Mountain King
• EASTER EGG: Next to the spider’s lair are the initials “RWM” (for programmer Robert Matson – picture #1).
• EASTER EGG: When starting, let the opening music "demo" play completely though. Start the game and go down to the spider’s lair. Start by standing over the “M” initial (picture #1), and jump LEFT onto the thin blue line. Stand near the very right edge of this (just before falling off) and move DOWN. You will drop down a little bit (up to the top of your legs). If you then walk to the left of the blue center, you’ll fall down the rock wall (picture #2). At this point you can exit the lair either by going left or by climbing up the blue center (note that the spider can still get at you in the left rock area), but you’ll want to go over to the right rock wall, at which point you’ll drop down a bit. Walk either left or right and you’ll start falling and eventually land on top of huge letters that comprise the message: “MOUNTAIN KING BY BOB MATSON” (picture #3). If you don’t wait for the demo to play all the way through, this message won’t be there when you first start falling through the bottom, although you’ll find it in the sprite mountain. If you walk off these letters, you’ll start falling again and after about 40 seconds you’ll land on top of a huge mountain of sprite graphics (picture #4). Touching any yellow chests or fire graphics is deadly, and occasionally certain yellow letters are as well. In certain areas you’ll also be able to grab diamonds, get the flame spirit, and even increase (or decrease) your time and score! Unlike the 8-bit computer version, there’s no huge wall of treasure chests at the bottom of the first sprite mountain, just a thin line of them with a huge gap that you can pass through (provided you fall through in the right area – picture #5). When you fall through the bottom, you’ll encounter a few, small sprite mountains, and eventually you’ll land back on the real mountain (with the same odd issues the computer pirate versions have). Steve Marcovici was the first to (publicly) deduce that the spider’s lair held a secret, via an old usenet posting dated February 6th, 1984.
• EASTER EGG: Programmer Bob Matson described a different method to finding his name at the bottom of the mountain! Start a game (you don’t need to wait for the demo to play through), and collect all the diamonds on the bottom 2 level. Next, find the flame spirit and bring it to the temple, triggering the skull to appear. At this point, go back to the bottom-most level and start running right, towards the spider’s lair. You’ll run right through it and fall through the bottom and eventually land on top of the message: “MOUNTAIN KING BY BOB MATSON” (picture #3).
• BUG: Incompatible with 2-port models (with the later OS version).
