Original artwork, not a still
The Konami Code, first in the NES Gradius (1986)
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A.
— Gradius · 1986
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is a handshake that thumbs remember. The sequence was easy for testers to remember and hard to hit by accident, which is why it escaped its lab origins and became a general sign that a game, app or website was made by someone who knows the culture. Even unrelated titles, such as Tengen's NES Tetris, hide a variant of it.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for GradiusShow the scene
The Konami Code is a cheat sequence, entered with the controller, that was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto while he was working on the home port of Gradius for the NES. Finding the game too hard to test through, he wrote in a code that gave a full set of power-ups when entered on the pause screen. It was meant to be removed before release but was overlooked until the game was being prepared for mass production, and was kept because pulling it could cause new bugs. Konami reused it in sequels, and in Contra it became known as the Contra Code or 30 Lives Code.
Sources (1)
- Wikipedia: Konami CodeHistory sectionReference checked
Context reviewed