Dan Leehr
vga256the latest issue of Retro Gamer (275) has the best warez story i’ve read this year
written by mike mika of digital eclipse
Dizzy the Void@vga256 Mrs Cripps' Crack House
When I got a disk drive, I lived with the common understanding that software was something you bought -- or rented with strict late fees. So when a classmate overheard me discussing how I was saving up to buy a new game, he pulled me aside and told me that if I wanted the good stuff, to bring a box of blank floppies and meet him at an address he had written down on a torn scrap of paper. I asked him if it was his house, and he laughed, "No... it's the crack house."
When I made my way over that evening, the lawn was littered with BMX bikes. It made my hair stand on end. Were they the remains of my predecessors? Was someone about to push a fatal new super drug on me? Before I could retreat, the front door opened with a cloud of smoke, revealing a chain-smoking grandmother holding a dinner plate full of ash like an oversized ashtray. Her voice sounded like her vocal cords were dragged across a cheese grater. "Are you Brian's friend?" "Yes." She took a long drag off her cigarette and sized me up. "Come in."
Inside was chaos. Commodore 64s on card tables, disk drives daisy-chained and humming, kids swapping floppies. It was Swap Day at the so-called crack house, and I was the new recruit. Brian told everyone I was cool, like I was being initiated into some kind of crime family.
I came empty-handed, assuming we were just swapping harmless typed-in programs from magazines. Mrs Cripps -- now seated in what was referred to, not ironically, as the smoking room - told me I could take sore games this time, but next time I'd need to bring something of value to trade. And nobody called them games... no. They were called 'warez'. And I learned why they called it the crack house. They only traded in cracked games, software that had its copy-protection stripped from its code. "No warez, no trades" she said, then launched into an unsettling cough-laugh combo. Her game of choice was Ultimate Wizard -- a Jumpman-style game starring a wizard who looked like Gandalf doing parkour. She played it religiously.
--
I went home that night with my warez and a head full of guilt. The next 24 hours were spent alternating between elation and dread that the FBI would crash through my window yelling at me to step away from the illegal copy of Booga-Boo. I didn't plan to go back -- not just because I was scared, but because I had nothing new to offer.
Then I discovered that Ultimate Wizard had a level editor. That changed everything. Maybe I could make stuff that added value without violating federal law (technically). That night, I made a dozen levels. Some were playable. A few were borderline sadistic. I brought them to the next meetup. and said nothing about having made them. She didn't ask.
It became a silent exchange: creativity for contraband. She'd ask for more levels. She gave feedback. "This one's impossible." "Is this warp supposed to kill me?" Eventually she introduced me to her grandson -- a sysop who ran a BBS that specialised in 'zero-day warez'. He was, in his words, "a fan of my work", Not ominous at all. He'd later ask me to help him produce 'crack intros’ when I started develop some decent coding skills.
It was the first time I saw someone genuinely enjoy something I'd made. Not out of obligation -- no friendship, no family ties -- but just because it was actually fun. For all the second-hand smoke and moral gray areas of dealing with a copyright-defiant grandmother, that part stuck.
I don't remember the last time I saw Mrs Cripps... but I often imagine she's still alive -- dragging Virginia slims, cursing at a purple wizard, and pulling the strings behind the last known piracy ring in the tri-county area. And when people ask how I got into game design, I always start the same way, "There was this crack house ..."
When I got a disk drive, I lived with the common understanding that software was something you bought -- or rented with strict late fees. So when a classmate overheard me discussing how I was saving up to buy a new game, he pulled me aside and told me that if I wanted the good stuff, to bring a box of blank floppies and meet him at an address he had written down on a torn scrap of paper. I asked him if it was his house, and he laughed, "No... it's the crack house."
When I made my way over that evening, the lawn was littered with BMX bikes. It made my hair stand on end. Were they the remains of my predecessors? Was someone about to push a fatal new super drug on me? Before I could retreat, the front door opened with a cloud of smoke, revealing a chain-smoking grandmother holding a dinner plate full of ash like an oversized ashtray. Her voice sounded like her vocal cords were dragged across a cheese grater. "Are you Brian's friend?" "Yes." She took a long drag off her cigarette and sized me up. "Come in."
Inside was chaos. Commodore 64s on card tables, disk drives daisy-chained and humming, kids swapping floppies. It was Swap Day at the so-called crack house, and I was the new recruit. Brian told everyone I was cool, like I was being initiated into some kind of crime family.
I came empty-handed, assuming we were just swapping harmless typed-in programs from magazines. Mrs Cripps -- now seated in what was referred to, not ironically, as the smoking room - told me I could take sore games this time, but next time I'd need to bring something of value to trade. And nobody called them games... no. They were called 'warez'. And I learned why they called it the crack house. They only traded in cracked games, software that had its copy-protection stripped from its code. "No warez, no trades" she said, then launched into an unsettling cough-laugh combo. Her game of choice was Ultimate Wizard -- a Jumpman-style game starring a wizard who looked like Gandalf doing parkour. She played it religiously.
--
I went home that night with my warez and a head full of guilt. The next 24 hours were spent alternating between elation and dread that the FBI would crash through my window yelling at me to step away from the illegal copy of Booga-Boo. I didn't plan to go back -- not just because I was scared, but because I had nothing new to offer.
Then I discovered that Ultimate Wizard had a level editor. That changed everything. Maybe I could make stuff that added value without violating federal law (technically). That night, I made a dozen levels. Some were playable. A few were borderline sadistic. I brought them to the next meetup. and said nothing about having made them. She didn't ask.
It became a silent exchange: creativity for contraband. She'd ask for more levels. She gave feedback. "This one's impossible." "Is this warp supposed to kill me?" Eventually she introduced me to her grandson -- a sysop who ran a BBS that specialised in 'zero-day warez'. He was, in his words, "a fan of my work", Not ominous at all. He'd later ask me to help him produce 'crack intros’ when I started develop some decent coding skills.
It was the first time I saw someone genuinely enjoy something I'd made. Not out of obligation -- no friendship, no family ties -- but just because it was actually fun. For all the second-hand smoke and moral gray areas of dealing with a copyright-defiant grandmother, that part stuck.
I don't remember the last time I saw Mrs Cripps... but I often imagine she's still alive -- dragging Virginia slims, cursing at a purple wizard, and pulling the strings behind the last known piracy ring in the tri-county area. And when people ask how I got into game design, I always start the same way, "There was this crack house ..."