The Konami Code

The Konami Code (A.K.A. Contra Code) is a cheat code that can be used in many Konami video games, usually giving the player a large number of lives or fully charging up the abilities of the character. The code was first used in the 1986 release of Gradius for the Nintendo Entertainment System but was made famous in the Contra series. During the title screen, the player presses the following sequence of buttons on the game controller: Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For other uses, see Cheat code (disambiguation). ... Konami Corporation ) (TYO: 9766 NYSE: KNM SGX: K20) is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling toys, trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, slot machines and video games. ... Computer and video games redirects here. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... The Gradius series, first introduced in 1985, is a series of scrolling shooter video games published by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms, and has since its inception become synonymous with the phrase Shoot the core! []. In many games in the series the player controls a... “NES” redirects here. ... The Contra series (é­‚æ–—ç¾… in Japanese) is a line of run and gun video games created by Konami from 1987 through 2004. ... A game controller is an input device used to control a video game. ...

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

This is the original version of the code, designed for the NES controller. In many popular representations of the code, "Start" is added at the end of the sequence. This is because in many of the early occurrences of the code, "Start" had to be pressed before any effects of the code could be seen. In these cases, "Start" either started or unpaused the game. "Select" is also sometimes inserted at the end of the code, but in this instance, the code would be inputted at the title screen, and pressing "Select" usually switched the players option from one to two for cooperative play (as in Contra). The exact sequence varies from game to game, and has been adapted to fit the button layouts of different video game consoles. “NES” redirects here. ... Game console redirects here. ...

History

The Konami Code was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who was developing the home port of the 1985 arcade game Gradius, a scrolling shooter released on the Famicom and Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. Finding the game too difficult to play through during testing, he created a code which gives the player a full set of powerups, which are normally attained gradually throughout the game. Also, the code entered backwards would award the player 30 lives. For whatever reason, he did not remove the code when testing was finished. The code has continued to be present in Gradius sequels and spin-offs, including the Super NES version of Gradius III, which actually destroys the player's ship upon entering the original code (however, substituting Left and Right with the L and R triggers of the Super Famicom controller powers up the ship). In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e. ... This article is about the year. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... Scrolling shooters are a type of video game, a subgenre of shoot em up . ... The Nintendo Entertainment System (U.S., Europe, and Australia) NES redirects here. ... “NES” redirects here. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... The European SNES design is identical to the Super Famicom. ... Gradius III , lit. ...

Arguably the best-known example of the Konami Code is in the 1988 NES version of Contra, where using the code increases the player's lives from 3 to 30. Due to the game's intense difficulty, many Contra players became reliant on the code to finish the game, earning it the title "The Contra Code". Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... “NES” redirects here. ... Contra ) is an arcade game released in 1987 by the Konami corporation. ...

Mentions in popular culture

Although the Konami Code was not the first video game password (that distinction belonging to "xyzzy" from Colossal Cave Adventure), it is probably the most well-known video game code. The popularity of Gradius and Contra has closely associated the Konami Code with the gaming era of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Because of its popularity, the code has been repeated in countless video games. It has also been referenced in many different pop-culture contexts, such as songs, TV shows, and other media. Adventure (also known as ADVENT or Colossal Cave) (Crowther & Woods, 1976) was the first computer adventure game. ... This article is about an early text based computer game. ... The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ...

Specially fetured in the starting for the show "Maxspeed" on wowradio!

See also

• List of Konami code games - A list of all known games where this code has an effect

This is a list of games in which use of the Konami Code significantly affects gameplay, or in which the code is notably referenced. ...

External links

• "Cracking the Code: The Konami Code," 1UP, October 2003
• Video of the show Cheat! on G4 about the Konami Code
• Implemetation of Konami cheat on Digg.com