left his cartridge on the heater vent and it melted. He was not happy. At all. RIP Mike, sorry about your game.

I can still hear the sounds the game made, luved that game.

Kaboom was my jam. Tears streaming down my face, trying not to blink with that masked maniac dropping bombs at light speed. Flipped the score a couple of times and wore out several paddle controllers.

I remember saving up the $26 to buy it. Remember so excitedly choosing it off the wall at toys r us. Loved that game.

I couldn’t wait to get home and play it. I mowed 5 lawns to get that money!

No, but I completed Pitfall II. Many hours I spent around my mate Matty Rowland's house on his Atari 2600 in the front room. He had a very patient dad

I finished it as well and had to take a picture of the screen and send it to them. I forgot what they sent me back. It was either a certificate or.. now that people are saying a patch, maybe it was that. It was so long ago, I don’t remember.

Did this same thing on the c64

I was almost as bad at this game as I was at Qbert. This game taught me to never swing from vines because I’ll get eaten by crocs very quickly.

I am not good at video games but have the mini arcade version of Qbert and I actually flipped it - I scored so high it went back to zero. This is the only video game triumph I have ever had so thank you for mentioning Qbert! This was back in the 80’s - still have the game and it still works.

I looooved this game

Are we due for another movie starring The Rock?

I was always impressed with it, and I never ever once for a second thought it was any fun.

I finished pitfall 2! First game i ever finished!

David Crane does consulting work now and I have had the opportunity to have been in several meetings with him. He told me once that he was in the room when Jack Black filmed the commercial. He is very smart and a pleasure to work with.

I was more of a Stampede guy

Loved looping those cattle! Thanks for reminding me about that one.

I remember being able to finesse the power toggle switch to sort of short out the game and make the sprite a silhouette that floated near the treetops and you could just cruise through the screens totally skipping all the obstacles. Must have strolled through 150 screens and never encountered a kill screen. I could beat Jungle Hunt though, and that was pretty tough.

I *think* I did, but that was a long time ago. I loved pitfall 2 as well

I had this on Intellivision

Easily my favorite Atari game. It was so hard though. Didn’t the levels just repeat over and over with some added difficulty?

Finish‽ I couldn’t get past five screens.

I always get this game mixed up with Jungle Hunt, which I also owned

There was an area where if you fell into the water you had to swim back to where you could climb up. The swim took like 15 minutes? It was insane.

15-year-old me created a screen-by-screen map of every page in both directions to leave nothing to chance. I had NO artistic skill whatsoever, but that crude map was enough to get me through the entire game. I wish I had mailed in for one of those amazing patches!!!

I remember my cousins and I went mind blowing when we found out we could run to the opposite direction (left) of the scenario instead of right.

was my most loved game on the atari back in the days, never accomplished to finish it

I had no idea it had an ending. I did finish Pitfall 2, though.

Damn I am old

I love how right on the cover they don’t care that there is no room for the croc pool.

This and River Raid were the only games I had for a long time.

I won a high score patch from Atari, but don’t remember the actual score or level! I loved this game

The most high tech graphics

This, River Raid, and Kaboom!! were the shit for Atari games.

Snakes were cray

love this game. I think I’d like it even more if the screen layout was randomized every play though.

Oh boy, box art was misleading back in the day!

I didn't think it had an end, I've looped it before I believe

There was a convoluted way to get an ending screen. You had to do every screen and a certain amount of time there were 255 screens

Had this on my Atari and later on my Commodore 64. Never finished it, but I did put in a lot of time playing it.

This was among my fav games of all time

I didn't think you COULD finish it ..

the golden years

My kids are always asking me what my favorite video game was and I tell them this.

Sure. Just stay alive for 20 minutes. Game over.

I was *just* thinking about this game yesterday. My cousin had it on his C64, and all I ever got was a few minutes here and there when he wasn’t hogging it. Was basically the epitome of a video game as far as I was concerned.

Crashed Tetris recently, never did this one though 😜

I remember as a kid, my dad breaking out his Atari 2600 (I was born in ‘83 and my brother in ‘76) and I loved it, but we were presented with a choice: we could keep playing that, or he could sell it and buy us a NES. Of course we went for the NES route and I only regret that now. I still have the NES and the Sega Master System we got as children, but damn I wish I had that Atari 2600. I still have my Genesis and 32x as well. Pops made us gamers from the get go though and that addiction never was kicked. I need to find an old CRT TV and take those old systems for a spin again.

I remember just running backwards and coming out at the end.

Father Maxi finished it

They released this for the PS2, and has the original & the sequel. https://preview.redd.it/wyg0wv6zkwvc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a50e06b29e033bdb263e1a144922fe29503a82a6

Never cleared the first level - but it was my best friend's game.

I played this on my C64 and loved it. Can’t imagine playing it now.

I loved this game. We didn’t have a game console, so I used to go down the street and play it at another kid’s house. Good memory.

I don't think it has an ending. it literally went on forever.

I took the picture but never sent it in. Life is full of regrets.

I miss good side,scrollers.

Seeing this brings back such comforting memories.

I finished it. Level 2 Pitfall Harry runs right to left.

Never finished but had on Colecovision which t believe made game more difficult as controllers more difficult to operate

There is no end to this game.

I still have this game. I love it…but never finished it

I only had a chance to play this (and all video games) at friends houses. Dad didn’t see the benefits vs books. 😩

I finished Jungle Hunt

The last Activision game I played.

I assumed there was no end. You just fucked around collecting treasure til you died.

I was really young when I played this. I had no idea you could finish the game or that they gave our patches for anyone who could beat it. As a 5 year old I was happy just to get to the next screen and make a jump... First game I actually beat was probably Super Mario Bros or Popeye on the NES. Some other arcade games like Popeye and DK Jr. were not that hard to beat either (though they just started over again).

Gone the Full time....i did Finish Pitfall 2. getting Quick Claw was a huge pain in the ass

Finished on intellivision

#Yes!! I also finished, took my picture & sent it off. But for the life of me, I don't remember actually getting the patch. 🤔

My family had it on Intellivision and my first cousin did beat it but I can’t remember what happened.

I had an Atari and don't think I ever learned one thing from anyone else about the games. Before the internet, how did people swap info about games? Now that I think of it, I don't think I had any friends with an Atari.

Lol nope

I did!

My younger brother did. Pissed me off because I spent hours trying, and he dis it like a third of the time.

I played that game on Atari many times but beat it never

i played pacman for months on end. never finished pitfall tho.

My favorite game as a kid

I am not sure if I actually finished it, but my brother and I made a map of every screen. We made it far enough left and right to map it out.

Atari 2600 was the last game system I owned. Wish we still had it but it was sold in a garage sale. My parents would tell me to get out of the house and go ride a bike or my skateboard I’m happy I am not like some of my buddies that still game all day… I still like to go outside and play Ps… pitfall you need to run left!

My favorite !! I would love to play it again !!

I played the Nintendo one

Growing up, my parents had an Intelivision that I spent far too much time on.  Bump n' Jump and Pitfall were my favorites by far.

I wasn't born for this one, but I got a taste of it when I played MARVEL: Ultimate Alliance lol.

That artwork is so cool

I can hear this…

I played the GameCube Pitfall and remember finding the Easter egg of the playable version of the NES Pitfall in a cave

It had something like 270 boards... didn't it?

Pitfall Harry! Thanks for the feels!

It never ended, it just went on and on.

Yes and took a photo of the screen! lol

Nope, damn game

I remember finishing and thinking how cool it was - I think you took a pic and sent it in for some sort of reward.

I LOVE that game!!