Image: Geek With Social Skills
Karateka, an early martial arts side-scroller published in the US by Broderbund in 1984, was a little before my time. It was created by Jordan Mechner before he went on to make Prince of Persia — a game I do remember thanks to the horror of sending that character to a bloody, pixelated death on a bed of spikes. Karateka however was an early hit, with later iterations making it to NES and Game Boy. And the original Apple II version included a delightful little easter egg from the early days of PC gaming — putting in the floppy disk upside down would boot up the game upside down.
This isn’t new exactly — people have been trying this trick for more than 35 years — but it was new to me, and I got a quick refresher today thanks to the magic…