How to play Crack’ed online
- Move the cross hairs: arrow keys
- Shoot: Z (left button)
- Catch and carry an egg: hold X (right button) with the cross hairs under a falling egg, then let go of X over a nest to drop it in
- Start a game: F3 (Reset), Z or X
- Back to the title screen: F2 (Select)
- Pause: F4
- Full screen: F9
Both the USA (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) cartridges are on this page; use the switch above the game to change.
Gameplay
You play a bird watcher whose rare hornbills have nested in the “old yolk tree”. While the parents are away, thieves move in. You start with five nests of five eggs each. Shoot the raiders before they grab an egg. If you hit one that is already carrying an egg, the egg falls, and you have a moment to catch it and put it back before it smashes on the ground. Snakes slide up to the nests and swallow eggs where they lie. A nest holds no more than five eggs.
A raid ends with whatever eggs you managed to save; keep at least one and you move on. The game takes you to five nesting sites, each with its own thieves:
- Tree: bluebirds, owls and snakes
- Sewer: dunglings, rats and dragonflies
- Sea: squid, anchovies and bubbles
- Dungeon: ghosts, skeletons and bats
- Moon: aliens, meteors and spaceships
Between sites you pass the Rooster Ranch, a bonus round where you get 10 eggs to throw. When a rooster pops up behind a nest, line up the arrows at the bottom and right edges of the screen with its face and fire. A hit scores 200 points; a miss, or letting a rooster go without a throw, costs 100. The game ends when every egg is gone.
| During a raid | Points |
|---|---|
| Shooting a creature | 100 |
| Catching an egg | 200 |
| Returning an egg to a nest | 300 |
| Each egg left at the end of a raid | 100 |
| Finishing with a dozen or more eggs | 500 per dozen |
Tips
- Hit thieves high. The higher the creature when you shoot it, the more time you have to get under the falling egg.
- Shoot over a nest. If a carrier is flying above a nest, a hit can drop the egg straight back in.
- Pick one nest to guard. Chasing eggs all over the screen leaves every nest open. Keeping one safe guarantees you reach the next raid.
- Birds first in the tree. In the first stage, the flying thieves are the bigger problem than the snakes.
- Always throw at the roosters. Doing nothing costs the same 100 points as a miss, so a quick throw can only help.
The story behind Crack’ed
Crack’ed began as a 1988 Atari ST game by Robert Craig, credited under the name Robert Neve. On the ST you aimed with the mouse; the 7800 version uses the joystick instead. Craig later said in a 2003 interview that he had not wanted console ports, because he saw Crack’ed as a mouse game. Sources give 1988 or 1989 for the 7800 cartridge.
An Atari 2600 version was also started, by Randy Bowker and Bruce Williams of Zip Chip, but it was never released. According to AtariProtos, work began in mid-1987 and the game was still unfinished in late 1988, and the surviving prototype has only three levels and a few bugs. Reviews of the 7800 game were mixed: the Atari 7800 Forever site gave it 2 out of 5, finding the controls stiff but liking the idea.
