Prince of Persia useless copy protection

[mrsir2009]

The 1992 version of Prince of Persia has the most useless copy protection ever. Level one is the only level included in the demo, so the copy protection kicks in when you win level one and try to play level two. When you win level one you get chucked inside a room with about a dozen potions. A dialog box comes up saying "drink the potion matching word X, line X, page X in the manual". Each potion has a letter above it. The stupid thing is that you get unlimited tries, and each time you have almost a 10% chance of drinking the right one... Often it only takes a few guesses to get it right. About 10 at the most.

Anyone else encountered stupid/useless copy protection?

 

[DWBurke811]

That was 20 years ago...

 

[mrsir2009]

That was 20 years ago...

So?

 

[VPrime]

LOTS of games in the late 80s and 90s had this copy protection.
They often ask the player to type in something from various pages in the manual. The concept was that only legit users had the manual... It was as effective as today's copy protection.

 

[r1ch4rd]

I remember my Dad used to occasionally get me dodgy games for my Amiga. They would often come with a printout with all of the answers to the copy protection questions. This sort of copy protection method was pretty common.

 

[mrsir2009]

Of course back then pirating wasn't too much of a issue, as the internet wasn't an effective means of distributing software, legally or illegally.

 

[(marc)]

Our beloved App Store has no effective copy protection. The same simple method works for every single app out there. Sucks to be a dev!

 

[aziatiklover]

>2011
>Talking about copyright back in 1992!
>Welcome to 2011
>I seriously hope you guys don't do this

 

[avro707]

Remember Sid Meier's Civilization I, back in the days of DOS? It was an awesome game, but the copy protection was easy to get around, it asked a question for you to look into the manual for the answer, but it was a general knowledge sort of question that you could often easily remember after a while. I loved that game. I was always the one who dominated the entire world.

Geoff Crammond's Microprose F1 GP had a chart with words you had to enter if I remember right. Those were the days - no activation stuff!

And then I remember when some high end software started using activations, like the old Dreamweaver type software, those activations were always easily bypassed by anyone with any clue of computer knowledge. Now they are fortunately more robust.

 

[fnos]

DUDE THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS. I played this game (POP 1989) back in like 2002 when i was a kid at a friends house a few times. As i got older i remembered the game but never even realized it was the original Prince of Persia game. I had only been familiar with the Ps2 era games and never even really played them. I randomly saw a video of the original game and i was shocked to see that the game i played a handful of times and never knew the name of was the original Prince of Persia game. I didn’t even know the ps2 games were reboots. The part of the 1989 pop game that always stuck out to me was the part that i could never get past. The room where you had to drink the correct potion! After finding the game i watched video after video of Full playthroughs trying to find the level, and thought i was crazy because i couldn’t find it. So thank you for posting this and solving a mystery in my head for like 20 years.

 

[Arctic Moose]

Monkey Island had a cardboard code wheel, replicated here:

The Secret of Monkey Island - Dial A Pirate

The Secret of Monkey Island - Online Interactive Code Wheel. Dial-A-Pirate Code Wheel is form of copy protection from original The Secret of Monkey Island Retail boxed game developed by LucasFilm Games in 1990...

www.oldgames.sk

I always thought this was fun, it was an extra puzzle in the style of the game.

Of course people would just take it apart, photocopy the two parts and distribute these along with the floppy copies.

 

[Mousse]

After playing the original Prince of Persia, I came to realize why the King of Persia had so many wives. Get yourself enough sons, one of them will eventually be smart enough not to walk off the edge into a spiked pit.😏 The sword fights, not to bad. The jaws of death, easy. The falling floors, *yawn*. Walking to the edge of the platform without falling off, unpossible.😖

 

[raresl]

DUDE THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS. I played this game (POP 1989) back in like 2002 when i was a kid at a friends house a few times. As i got older i remembered the game but never even realized it was the original Prince of Persia game. I had only been familiar with the Ps2 era games and never even really played them. I randomly saw a video of the original game and i was shocked to see that the game i played a handful of times and never knew the name of was the original Prince of Persia game. I didn’t even know the ps2 games were reboots. The part of the 1989 pop game that always stuck out to me was the part that i could never get past. The room where you had to drink the correct potion! After finding the game i watched video after video of Full playthroughs trying to find the level, and thought i was crazy because i couldn’t find it. So thank you for posting this and solving a mystery in my head for like 20 years.

Same here, it stuck with me for 15yrs. At that young age I was taking a computer course and if you were quick going thru all the tasks you had extra time to use the PC at the end - games ofc. Remembered it being Prince of Persia and being in a room with potions with letters and asking my teacher which one I should drink and accidentally drinking the wrong one and losing a life - luckily I reached that "level" with two. Always wondered how he knew which one to drink to pass but couldn't find the level during playthroughs.
Please help me find another game from that time: Flintstones inspired game, you had a club and you would hit things like dinosaurs and giant eggs.
Thank you,
Rares