Hareraiser (The Worst Game Ever) - Stuart Ashen - Norwich Gaming Festival 2017
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2017
- Organised by our Educational Partner, Norwich University of the Arts, Stuart Ashen joined us at the Gaming Festival in 2017 to talk about Hareraiser and explore just why it could well be the worst game ever.
Thankfully, this story had a happy ending! After the failure of Masquerade, Kit Williams decided to try again and did everything possible to ensure no one could possibly pull a Dugald Thompson. He released a book with no title where the puzzle was to discover the title of the book. The prize(A gold Queen Bee statue and a copy of the book that actually had the title)would go to whoever could figure it out and come up with the most creative(non-verbal)way of sending the title to Williams himself. In the end, Steve Pearce sent in a small decorated handmade cabinet that revealed the title when the handle was turned and walked away with his rightfully won Queen Bee statue and uniquely titled copy of "The Bee On The Comb".
I kinda wonder how that would have worked, since there are laws and regulations in place, both for copyright as well as other technicalities and rules XD
I guess he also learnt not to bury anything from the previous puzzle because treasure hunters were often trespassing on private property and at times, digging in people's gardens which caused a lot of complaints from angry property owners
@@WeirdWonderfulI reckon you wonder about a lot of things 🙄
I also feel that the art itself is better in the bee book (as many still call it).
It makes me sad that they cheated the physics people.
The pendant is really beautiful.
they didn't cheat them, the couple never submitted their answer to the creator, so ...
It made me sad that they conned Kit too.
Well, arguably the physics people weren't cheated as they had bungled their dig and the submitting of the answer before Mr a.k.a. Thomas even had a chance of getting involved.
Kit was cheated though, sorry to hear, too.
It's an interesting result though!.. Not only it proven that someone with insider information would be the winner eventually, we also have the case of people who actually solved the puzzle but decided to keep it to themselves instead of submitting the answer. Tells much more about human nature than a straight win would've.
I don't think you were required to submit the answer to the writer. But the quest was designed that way so that people around the world could "participate" in the quest. Otherwise the quest would've been too expensive for most people to participate.@@KasumiRINA
Hareraiser: £8.95
Hareraiser Season Pass: £8.95
Uhhh... what, you think you would just get the second game in the series for free!?
Haresoft walked so EA could run
@The Jester - Fool Of Hearts nah, the correct price for the DLC would be $59.99
by EA
first documented pay to win game
Kit Williams did an un named book quest in the 80`s which with puzzles & pictures you
had to find the title .
It had a story based around the seasons and the result one season ousting out
the next .
The idea of the competition was to find the name of the book & convey it without
using words .
My entry got into the finals with many amazing others , I had to go to London to retrieve it .
The name of the book was " The bee on the comb " so I made a bee hive , a large one which I had to carry on the tube with lots of dubious looks from fellow travellers .
Green Man I love Bee on the Comb! It's so cool that you were one of the people who sent in an entry. By the time I encountered that book the contest was long over. Still a really fun puzzle to work through though!
That is a genuinely cool story. Dirty looks or no, I'm sure it must have been a blast.
Just today watched a clip here on CZcams of the finale on Wogan. Entertaining stuff and very creative responses from you and the other best entrants.
I did not expect that to be as fascinating as it ended up being.
My thoughts exactly. Fell bad for poor Kit Williams, had a wonderful idea full of passion and some low-life cheat robbed him of a moment.
I'd like to know what happened to Thompson and Guard, their actions must've led to criminal proceedings.
I did, it'd Ashens...he can even make an Al Gore speech look tolerable
Felt the same. Hell, this could make for the plot of a pretty decent movie.
I was as surprised by that as I was that a video about a game which is called "the worst game ever" didn't have a single curse in it.
This was an amazing story.
really enthralling!
'An excellent story'
I sit corrected, sir, an excellent story indeed!
An excellent realization
'An excellent back-and-forth'
Some plonker released a game on Steam that was supposedly a really hard puzzle with 16 levels. Nobody ever solved the first level because it's so haaaaaard. Disassembly showed that the game was just one level copy-pasted 16 times and there was no level change logic (or indeed game logic) implemented at all.
Is that the certain game that Jim Sterling featured? Sounds extremely similar.
Yeah, he has a video on it. I cannot remember the name though.
They could be sued over this I'm assuming.
I'm still trying to find this game you talk about...
Sounds like "Journey of the Light"
Plot twist, the spelling of “puzle” is the first clue
Explain more
@@radarsock The first clue to provide thee a glance that the initiator of this Hareraiser programme was an illiterate, dumb-ass, and irresponsible clown.
The game was so bad, he essentially gave a TED talk about it.
That's how bad it was.
It was better than a TED talk.
That moment when people don't know what a lecture is anymore and just call them TED talks.
That moment when people don't know what a colloquium is.
People like TED talks. They do NOT like lectures. Even if the content is exactly the same.
people like TED Talks cause they are on the INTERNETz, and not in School...z.
Glad I viewed this. Stuart is a fine storyteller and I hadn't known the whole story of Masquerade or even heard of Hareraiser before.
The next Michael Rosenberg D: (you tube video story telling fame)
Oscar Velazquez and YTP fame
who would have known the man who throws old food on his couch and plays with bad chinese toys was such a gifted essayist
the only thing that caught my attention, was the word hareraiser, because i tough it was related to hell raiser
I had an art/storybook very much like Masquerade, right down to the picture borders with letters, but self-contained and of a complexity that a child could reasonably solve. I don't have it anymore nor any clue what it was called, but it's interesting to know it was probably inspired by this whole mess.
I'm old. I had the book as a child, and later I was able to buy Bamber Gascoigne's book and learned the whole sordid story of Ken Thomas. What a disappointing end to a beautiful story. I'm glad Kit Williams and the pendant are still around!
Party Bot If he want to he can make a new book and jewellery and challenges the new generation in another treasure hunt.
I was actually really sad to hear about Kit getting conned, I hope it all worked out for him.
Party Bot I had it too, and another book that was a companion guide, which I still have.
@@caolan1083 Yeah, but honestly, he was successfully beyond his imagination. No one saw the success of his book coming when he first conceived of and created it. Millions of people stated and started at his artwork. Call it a win for Kit. A let down for all the puzzle-hunters.
@@caolan1083 sad for the physics teachers too
"Told you it was awful." Best ending of a presentation!
If you're intimidated by the 38 minute video I still recommend you watch it. There's very little fluff. This dumb game just has that much of an interesting history behind it. And it's not just the usual "Oh no we tried to make a game but we didn't know it would take up so much time/money so we had to put it out unfinished"
Stuart Ashen can do damned near anything for 38 minutes and make it interesting.
jman3267 It was 38 minutes? Holy damn, I haven't even noticed
PFT. I've watched the five hour livestream he did! This is child's play!
It's ashens I'd watch 38 mins of him saying Italian music
I watched it at half speed because the longer Stuart talks, the better.
That truly was a terrible old game I'd never heard of.
not a game.
It was just a very expensive interface
666 likes
Should I like to destroy it?
Great talk, thanks for uploading. Interestingly, at 9:18 he explains the words 'frog' and 'stone' didn't mean anything, but there is a picture in the book (#3) showing the hare sitting on a flat rock with frog’s eyes. In Ampthill Park, near St. Catherine's cross, there is a stone nicknamed the 'frogstone' for its rounded, lumpy shape (although apparently Kit Williams was unaware of this rock).
Worst talk. The host is so unfunny and boring. My gosh
We’re damn at good at seeing patterns. There’s probably other things you can find that pointed to that area that Williams didn’t intend.
@@LAGGANGGAMING Yeah all that laughter from the audience, famously the sound of boredom.
Heh, I remember how annoyed landowners and councils got due to people trespassing and digging up random bits of land thinking the hare was buried there. Williams got a lot of flak for that iirc.
Yes, Kit had to publicly declare that the treasure was not buried on private property. (Least of all his own property as plenty of treasure hunters descended on his garden.)
Sounds like the whole pokemon go debacle
@@ninototo1 My thoughts too. ;3
The story of Masquerade was truly fascinating, and what a sad thing that somebody actually got the answer absolutely correct and didn't know it.
So when he played the game I just did a stream of thought experiment. "The grass is like a carpet" means some place with open space, like the English countryside. Or perhaps a large garden. "The sun shines up" is some place that has a reflection, like water. "The count has begun" either means some place that has competitions, like a marathon, or some place with a visible clock tower, like a town square. "Help is here" refers to a military saying, like a cavalry charge. "Search from coast to coast" means it's inland, nowhere near the sea, meaning "The sun shines up" refers to a river or lake. So I came up with on or around the grounds of Castle Ashby, because it's centermost in the country, has all those things listed, and is pretentious enough to work for a guy who just won a golden pendant making a video puzzle.
Very interesting evaluation!
Bravo! I suppose you will be the one who solves "I, pet goat II" :)
I wonder if that "Ken Thomas" guy got the computer game idea from "Pimania", released in 1982 (the year he got his hands on the golden hare.) Pimania was eventually solved and in 1985 its very genuine prize of the "Golden Sundial of Pi" was won, but not before many had accused Pimania of being an unsolvable scam. So did he think "so all you need to do is make a scam game and people will believe it"?
Interesting, that could be plausible, given the popularity of those kind of games, at the time.
I read 'Hareraiser' and thought it was a parody of the Hellraiser series with rabbits. Ah well.
That would have been a better game.
Lagobites?
Do you really want the SPCA to have a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN/PSYCHOTIC BREAK? :P
Yeah, my first thought was that it was some sort of sidescrolling beat-em-up where you played a rabbit and simply could not control it, coupled with one-hit deaths and things you couldn't possibly react to. A bit like Oriental Hero if you remember the Terrible Old Games video series.
No, that would be Watership Down for the Atari 2600 XD
Me, 36 minutes ago: "Worst Game Ever" are strong words. I mean, that's a very low bar to slide under.
Me, just now: I am sorry I doubted you.
imagining the thought processes of the creators puts me in a dark frame of mind
@@sidarthur8706 At the very least it's not as evil as the guys who sold radioactive water, claiming it had healing properties, and gave cancer to many innocent people.
@@BknMoonStudios
Sure, but who the hell buys radioactive water expecting good things?
@@sigma6656 People who didn't have access to public education and lived in the middle of last century?
@@BknMoonStudios
Ahh right,
"Eben Byers, a wealthy American socialite, athlete, industrialist and Yale College graduate, died from Radithor radium poisoning in 1932.[5] Byers was buried in a lead-lined coffin; when exhumed in 1965 for study, his remains were still highly radioactive."
No access to public education certainly was the problem.
I'm happy the crowd guessed Jimmy Savile because when the question was asked, I immediately thought "Oh god... I really hope it wasn't Jimmy Savile".
Same.
@@lawrencecalablaster568 he's basically Britain's Satan figure due to what he did
Lawrence Calablaster "Beloved" is overstating it - I don't know anyone who really liked him even before all the sex abuse stuff came out.
I thought the same lol
Same, was so relieved it wasn't.
19:37
"Now there's a feature on a laptop called mute..."
Initial (speedy) thoughts: Oh wow! Was the title music purpously annoying in order to have solvers mute their TV? Then through some form of detection, would act as yet another herring, or actually act as an obscure clue (as the book was famous for)?
"...It is a good feature."
God damn it I love your commentary Stuart.
There is a pretty decent adventure game where you have to mute the game music to solve a puzzle. I accidentally skipped it because i was annoyed by the music and turned it off right at the start. That was very confusing
I wonder if the Voynich manuscript was some shady person saying," Hey buy this book and if you solve it you win big! Like the secrets to the Universe Big."
I honestly think this is one of the best explanations so far.
It’s an RPG sourcebook.
Many years ago (when I was a child, I think), while I was going through a box of books that I think someone was throwing out, I found a softcover version of 'Masquerade'. I still have it on my shelf. I had no clue that there was a 'sequel' of sorts in the form of a computer game until now. A fascinating presentation as always.
ChakatSandwalker well it's not really a sequel just a cash in attempt by different person who owned the jewellery
You didn't know if you were a child. I.q. check.
there was a book sequel that was untitled with the goal to guess the titile which was the bee on the comb
Not merely the most technically incompetent. Not merely the most overhyped. Definitely the most evil, with the most evil backstory, and the most evil reason for existing as far as we know.
Brilliant story of, in the deepest sense, the worst game.
An excellent story. No really, this was fascinating.
Chef Excellence
Stay fresh, cheese bags!
An excellent presentation
I wouldn't have clicked on this if I hadn't seen that he was holding a copy of Masquerade. I was born in the 90s but I spent hours and hours on that book.
"I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there." - The 8th Doctor
Sometimes it's the patterns that aren't there, rather than the things.
Most of the time it is a load of old bollocks
Same quote rang in my head.
@@0LoneTech um
i think that's what they meant
What amazes me about Ashens is that some people are good at either commentary, acting, or presentation. Ashens does ALL of them easily and naturally. It's seriously a rare gift to do all of those three VERY different things well.
"Naturally", it's not like he has been doing this for 10+ years
ByeBye to be fair, his very first video is delivered with the same level of skill as this.
commentary, acting and presentation aren't really that different things. You have to be articulate and composed for all of those things. If you are a great actor you are also probably at least a good presenter.
There are some skills that overlap and some people with the ability to do both, but saying acting is like... say... news casting is like saying a good football player can be a good basketball player because they both require you to run. Yes, it's possible for a person to be good at both and some of the skills in one activity can be used in the other, but there's a lot more to each individual activity.
He actually wasn't that great of a presenter. He was kind of stiff and hidden behind the podium, and didn't look the audience in the eye that much, and constantly forgot he had put things into his presentation. His story didn't have enough emotion behind it, although I'll admit it was certainly oddly gripping. There's certainly room for improvement.
Hareraiser is completely solvable.
The first part of the game is a map of the Harrods department store, a hint about this was given in one of the game magazines, when the TV presenter went there from the program about this kind of games and treasure hunt.
But the second part could be "passed" only for the BBC micro platform - it was there that there were "rooms" with the name of the owner of Haresoft (before that he was anonymous) and the digital code that was needed to receive the prize.
the hare was in Harrods Bank, used as collateral for opening Haresoft.
if someone knows how to look at game resources, he will also find this code in all versions of the game. but the ad and articles were hinted at "for the whole family" and it was emphasized that "can be used on the school computer" and "we did two parts so that people of any age could win".
there are clouds - lamps, trees - stairs, spiders descending on a cobweb - elevators, descriptions below, for example, an indication of bright stars - a description of the ceiling, etc.
This is best seen in a room with an escalator.
I spent 3 days on the solution. sorry for mistakes, i don't know english.
That's kinda interesting, if true; it explains the obscure "clue" mentioned and the splitting of the game into two.
So basically the solution was to find where the company Haresoft is located and the name of the founder, who is the one who conned Kit Williams?
Wow, that just makes the entire thing even more stupid. That aside, thanks for putting this all together. It does explain a few oddities in the game.
When I was a kid in the late 90s I had a CD-ROM game called Treasure Quest which had a $1m prize behind it. It seems to be a much better game than Hareraiser, but it was apparently plagued with errors, and the end prize is also steeped in much mystery.
Oh gosh darn. Those poor teachers.
Gee wiz.
Words of wisdom from a sandwich
My wife made one of those for me yesterday.... Just like a woman should
@@ACanOfBakedBeans so edgy
@@ACanOfBakedBeans That was so unfunny I had to comment on it.
The Gay Frog Society
Oh great, an edgelord
That was so much more entertaining than I thought it would be.
In order to make through this I had to close my eyes and picture hands over a brown sofa.
If it were indeed Jimmy Savile, then perhaps a child of 10 could have had as much success as an Oxford don.
Oof
Not something you want to succeed at.
heyyyy-ooooo!
Imagine if it was made in the US by Jeffrey Epstein. LOL
Stuart is the epitome of all that is great with the world of today.
I could listen to him talk all day
How the winter nights must fly by at your house.
petrichor an "an excellent" pair
Stuart is one of God's colors.
no
The reason the physics teachers missed the box was because Kit Williams' calculations were slightly off(he admitted as much later). He didn't realize this at the time because he and Bamber Gascoigne buried the casket at night.
I kinda want my epitaph to be "told you it was awful".
haresoft is now called EA
Nah, they are called Konami
EA was actually a pretty good company in the 80s, the just started to go downhill when they became a huge corporation the in late 90s
Hilarious
Richard Tickler promicing shit but never delivering
I Identify As A Commodore 64 Since I'm An Old Fart bro konami didnt start going downhill till mid to late 2000s, so EA is worse
Konami was also a good company once.
That was fantastic. I'm so happy you posted this, Dr Ashen is one of the best CZcamsrs around and the story/ies of the golden hare fascinate me.
I was there! I got my book and DVD signed by him, easily one of the best parts of the year for me
Sam 454 I'm not the jealous type. I've never been jealous of someone for anything, if it makes them happy, even if I want it, that's more valuable then what I want. But that you got a signed book and dvd and got to sit and watch his glorious face live? I will kidnap you, take that DVD and book, and create a machine that allows me to implant memories of other people into me. Watch. Your. Back.
Vnutri you could get yourself brainwashed and they could implant false memories but the only thing we need is a trigger
'Hello!'
@Richard Kelbe Ironic much? :D
Wow, I had no intention of sitting through 40 mins of talking about an 8-bit puzzle game but this was an absolutely fascinating story i'd never heard about before, admittedly I'd grown old enough to get into computer gaming a couple of years after this debacle, but either way amazing story and now I am off to Ebay to find a copy of the Masqurade book. ;-)
"You Are My Sunshine"
No, you are NOT.
I was so disappointed I missed this! For some reason, I couldn't find out when the talk was happening! Thanks for uploading!
The game is called "Hareraiser" and it's about solving an elaborate puzzle?
*Easter Bunny:* "We have such sights to show you"
I've watched this 5 times now. Still just as entertaining.
If anyone out there feels cheated and conned for having been talked into buying games like No Man's Sky, find peace in knowing, at least you didn't buy Hareraiser.
and hell, No Mans Skys developer even try there best now to make up for their wrongdoing be adding the game they promised part after part :D
Really shows the difference in personality behind these two...questionable events.
Also at least the No Man's Sky dev has improved the game post-release as well.
@@richardpike8748 Yeah No Man's Sky is now good lol
Yep, the devs have continued to work on No Man's Sky for years since release, all updates free, and it's now everything that was expected at launch and then some. All you can really say against it now is that back in 2016 people were effectively sold an Early Access game as if it was a finished game. All's well that ends well!
NMS team aren't scammer at least, they are just bad at time management and organisation
So Hareraiser is the British home computer version of SwordQuest?
Some Guy I was thinking that too. There were also several videotape treasure hunts in the '80s, too.
Though at least Swordquest actually had an actual puzzle to solve, it just died out before the last games could come out.
Swordquest wasn't a scam though.
Swordfest was a horrible game, not a scam. I would say the British home computer version of SwordQuest is probably the ZX Spectrum game Squij (originally a C64 game, but the Spectrum version was FAR worse) BTW, I'm not defending the C64 version either, because that was horrible, but when compared to the Speccy version (No, I'm not dissing the speccy as a whole, in fact I quite like the ZX Spectrum) It's fucking Donkey Kong.
Sword Quest sucked, but I still say that Firefly is hands down the WORST game on the 2600/VCS
The cover of Masquerade wouldn't look out of place on a progressive-rock album.
I mean, late 70s.
It also wouldn't look out of place on an EARLY Queen album
CZcams kept recommending this so I finally gave in and started watching it. I was expecting to just watch a minute or two to see what it was about and ended up watching the whole thing. Quite the plot twist there at the end!
Legit thought I was hearing that guy's name wrong this whole time, but nope... It actually is "Bamber Gascoigne".
He died earlier this year :( RIP
This reminds me of the SwordQuest games for the Atari 2600 in that there was real treasure to be had.
That did not end well either though, except for 2 people who won 2 of the 5 treasures.
I thought they never released the final Airworld game?
_The British version of SwordQuest, ladies and gentleman._
I seem to recall someone claimed they had found a solution to Hareraiser, which was that the forest is a symbolic map of Harrods, and that the hare was in a safe deposit box there. This would make a lot of sense, as they couldn't just leave it lying around unburied, and would also mean that the Anneka Rice clue was just the fact she was there. But there's no way to check.
He's so good at talking and keeping your attention! His humor is refreshing as well.
Very glad this is here, still kicking my self that i missed your talk. 10/10 i think you should become a university lecturer ashens.
Oh, the shady conning gits! Took a really great idea and completely shat on it. That was great, hugely interesting story.
Incidentally, the image of the swimming lady looks to me a fair bit like Carol Vorderman...or possibly Louise Redknapp.
I feel bad for those teachers being the only ones to solve the puzzle, and being just so close to solving it. Also the artist that did this finding out that the people cheated his puzzle he spent who knows how long working on and using it to make a cheap digital rip-off lacking any soul of the original piece. If I was the artist, I would have sued for the blatant profiting off of the original work.
Stewart is so well spoken and this is one of the most underrated videos online right now
I wanted to cry when you delved into the bad luck of the physics teachers, they, Kit, and Bamber deserved more
I remember my parents had 'Masquerade' when I was really, really young. As a 3 or 4 year old I spent quite a lot of time looking for the hare that was hidden in each of the pictures in the book. The 'Where's Wally?' of its day :)
nobetternickname Me too! My copy came with a companion booklet that explained the answer.
OKAY CZcams. I WATCHED IT, OKAY?! And tbh I wasn't disappointed. It's a great story!
This comment needs more recognition, it sums up my reaction to CZcams's recommendations
10:00 The red letters FROG show the frog also pointing to four of the letters with his limbs.. Incredible book.
I had this book as a little kid in the 70/80s and I was so obsessed with solving the puzzle! The illustrations were so incredibly beautiful that the whole book was just magic to me. How sad that Kit was conned like this. 😢
2 years later this brilliant video turns up on my recommendation 👍 thanks CZcams 🤔
This story was brilliant. I still don't believe that this was a game or a puzzle just a scam. I don't know if that counts as the worst game ever.
it is, at least a better story than something like Alien Kill, which is just rubbish.
ET might be worse, it has it's own landfill......seriously.
I wonder if Kit Williams moonlighted as the Riddler in his spare time with how complex the puzzle is.
What a wonderful presentation, I'll be watching more of your videos for sure.
Rewatching this for like the hundredth time, something occurred to me: did anyone try giving these charlatans the answer of "the Hare is still with the head of the company who didn't bury it anywhere"?
At this point this video is like a comfort watch for me, I end up thinking about this whole Masquerade Hareraiser situation a lot
Ashens talks on gaming is as interesting as Tim's talks on toys. Wonderful stuff!
Dan Whitmore heh.
Alex Everett-last: Nice to see another member of Tim's fan club!
Dan Whitmore heh
Some University should pick Stewart up to be a lecturer for history of games.
Him, Jeremy Parish and LGR. Perfection.
I'd seen a picture of the Golden Hare somewhere online, perhaps to do with it being on display, but I knew nothing more. It is a shame two things so beautiful as the Hare and the book should have been dragged down by that age old enemy, stupid humans.
Ashens can litteraly talk about shit on the ground and I'd be absolutely mesmerized
Will talk about shit on the ground.
This guy is a really talented public speaker. I mean let's face it, the subject matter shouldn't really be that interesting - a crappy old Com64-era game... but he manages to turn it into a really captivating seminar. That takes serious talent.
To be fair to the audience, I also would've guessed Jimmy Saville as the celebrity.
Doug Glassman same here
If that was the case, Uncle Jimmy would've dug it up himself, for Charidee of course
Uncle Jimmy would have been more interested in digging in the churchyard next door
Ashen has a talent for speaking in public like this and holding people's interest. I enjoyed this very much.
Hareraiser is supposed to be solved by the hints at the bottom of the screen giving directions. "The Grass is Like a Carpet" means "Down/South", (Carpet is on the floor) "The Sun Shines Up" means "Up/North", (obviously) "The Count Has Begun" means "Up/North" (Hands on a clock start at 12, pointing up) etc, etc.
Gimme my £30,000.
Except there's no actual end goal to any of the screens, all you end up on is different tree pictures with different clues. And how do you explain the blatant platitudes like "The Hare Is Golden" and "Shall You Find It" or the absolute word salad of Finale such as "From Then President Hill Must Cure"?
"From Then President Hill Must Cure"? predicted Donald Trump, duh. This game was ahead of its time.
The Hare is Golden could mean the sun so up/north and shall you find it could refer to the fact that it was originally buried so down/south
President Hill could mean Mount Rushmore/Black hills which are in south Dakota so south/down
Bruno Platter And what the fuck does a series of up/down , north/south clues lead to? You've solved nothing. You think you're going to mail in ⬆⬆⬇⬆⬇⬇⬆ and they'd send you back the amulet?
When I was a kid, my mom had a stack of old Smithsonian Magazines and the Golden Hare contest was mentioned in one and I always remembered it (and a riddle about love that apparently had nothing to do with the answer) and wondered what happened with the contest. The story was far more interesting than I could have imagined. Thanks for solving that mystery for me!
Fantastic discussion about the book! You need to do more of these.
I actually went to this talk and I was a few minutes late. I genuinely wondered how much I'd missed but turns out that you can hear me come in at 1:21. Anyway, if you haven't watched it yet, I'd thoroughly recommend it.
Don't lie. That was me you fraud.
@@billhalt8811 h a l t
Rest in Peace
Bamber Gascoigne
1935-2022
💎📺📚
Video game historians: "E.T for the Atari 2600 and Superman 64 are the worst!"
Hareraiser: "Allow us introduce ourselves!"
RIP Bamber Gascoigne 1935-2022.
The difficulty of the puzzle really speaks to Kit's intelligence. Too bad the person who solved it basically cheated then scammed several people using his winnings.
I actually thought this was going to be just a simple rant and/or small discussion with the audience about bad graphics, sloppy collision, an attempt at implementing curves etc... But damn Stuart did his research! Very informative, detailed and constructed very, very well. Great video, even my friends are impressed and they're a bunch of pompous arse holes... 10/10 from me!
I swear if Ashens was one of my University professors i wouldnt mind lectures so much
I love these "Terrible Old Games" live presentations. So entertaining.
I was at Ashen's Hareraiser talk at Norwich Gaming Festival 2017.
Niall Ward wow
Niall Ward So was i
Did anyone get a t-shirt, cap or novelty button?
UnitSe7en I got an Ashens coin and a pin
I've wanted an Ashens Groat for a while but i don't know where to get one :(
Hey look!
It's Simon Pegg!
Sigh.. that joke is almost a decade old.
Pimon Segg*
Actually, it's John Simm
Poundshop Pegg
Chris B
Ha! That's got stick as a nickname!
This was way more interesting than I thought it would be! Thank you for the story, Ashens!
Holy crap my family had this book back when I was a kid in the 80's. I was quite fascinated with it and it kinda freaked me out, like a Dali surrealist painting.
Oh holy crap, I didn't even realize when I clicked the link. I only realized when he started talking that this is Ashens. The same Ashens that I've been watching tell me about random tat for years. xD
Awesome.
I loved it. Yours sincerely, Mrs. Widdowson.
I had pirated versions of the games as a kid in about -95 and I spent countless hours trying to play a game that I thought was just broken. Trying to find a meaning for it's existence. But it never occured to me that it was supposed to be a puzzle. Good times 👌
Thank you so much for putting this up, and of course, thank you Stuart Ashen for doing the talk. I had never heard of this game before I watched this, I had no idea it had such a crazy backstory and history behind it.
I come back to these every now and then just because they're so fun.
Wonderful narrative on what was not so much a game, but more of a mass of beeping confusion. What an amazing bit of scamming on the part of Haresoft,
Clicked on this just to check out roughly what it was about..ended up watching it 2 times in a row in it's entirety.
Such a fascinating story, seriously.
Very nice little presentation, well done!