It's astonishing to look back at what blew our minds back in the day. Makes you realize how far we've come in such a short period of time. Nowadays the quality is better but the charm ain't what it used to be.
Great video as a kid in the 80s me and my older sister mapped out the whole game. Draw picture every screen. Spends weeks, doing it. We missed out by a second. My sister pull the pin. Said it was impossible.
the Tool Assisted Speedrun is 18:11 and has 100% optimal movement, no pausing for anything unless necessary. You still need to know exactly where to go. th-cam.com/video/uVjqMsjFWAg/w-d-xo.html
Had to wait until the birth of TH-cam and the The No Swear Gamer channel to finally have closure. I hated this game because we played it for hours and had no clue what we were doing.
My brother and I played this a lot when we were kids. I remember being determined to beat Pitfall in 1984. I'd turn on the radio and play for hours. What's really interesting is when I finally beat the game I had 8 seconds left just like you did. Thanks for the video.
@@210SAi I just reasoned the underground passages were shortcuts and kept using them until I found the right ones. I didn't go to the right that many screens at the beginning but I remember doing the same thing @ 3:42 in the video. What I did after that...well it's been a long time .
@@binkaram6577 I put a lot of time into playing the game. When I finally beat the game it felt like a lifetime achievement, so to speak, so I always remembered the time left. I also have a gift for remembering stupid things like this.
How did you know you beat the game? I would have assumed it just froze and be pissed that I had 8 seconds left. Was there a dead end to the left so you could figure that there were only 32 treasure?
years ago as a kid i once had what i thought was a perfect game. i ran through the entire 20 mins without stopping once, i literally ran full speed to the right until i'm pretty sure i ended up on the first screen again. i just assumed there was no end and it was just about points and never played it again. apparently i missed a treasure or 2 but i'm fairly certain i must have been close to having them all. back then we couldn't look this stuff up like today. it's interesting to know you can actually beat it though.
I love Pitfall, I remember the gold and silver bars seemed so graphically awesome for some reason. I also felt when hitting barrels it was the most annoying sound. Such a simple time back then!
I tried this game so often. Ones I gave up. I thought this game doesn't have an End. Now after 30 years I know it did. It's still on my attic and I'm sure it works
What fascinated me the most about this game was the implication that in some jungle far away there was a species of tree that fell over and became a rolling log always going the same direction making basic walking very difficult. And if you touched them you farted and lost money.
Oh, what memories!!! I spent cumulative WEEKS of my life playing this game back in 1983. I even made a map of the underground shortcuts and where they led to on the surface. (Sad, huh?)
No. Unless you're going by someone else's pattern, then you need to map it out and decide what's the best way to get to 32. I think there were two patterns, one had you go right for the first treasure, then going left backtracking; and the other had you start by going down and left for the first treasure. I still had my maps from 1983 when I beat it again a few years ago.
I never understood the meaning of the tunnels as a kid. Now I realize some of them must be used to get all 32 treasures to beat the game before the time runs out. Brilliant game. Pitfall Harry is the original side scroller before Mario.
Dude! Nice job! I spent hours on end trying to beat this game as a kid and never could. I remember there was this book you could get that would show you the solution, but my parents didn't get it for me because they said I already played it too much. Funny - at 48, I can't say I regret it much. Good memories!
I just beat this game using an alternate strategy. After initially going right to get the gold bar, I immediately began going left, taking two underground shortcuts along the way. The first was when I returned to the initial screen. After jumping one scorpion and returning above ground, I went right one screen and again went under and to the left to jump another scorpion. This didn't save me much time but was easier than continuing right and jumping the series of scorpions to return left. Eventually, I got the last treasure with 15 seconds to spare.
Great game. I had this right in 1982 as a kid and played it a lot. I remember making it to the finish it took months to do but definitely well worth it. I remember all the Activision games you could send in a picture and get the patches. Good Times!
This was the only Activision game I bought at full price, so maybe it's the one I sent a photo for a patch? I don't have the patch to prove it, as I never had the kind of jacket you'd sew a patch onto.
Pitfall was genuinely near impossible to "win" without a guide, not to mention a lot of skill, and even with both of those, the time limit still made it very difficult. I think the most I ever managed was about 10 treasures before I died or reached the time limit, back in the day.
holy cow as an old time gamer I tried so hard to get to the end of this fame but this was in the late 80s. Thanks for letting me see the kill screen..Much love
15:35 I am just now noticing that there is a timer counting down, with less than 5 and a half minutes left... Incredible! Finding all 32 treasures in a time limit must be an exercise in ruling out all possible combinations! Very good sleuthing! Also, that Activision logo in the lower left corner at all times is funney. I guess those 80's console games companies really, really wanted people to know who owned the game they were playing, huh? X)
I can't help but wonder if the designer REALLY thought anybody would ever beat this game? I mean, pre-internet, and even knowing the path (thanks to this video) I have tried several times and although I come close, I have run out of time. You can't stop to think even for few seconds. I love the game but sheesh. :)
I got a perfect score on this two days after Christmas. I worked forever mapping out this route without the help of the internet. Sure enough it seems to be the best route!
Literally up until now I never knew this game was beatable! I beat Pitfall 2 Lost Caverns for the Atari 5200 when it first came out and that was the FIRST game I ever beat! It’s also the game that made me the gaming addict I am today! Lol! Pitfall 2 is definitely a lot easier to figure out how to beat as opposed to the first one though!
I love that this game is nearly as old as I am... and even now you're getting 100k + views on a walkthrough!! Oh what I wouldn't have given for this back in 1985...
I never knew there was a kill screen nor a limited amount of treasure. I always thought you played and got as many treasures until time ran out. Granted, I never had the box pitfall came with so maybe it said on it the amount of treasures you were able to get. Be that as it may, this one definitely my favorite game on Atari. Ok ok, missile command also.
So cool to see that the game had an actual ending. I had this game when it came out and it got boring very quickly because there didn't seem to be a purpose to it (unlike, say, Adventure or Raiders of the Lost Ark). And now after 40-ish years I can rest and get on with my life. Thank you.
So many kids didn't read the manual, or just threw it away (one kid traded a cart with another and when they wanted to trade back, said his grandmother threw away the paper). I wasn't able to beat Raiders of the Lost Ark as a kid, because I didn't know how to dig on that pile. But I did beat Pitfall!
@@sandal_thong8631 Funny. Yeah, I don't remember feeling a need to read manuals back then, because all the games were pretty simple. Like, shoot things to score points and stay alive as long as possible. I always thought that Pitfall was like that. I was so wrong. I remember finishing RotLA and finding the experience deeply rewarding. But I'm positive I didn't do it without some help from somewhere. That game was so cryptic! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to figure it out today without help.
@@sandal_thong8631 Maybe! :D I never played that one. I did get all the way through E.T., though, which was also very cryptic and very strange. It was so fun going over to friends' houses because their collection was always a little different. It was like going to a new arcade.
Was only around 9 years old when I started spending hours on end playing this one. Here I am today approaching 50. Time definitely waits for no one.......
@@evilmonkeyspeaks7801 My Mom is a thrift shopper. When video games 1st got big Nintendo was king. So, what system did I get? Sega Master System! Had Wonderboy in Monsterland & I can still speedrun that bugger _right_ up to final boss, where I die instantly! Few years later, got the Sega Genesis And I _massacred_ Wonder Boy in Monster World. Never, ever got that Super Nintendo That I desperately wanted... yet I've collected my most favourite games for that system & still have, hidden away safe & sound. I'm afraid to purchase used from eBay for fear of gettin' all excited & if it doesn't work or overheats, I'd be devastated. Plus, Where TF would I find the time to play?? 😂😂😂😂
After reaching the required score, did any of you take a photograph of your television screen showing the score and send the picture to Activision headquarters to receive a merit patch?
I had the Coleco version and found out you could jump through the brick walls in the cave. It was extremely tricky and you had to time it perfectly but you jumped forward toward the wall, and at the top of you jump, turn in the opposite direction and you would clip through it.
I am 44 years old, I am playing fallout 4 and come across Pipfall holotape, and remember back in the day. Didn't Pitfall end with a frozen screen, how lame is that, no pop up window saying you won or you survived. Googled it and watched your youtube video. Yet at age 10 I remember completing the game and having a certain amount of satisfaction that the screen had froze. Kinda like a gladiator having defeated an opponent and the crowd is wailing, only you hear silence. Thank you for the trip back in time, keep it up NoSwearGamer.
Nice job! I can't tell you how many times that stupid scorpion has killed me over the years... That last screen is not technically a "kill screen", but it's a screen I've never seen before. A true kill screen is one where the character dies, usually because you have reached the limits of the 8 bit hardware you're playing it on, like the 256th Pacman, Donkey Kong or other 8 bit game's screen. A really interesting talk is David Crane - the programmer of this and many other classic Atari 2600 games - talking about how he stored all of the many screen layouts (over 200, if I remember) in only 128 *BYTES* (yes, bytes) of RAM on the 2600. It's somewhere in part one or two of "Stella at 20" - about the development of the 2600, available here on TH-cam somewhere. JW3HH
David Crane was The MAN! And he apparently had the foresight to keep any funny business from happening because of the limitations of 8 bit hardware (especially the Atari 2600 which was _severely_ limited in many ways - which also made it super flexible, as the programmer had SO much control, even compared to other 8 bit computers). His clever way of storing all of those screens in only 4k of ROM code is amazing. (He used a reversible algorithm to do it. Very clever). JW3HH
A kill screen is when a glitch, overflow, or hardware limitation makes the game unplayable by crash or other non-gameplay means preventing advancement.
I was so disappointed they didn't have an ending screen, like seeing Pitfall Harry rescued by helicopter. Or even a screen showing your 32 treasures! So once I won, I didn't play it again for years and years. In Pele's Soccer, by contrast, every time you scored a goal there were fireworks, which got old, quickly.
I remember one of those 'video game strategy' books from the 80s that I had that had the complete map. How all the tunnels connect and everything. I still never managed this.
I wish that I could be as good as you at playing Pitfall. One time I was able to play it for the entire 20 minutes but I didn't get all of the treasures.
That's some SLICK play my dude! As a kid I think I managed 20-something treasures at my best before time ran out. I also ran it to the right most playthroughs and I HATED doing the scorpion run bypass screens. Very nice to see!
Going right to left was frowned upon because it was the cheap way to get past an obstacle if you died since you were dropped at the left of the screen.
I have never beaten this game, due to the time limit, that pretty much excludes any real and indepth exploration.. Yeah, I was just too lazy to start the game over and over again to do a proper map 🙂 The sequel, 'Pitfall! II - Lost Caverns' was my favourite, though.
Bro inhad this game back in the day i didn't even know there was a ending to it thanks the only pitfall I beat was pitfall 2 that was really fun to play
Great walk through. I always thought left was the only real way to beat the game, and also if you wanted to go for that perfect score, cuz obviously it's easier running same direction as the logs, as vs running to the right the whole time lol. . jumping over the logs is so much more difficult to not touch them playing that way.(heading right direction) But when I beat the game as a kid I recall only having to go.left, I know on like I think 2 occasions including the beginning that you had to exit the tunnel and go right to collect the treasure . . Oh wait I think you ran right first and then collected first treasure and then entered the tunnel.and started heading left. I remember being able to beat it just by heading left the whole time. I think I beat it with a little less than 20 seconds left. I'm surprised that many on here in the comments say they didn't know that there was an ending. I'm wondering if most played like a hand me down or many years later or something. I am 48 years old, and if you or your family had purchased the game when it was popular it tells you in the instruction booklet that there is 32 treasures to finish the game. And I remember toward the back of the instruction booklet I think it was the creator David Crane that wrote if you took a Polaroid photo that you completed the game that showed time left and score, you would be in running for some contest drawing lol. Of course that was during when it was hot off the shelves, but later on if you bought the game, it would still have in gaming instructions about the 32 treasures to complete though lol. I guess so many people just popped in the cartridge and just started playing --- I mean it is the arcade generation that played this on the home console, and we all know so.many arcade games back then there was no instructions, you just popped in quarters and played lol, so I guess that's why many people didn't know you could beat Pitfall. Thank you so much for posting your walk through. . This brought back so many awesome memories playing this . . Pitfall was definitely the greatest, most standout popular game for the Atari 2600 :-)
I remember if you inserted the game wrong, there was a glitch where Harry would be at the top of the screen and in suspended animation in his jumping frame. You could move back and forth too but the screen would just repeat itself if you tried to exit. There were a few other weird things too, but I can’t remember.
After watching your latest video, I just wanted to know what would happen if you got all 32 ... So here I am, and man... am I glad I found this! (Sort of)
+Ricky Darlington I found a map on the interweb and typed out instructions on the specific path to take. I also had those instructions taped on the TV stand so I could easily see them while playing.
I wonder how many games would’ve been obsolete in the 80s if we had widespread Internet back then. There was no way to know any secrets, other than mythology spread by word of mouth.
I only found out as an adult, that you could write to Atari to get the complete solution for _Raiders of the Lost Ark._ I didn't know how to dig on the dirt pile in the Well of the Souls or I would have won it in 1983. Not that I figured much of it out myself. You pretty much had to do the cheat sheet in the instructions to get anywhere. They should have made it so you were on a horse chasing a truck and fighting people, similar to the arcade game _Wild Western._ I then played _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)_ in maybe 1986 at my aunt and uncle's place on a monochrome monitor. I restrained myself as long as I could, but summer was nearly over and I couldn't get off the Heart of Gold ship. So I opened the booklet that said, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED A HINT, and it said you could buy the hint book! I finally beat it on the internet a few years ago, but the version didn't allow you to save your game, so you had to do everything correctly with very few commands to get off Earth and the Vogon ship on time, or start over.
Thanks for this fantastic demostration. My ATARI 2600 had in built almost all the games inside the console. Was this a mod or a special edition? I never had the need of a cartridge.
Honestly I did not know you could "beat" pitfall. When I was a kid it was basically a running and swinging simulator for me.
Same. Pretty cool to see NSG light the way.
It’s no longer a folklore that there is an ending to this game! Kudos!
I always thought this game was endless.Thank you giving me closure after several decades.
Ditto!!
It's astonishing to look back at what blew our minds back in the day. Makes you realize how far we've come in such a short period of time. Nowadays the quality is better but the charm ain't what it used to be.
I had always heard that you could "beat" this game, but I never actually thought it was possible until now, 40 years later!
Great video as a kid in the 80s me and my older sister mapped out the whole game. Draw picture every screen. Spends weeks, doing it. We missed out by a second. My sister pull the pin. Said it was impossible.
the Tool Assisted Speedrun is 18:11 and has 100% optimal movement, no pausing for anything unless necessary. You still need to know exactly where to go. th-cam.com/video/uVjqMsjFWAg/w-d-xo.html
Had to wait until the birth of TH-cam and the The No Swear Gamer channel to finally have closure. I hated this game because we played it for hours and had no clue what we were doing.
My brother and I played this a lot when we were kids. I remember being determined to beat Pitfall in 1984. I'd turn on the radio and play for hours. What's really interesting is when I finally beat the game I had 8 seconds left just like you did. Thanks for the video.
But how did you figure it out? Seems impossible without the pattern known
@@210SAi I just reasoned the underground passages were shortcuts and kept using them until I found the right ones. I didn't go to the right that many screens at the beginning but I remember doing the same thing @ 3:42 in the video. What I did after that...well it's been a long time .
I believe u but im curious how did u remember the time left ?
@@binkaram6577 I put a lot of time into playing the game. When I finally beat the game it felt like a lifetime achievement, so to speak, so I always remembered the time left. I also have a gift for remembering stupid things like this.
How did you know you beat the game? I would have assumed it just froze and be pissed that I had 8 seconds left. Was there a dead end to the left so you could figure that there were only 32 treasure?
Sights & sounds that I haven't experienced in 33 years... Truly a blast from the past!
Thanks for closing that door of curiosity in my memory!!!
3 years later, but that's what brought me here as well! I can get back to my life now.
years ago as a kid i once had what i thought was a perfect game. i ran through the entire 20 mins without stopping once, i literally ran full speed to the right until i'm pretty sure i ended up on the first screen again. i just assumed there was no end and it was just about points and never played it again. apparently i missed a treasure or 2 but i'm fairly certain i must have been close to having them all. back then we couldn't look this stuff up like today. it's interesting to know you can actually beat it though.
@@FimShady 😁
@@Jack_80 Awesome run! Where did you grow up from?
@@actsismmljcorrectlyobeyed6190 ... from an infant, like everyone else, I would guess.
I love Pitfall, I remember the gold and silver bars seemed so graphically awesome for some reason. I also felt when hitting barrels it was the most annoying sound. Such a simple time back then!
I tried this game so often. Ones I gave up. I thought this game doesn't have an End. Now after 30 years I know it did. It's still on my attic and I'm sure it works
What fascinated me the most about this game was the implication that in some jungle far away there was a species of tree that fell over and became a rolling log always going the same direction making basic walking very difficult. And if you touched them you farted and lost money.
@Tobie Sky And they all opened and closed their mouths at the same time
Oh, what memories!!! I spent cumulative WEEKS of my life playing this game back in 1983. I even made a map of the underground shortcuts and where they led to on the surface. (Sad, huh?)
No. Unless you're going by someone else's pattern, then you need to map it out and decide what's the best way to get to 32. I think there were two patterns, one had you go right for the first treasure, then going left backtracking; and the other had you start by going down and left for the first treasure. I still had my maps from 1983 when I beat it again a few years ago.
I never understood the meaning of the tunnels as a kid. Now I realize some of them must be used to get all 32 treasures to beat the game before the time runs out. Brilliant game. Pitfall Harry is the original side scroller before Mario.
Dude! Nice job! I spent hours on end trying to beat this game as a kid and never could. I remember there was this book you could get that would show you the solution, but my parents didn't get it for me because they said I already played it too much. Funny - at 48, I can't say I regret it much. Good memories!
I just beat this game using an alternate strategy. After initially going right to get the gold bar, I immediately began going left, taking two underground shortcuts along the way. The first was when I returned to the initial screen. After jumping one scorpion and returning above ground, I went right one screen and again went under and to the left to jump another scorpion. This didn't save me much time but was easier than continuing right and jumping the series of scorpions to return left. Eventually, I got the last treasure with 15 seconds to spare.
I have to admit I was actually in suspense by the end of this video!
The technology of the day, a polaroid of that screen shot would have been the stuff of legend. Nice video!
Been trying to beat this for 29 years. THANK YOU!
I did it!!! Omg, i can’t believe, first time in 32 yearsssss 🤣🤣🤣 tks, man!!!
My childhood, damn! Still gaming and going strong on all new games and old school! Can't get enough!
Great game. I had this right in 1982 as a kid and played it a lot. I remember making it to the finish it took months to do but definitely well worth it. I remember all the Activision games you could send in a picture and get the patches. Good Times!
Yeh it's an awesome feeling to complete it. You need great timing.
This was the only Activision game I bought at full price, so maybe it's the one I sent a photo for a patch? I don't have the patch to prove it, as I never had the kind of jacket you'd sew a patch onto.
Pitfall was genuinely near impossible to "win" without a guide, not to mention a lot of skill, and even with both of those, the time limit still made it very difficult. I think the most I ever managed was about 10 treasures before I died or reached the time limit, back in the day.
It's not hard to beat as long as the player uses the right tunnels
holy cow as an old time gamer I tried so hard to get to the end of this fame but this was in the late 80s. Thanks for letting me see the kill screen..Much love
15:35 I am just now noticing that there is a timer counting down, with less than 5 and a half minutes left... Incredible! Finding all 32 treasures in a time limit must be an exercise in ruling out all possible combinations! Very good sleuthing!
Also, that Activision logo in the lower left corner at all times is funney. I guess those 80's console games companies really, really wanted people to know who owned the game they were playing, huh? X)
I can't help but wonder if the designer REALLY thought anybody would ever beat this game? I mean, pre-internet, and even knowing the path (thanks to this video) I have tried several times and although I come close, I have run out of time. You can't stop to think even for few seconds. I love the game but sheesh. :)
I got a perfect score on this two days after Christmas. I worked forever mapping out this route without the help of the internet. Sure enough it seems to be the best route!
Your amazing
Literally up until now I never knew this game was beatable! I beat Pitfall 2 Lost Caverns for the Atari 5200 when it first came out and that was the FIRST game I ever beat! It’s also the game that made me the gaming addict I am today! Lol! Pitfall 2 is definitely a lot easier to figure out how to beat as opposed to the first one though!
I love that this game is nearly as old as I am... and even now you're getting 100k + views on a walkthrough!! Oh what I wouldn't have given for this back in 1985...
I never like Pitfall because I could never understand the strategy. Thanks for the explanation. I’ll take River Raid any day.
Joel Book both are great
As I found this, the first thing I thought “I wonder if there is a River Raid walkthrough that beats it on TH-cam” to relive old memories.
I never knew there was a kill screen nor a limited amount of treasure. I always thought you played and got as many treasures until time ran out. Granted, I never had the box pitfall came with so maybe it said on it the amount of treasures you were able to get.
Be that as it may, this one definitely my favorite game on Atari.
Ok ok, missile command also.
Great job, both with the game play and the video production. Having the narration makes it so much better to watch.
I loved playing these games as a kid. Pitfall was one of my favorites. Back then, I just blindly played it. Thanks for doing this video.
So cool to see that the game had an actual ending. I had this game when it came out and it got boring very quickly because there didn't seem to be a purpose to it (unlike, say, Adventure or Raiders of the Lost Ark). And now after 40-ish years I can rest and get on with my life. Thank you.
So many kids didn't read the manual, or just threw it away (one kid traded a cart with another and when they wanted to trade back, said his grandmother threw away the paper). I wasn't able to beat Raiders of the Lost Ark as a kid, because I didn't know how to dig on that pile. But I did beat Pitfall!
@@sandal_thong8631 Funny. Yeah, I don't remember feeling a need to read manuals back then, because all the games were pretty simple. Like, shoot things to score points and stay alive as long as possible. I always thought that Pitfall was like that. I was so wrong.
I remember finishing RotLA and finding the experience deeply rewarding. But I'm positive I didn't do it without some help from somewhere. That game was so cryptic! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to figure it out today without help.
@@psterud I remember having a good experience playing Riddle of the Sphinx at another kids house; maybe he had the manual?
@@sandal_thong8631 Maybe! :D I never played that one. I did get all the way through E.T., though, which was also very cryptic and very strange.
It was so fun going over to friends' houses because their collection was always a little different. It was like going to a new arcade.
That timer counting down makes me nervous 🤣 nice work man.
I LOVE watching you do this walk through. Now I understand why MY kids use to watch me play games, Now they help me. I'm getting old lol
Thanks!
Aren't we all!
Time waits for no one ♥
@@gerryconwayvoice Me... Wait _for_ ME!
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Was only around 9 years old when I started spending hours on end playing this one. Here I am today approaching 50. Time definitely waits for no one.......
@@evilmonkeyspeaks7801 My Mom is a thrift shopper. When video games 1st got big Nintendo was king. So, what system did I get? Sega Master System! Had Wonderboy in Monsterland & I can still speedrun that bugger _right_ up to final boss, where I die instantly! Few years later, got the Sega Genesis And I _massacred_ Wonder Boy in Monster World. Never, ever got that Super Nintendo That I desperately wanted... yet I've collected my most favourite games for that system & still have, hidden away safe & sound. I'm afraid to purchase used from eBay for fear of gettin' all excited & if it doesn't work or overheats, I'd be devastated. Plus, Where TF would I find the time to play?? 😂😂😂😂
After reaching the required score, did any of you take a photograph of your television screen showing the score and send the picture to Activision headquarters to receive a merit patch?
Somebody get him a Pitfall! Patch from Activision. :-)
NYSW88 I had one! Sadly, I think that was lost long ago.
Had one too.... stayed up all night playing one night in ‘82 to get it done
I had the Coleco version and found out you could jump through the brick walls in the cave. It was extremely tricky and you had to time it perfectly but you jumped forward toward the wall, and at the top of you jump, turn in the opposite direction and you would clip through it.
I am 44 years old, I am playing fallout 4 and come across Pipfall holotape, and remember back in the day. Didn't Pitfall end with a frozen screen, how lame is that, no pop up window saying you won or you survived. Googled it and watched your youtube video. Yet at age 10 I remember completing the game and having a certain amount of satisfaction that the screen had froze. Kinda like a gladiator having defeated an opponent and the crowd is wailing, only you hear silence. Thank you for the trip back in time, keep it up NoSwearGamer.
You're very welcome! Hitting the frozen screen in this game was actually on of the most satisfy accomplishments in my history of gaming.
The No Swear Gamer how did you ever figure out how to beat this game?.. As a kid I thought it was never ending.
Pitfall was so amazing.
It turned out to be the game of Christmas 1982, after E.T. was a dud that so many people returned! Why? Because of falling in the pits! How ironic!
Nice job! I can't tell you how many times that stupid scorpion has killed me over the years...
That last screen is not technically a "kill screen", but it's a screen I've never seen before. A true kill screen is one where the character dies, usually because you have reached the limits of the 8 bit hardware you're playing it on, like the 256th Pacman, Donkey Kong or other 8 bit game's screen.
A really interesting talk is David Crane - the programmer of this and many other classic Atari 2600 games - talking about how he stored all of the many screen layouts (over 200, if I remember) in only 128 *BYTES* (yes, bytes) of RAM on the 2600. It's somewhere in part one or two of "Stella at 20" - about the development of the 2600, available here on TH-cam somewhere.
JW3HH
Yeah, technically not a kill screen, but saying freeze screen seemed off, lol. And that scorpion was the biggest pain.
David Crane was The MAN! And he apparently had the foresight to keep any funny business from happening because of the limitations of 8 bit hardware (especially the Atari 2600 which was _severely_ limited in many ways - which also made it super flexible, as the programmer had SO much control, even compared to other 8 bit computers). His clever way of storing all of those screens in only 4k of ROM code is amazing. (He used a reversible algorithm to do it. Very clever).
JW3HH
A kill screen is when a glitch, overflow, or hardware limitation makes the game unplayable by crash or other non-gameplay means preventing advancement.
@@DougGlendower Yep, so not really a killscreen in this case but just the natural end of the game.
I used to LOVE playing this game when I was younger.. My how have video gaming systems have come a long way
Nah it's still the same, making little men run from left to right and jump over things. And well maybe shoot something too.
I didn’t know you could beat the game. I just kept playing it until the time ran out. Lol.
No cheat codes when this game was originally released
thanks for the upload i could never finish it glad i got to see the ending which wasn't too much special
You're welcome! With some of these old games, simply getting to the end is the special part!
The No Swear Gamer well said
I was so disappointed they didn't have an ending screen, like seeing Pitfall Harry rescued by helicopter. Or even a screen showing your 32 treasures! So once I won, I didn't play it again for years and years.
In Pele's Soccer, by contrast, every time you scored a goal there were fireworks, which got old, quickly.
I remember one of those 'video game strategy' books from the 80s that I had that had the complete map. How all the tunnels connect and everything. I still never managed this.
Bro you beat it - almost nobody knew that was possible
Wow thank you 🙏 I have waited 40 years to witness this game defeated! 😮
I finally hit all 32 treasures on july 9,2024 with a final score of 113881. Thank you for this video. i never would have found this path on my own.
Well done. Usually narration kills a video but yours was spot on.
+ramairluvr Thank You!
I find game reviews with good narration are quite hard to come by too.
I wish that I could be as good as you at playing Pitfall. One time I was able to play it for the entire 20 minutes but I didn't get all of the treasures.
That's some SLICK play my dude! As a kid I think I managed 20-something treasures at my best before time ran out. I also ran it to the right most playthroughs and I HATED doing the scorpion run bypass screens. Very nice to see!
I'm sneaking a pitfall reference into my next novel, Hot Nights and Cold Wars. So, I'll justify watching this video as research. :)
I never even knew that the point of the game was to collect the treasures. I was always just running around looking for the next level.
Going right to left was frowned upon because it was the cheap way to get past an obstacle if you died since you were dropped at the left of the screen.
However, to collect all the treasures, you have to take a specific path, that sometimes included going both ways.
I have never seen a video of anyone beating this game going right all or most of the way.
I have never beaten this game, due to the time limit, that pretty much excludes any real and indepth exploration.. Yeah, I was just too lazy to start the game over and over again to do a proper map 🙂
The sequel, 'Pitfall! II - Lost Caverns' was my favourite, though.
Great walkthrough Phil! I knew about going left, but not the exact path.
I never even realised about going left, and I played this when it came out! PS. 18:03 is SO close to death! :O
O.g
Yah, at 18:03 I gasped "Oh No!!"
Bro inhad this game back in the day i didn't even know there was a ending to it thanks the only pitfall I beat was pitfall 2 that was really fun to play
Ive wondered how to beat or what the ending was on this game for 40 plus years. Thank you!
Great walk through. I always thought left was the only real way to beat the game, and also if you wanted to go for that perfect score, cuz obviously it's easier running same direction as the logs, as vs running to the right the whole time lol. . jumping over the logs is so much more difficult to not touch them playing that way.(heading right direction) But when I beat the game as a kid I recall only having to go.left, I know on like I think 2 occasions including the beginning that you had to exit the tunnel and go right to collect the treasure . . Oh wait I think you ran right first and then collected first treasure and then entered the tunnel.and started heading left. I remember being able to beat it just by heading left the whole time. I think I beat it with a little less than 20 seconds left. I'm surprised that many on here in the comments say they didn't know that there was an ending. I'm wondering if most played like a hand me down or many years later or something. I am 48 years old, and if you or your family had purchased the game when it was popular it tells you in the instruction booklet that there is 32 treasures to finish the game. And I remember toward the back of the instruction booklet I think it was the creator David Crane that wrote if you took a Polaroid photo that you completed the game that showed time left and score, you would be in running for some contest drawing lol. Of course that was during when it was hot off the shelves, but later on if you bought the game, it would still have in gaming instructions about the 32 treasures to complete though lol. I guess so many people just popped in the cartridge and just started playing --- I mean it is the arcade generation that played this on the home console, and we all know so.many arcade games back then there was no instructions, you just popped in quarters and played lol, so I guess that's why many people didn't know you could beat Pitfall. Thank you so much for posting your walk through. . This brought back so many awesome memories playing this . . Pitfall was definitely the greatest, most standout popular game for the Atari 2600 :-)
Wow, this game actually had an ending? I never knew! Thanks for sharing!
Um de meus jogos favoritos no Intellivision em 1984. Adoro este jogo!! Obrigado pelas dicas! Alexandre MG Brasil
I remember if you inserted the game wrong, there was a glitch where Harry would be at the top of the screen and in suspended animation in his jumping frame. You could move back and forth too but the screen would just repeat itself if you tried to exit. There were a few other weird things too, but I can’t remember.
You beat the game and there was no fireworks, no music, no dancing Harry. What a disappointment. But thank you for making the video.
"Dancing Harry" makes me think of the dancing figures in an Odyssey² game!
I had no idea this game actually had an end. I thought the goal was to collect as many treasures as you could before time ran out.
That's the goal, like any other arcade game it's not really meant to be beat
Just like how pac man has an end, but that doesn't mean it was intended
surely belongs to the 3 best games ever made for the 2600
After 41 yrs since I was 5. I now know what happens. Thanks!
This game used to always piss me off.
Amazing video! I grew up with this game as a kid. 😍😍😍. Thank you for this post.
63 screens...58 screens....and only 20 minutes? These programmers were evil.
Theres a TAS Speedrun...at 18.11 min. 20 min isnt fair lol
Always considered scoring as many points as I could and lasting the full 20 minutes to be victory. Looks like I was wrong.......
Along with "Combat" this was my first game on the Atari 2600. Ah, Christmas of 82!
Nice
That was a sick run! Goals!
Sir, thank you for posting and Sharing this awesome game
Thanks for the vid I just got pitfall for my 2600+ and I am really struggling to make 72k so the explanation of the passages is very useful thank you
you are the only person on the planet i know to have ever done this!
Lol, I'm not the first, and there are others who can do this without getting touched, but thank you!
That is a such good game. I never finnish it.
It's one of my favorites from back in the early 80s! I never did receive my high score patch, even after sending in my picture of the high score😕
After watching your latest video, I just wanted to know what would happen if you got all 32 ... So here I am, and man... am I glad I found this! (Sort of)
Has anyone ever played Frostbite? That game was sooo badass!
I have Pitfall and Frostbite and play them on a 7800. Frostbite is way harder than Pitfall. Not at the beginning but farther into the game it is.
how in heavens name did you figure out that strategy?
+Ricky Darlington I found a map on the interweb and typed out instructions on the specific path to take. I also had those instructions taped on the TV stand so I could easily see them while playing.
back in the day, you explore and map the top level, the bottom skips 3 screens so you use them to explore more distant areas on later missions.
Not even a "congratulations" at the end 🤣 games were tooo simple those days 😂
That's why I never played it again for years and years. Though I beat it again in my forties.
Great classic game!!!
I wonder how many games would’ve been obsolete in the 80s if we had widespread Internet back then. There was no way to know any secrets, other than mythology spread by word of mouth.
I only found out as an adult, that you could write to Atari to get the complete solution for _Raiders of the Lost Ark._ I didn't know how to dig on the dirt pile in the Well of the Souls or I would have won it in 1983. Not that I figured much of it out myself. You pretty much had to do the cheat sheet in the instructions to get anywhere. They should have made it so you were on a horse chasing a truck and fighting people, similar to the arcade game _Wild Western._
I then played _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1984)_ in maybe 1986 at my aunt and uncle's place on a monochrome monitor. I restrained myself as long as I could, but summer was nearly over and I couldn't get off the Heart of Gold ship. So I opened the booklet that said, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED A HINT, and it said you could buy the hint book! I finally beat it on the internet a few years ago, but the version didn't allow you to save your game, so you had to do everything correctly with very few commands to get off Earth and the Vogon ship on time, or start over.
There ain't NO 2600 game that has a map as complicated as this. This is like Deadly Towers on NES, except, uh, actually fun and easy to traverse.
Jeepers they are not generous with that time.
How did they expect anyone to figure this out? No wonder I never got anywhere with it.
18:04 close call, buddy😰
Dang it this game is etched into my brain! I played when I was in 1st grade! 1983!
I used to play my siblings copy, I was awful at it though. so many memories
That's crazy that you took the time to do this! How in the world did you figure this out??
And who figured this out? I can’t believe you spend most of your time running to the left.
Thanks for this fantastic demostration. My ATARI 2600 had in built almost all the games inside the console. Was this a mod or a special edition? I never had the need of a cartridge.
oscar lobaton some kind of non sanctioned mod
How to jump every scorpion: focus your vision on the legs of Pitfall, and ignore the rest other than the scorpion. You will jump right every time.
Even though I wasn't playing, I felt the same anxiety before every jump.
Thank you. I can die peacefully now.
Fun fact, the music when u hang is actually the refrence of Tarzan probably from the movie when he screams
dude you practically literally subconsciously saved my life, your wife must be pissed off right about now!!!
Wow! You beat Pitfall, epic!