My Old Floppies: Budo

This is the first in what I hope is a series of posts about a bunch of my old floppy disks I found at my mom’s house while visiting for the holidays.

This disk houses a cracked version of a game called Budokan. I always remembered this game but I didn’t realize it was an Electronic Arts game until looking it up just now. The game is good, but my favorite find on the disc is the wrapper that the guy who cracked the game put around it. There’s a program that references a READ.ME file, containing this raw text:

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°²²    ²²_²²²²    ²²__²²  ²²  ²²²²    ²²  ²²  ²²²²²²  ²²  ²²  ²²²²²ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÄÄÄÄÄ¿³ Program Name:  Budokan:The Martial Spirit ³ Cracked By:  The Cyborg³ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´³ Date:  November 30, 1989  ³ Disk(s):
 2    ³ Difficulty in Cracking: 4³ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´³ Description: Well, has been a long time since I cracked anything.  Pretty    ³³ nice co
meback don't you think, considering this was one of my hardest cracks ³³ I had to do.  Just be grateful you did not have to do it.  Well, you gotta   ³³ run FIX.COM whenever you want to play it.  It only has to be loaded into
³³ memory once.  Once it is loaded, it will bypass the stupid doc check, leaving³³ you with a cracked game.³ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´³ Notes: This one was pretty di
fficult to crack.  First of all, I had to over- ³³ come the changing code, then the decompression subroutines and the cold boot ³³ whenever I tried to trace.  CodeView worked perfectly with it and allowed me ³³ to finish it w
ithin 5 hours (whew!).  To overcome the self changing code and ³³ the compression, I had to make a TSR overlay to just replace the code as the ³³ program is run.  By the way, on the cracking scale, 0 is easiest, 5 is³³ th
e hardest.  Special thanks to GPA for the game (hahaha).³ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

I think it was some kind of file format that wolud be input into a graphical reader which would display things line by line, probably changing colors and stuff. But I can't tell -- as it is, the RUNME.BAT just displays the text as above, although some of the characters resolve to lines and corners, so probably the thing was supposed to be displayed in boxes.

Here it is with all the extraneous formatting removed:

Program Name: Budokan:The Martial Spirit
Cracked By: The Cyborg

---------------------------------------------------------------

Date: November 30, 1989
Disk(s): 2
Difficulty in Cracking: 4

---------------------------------------------------------------

Description: Well, has been a long time since I cracked anything. Pretty nice comeback don't you think, considering this was one of my hardest cracks I had to do. Just be grateful you did not have to do it. Well, you gotta run FIX.COM whenever you want to play it. It only has to be loaded into memory once. Once it is loaded, it will bypass the stupid doc check, leaving you with a cracked game.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Notes: This one was pretty diufficult to crack. First of all, I had to over-come the changing code, then the decompression subroutines and the cold boot whenever I tried to trace. CodeView worked perfectly with it and allowed me to finish it within 5 hours (whew!). To overcome the self changing code and the compression, I had to make a TSR overlay to just replace the code as the program is run. By the way, on the cracking scale, 0 is easiest, 5 is the hardest. Special thanks to GPA for the game (hahaha).

---------------------------------------------------------------

I also found a file on the disc dating to February 13th, 1994, around the time I received the game. It's called A.BAT. It contains the following code:

echo off
cls
triad.com
type read.me
echo Darius Kazemi loves this game!!!!!!
ECHO D DD      A     RRRR   IIIII  U   U  SSSSS
ECHO D   D    A A    R  R     I    U   U  S
ECHO D   D   AAAAA   RRRR     I    U   U  SSSSS
ECHO D D    A     A  R   R  IIIII  UUUUU      S
ECHO                                      SSSSS
pause
cls
fix
budo
echo DIRECT FROM WIZKID SZALINSKY------BUDOKAN!!

What this does is load up the greetz page for the crackers (TRIAD.COM), then display the READ.ME message above, then display... uh... some text declaring my love for the game, followed by some very, very rudimentary ASCII art. I was eleven years old and trying to emulate what the crackers were doing as best I could. I guess I was interested in them back then, too. Finally, FIX.COM is run per the cracker's instructions, the game is run, and then when the game is exited, you see on the console: "DIRECT FROM WIZKID SZALINSKY------BUDOKAN!!" Yes, that would be my embarrassing attempt at a "cool" cracker name. Wizkid Szalinsky. Not really all that effective of a pseudonym when I spell my real name out right before in giant text, eh?

I don't remember too much about the game. It was way more of a competitive martial arts simulator than an action fighting game. I do remember it being one of the prettiest games I owned for DOS even in 1994 (the game was released in 1989).

Screenshot of your first match (Mobygames).

Looking at the game's Mobygames page, I am reminded of how incredibly awesome Electronic Arts was back in the '80s. Check out this scan of the inside cover of the game manual; also courtesy of Mobygames:

The inside cover of the game manual, courtesy Mobygames.

The text reads:

You'd think that when the designers of Skyfox and Skate or Die got together, you'd get something like Space Thrashers from Mars. Instead, you've got the most unique and comprehensive martial arts game to date. Go figure. Ray Tobey, Michael Kosaka, and Rick Tiberi are computer senseis, true black belts in their art. Give them a few commands, a few pixels of color, and they could reconstruct the Sistine Chapel--and animate it, to boot. If only they had a Game Designing and Programming competition at Budokan...

Isn't that great? I love how developer-centric the whole thing is. It seems like the kind of blurb you might see as a short review at TIGSource! Definitely a very different EA from the one we know today. And yet if you look at Ray Tobey's website, which is full of interesting history, you see him close out his essay on the making of Budokan with the following:

When I started working at the EA offices in 1984, we had maybe 25 people. Every Friday at 5, the whole company gathered around the conference table for food, drinks and an update of the week's events. While I was working on Budokan, Electronic Arts went public. It now had more than a thousand people all over the world. The character of the company had changed, so I returned to the life of a contractor.

Today EA is a company of about 7,500 people.