~Rise of the Triad

In-game feature and level boss problems solved.


If you start ROTT when your system clock indicates that it's one of 
five different holidays, the "group picture" of the five main 
characters is changed slightly.  In addition, on Christmas, the music 
for the first level is changed to a familiar Christmas tune.  The 
holidays and effects are as follows:

` Easter             <varies>    Lorelei Ni wears Easter Bunny ears.
` Cinco de Mayo      05/05/XX    Ian wears a sombrero.
` Independence Day   07/04/XX    Doug holds an American flag.
` Halloween          10/31/XX    Thi wears a witch's hat.
` Christmas          12/25/XX    Taradino wears a Santa Claus hat; 
`                                new music for the first level.

Also, there's a way to get all five "holiday hats" in Rise of the 
Triad to show up on the screen at the same time.  If you finish the 
game the right way, and destroy all the larvae in the last level, 
watch ALL the credits (takes several minutes).  You'll get to a 
screen that says "The HUNT is victorious. The End."  Do nothing.  
Let it sit there for about a minute or two, and you'll get another 
"The End" screen where all five "holiday hats" are shown at once.


Bosses play big roles in Rise of the Triad.  There are four, one at 
the end of each episode, and arranged in order of weakest to 
strongest.  There are ways to kill two of the bosses that the 
programmers at Apogee never thought to try.  These "loopholes" may 
be "fixed" in future versions of ROTT, but as of version 1.2a, the 
loopholes are still there.  For Sebastian "Doyle" Krist, you can lure 
him out of the room by hitting the touch plate diagonally away and to
the right of the gold door as you enter it.  The triggering the 
touchplate will block the gold door and open a passageway.  Lure 
Krist through here carefully, then through the brown door.  Then go 
up the staircase!  Krist, in his wheelchair will follow you up.  
However, due to a bug in Krist's programming (he was never intended 
to ascend stairs), he won't fall back down to the ground.  He'll fire 
missiles at you, but with you safely beneath him, they won't hit.  
Shoot him until he's dead. 

The second loophole involves the final boss, El Oscuro, in his final 
form (the snake-like form).  Get a firebomb and an asbestos vest.  
Then find El Oscuro and lure him into a corner.  Keep the corner at 
your back.  Aim the firebomb down and fire it -- this will thrust 
you up into the air.  Land on El Oscuro and wait for him to die 
underneath your weight.  (The intended method of killing him is to 
not fire at him at all, but dodge his own attacks until he dies of 
exhaustion.  Firing at him simply makes him stronger!)

Several people have run across the curious message "I'm Free" while 
playing ROTT, and don't know what it means.  If you get this, you're 
probably playing either the "This Causes An Error" level in the 
registered version, or you're playing a user-made level.  The cause 
of the note is whenever a moving wall crosses the boundary of a level 
and just keeps on going.  The game detects the problem, but, before 
crashing with a regular error message, manages to put up the picture 
saying, "I'm Free" (drawn by Tom Hall).  The "This Causes An Error" 
level, originally titled "WanderWall Bug Map," has a pushwall in it
that leaves the level, crashing the game with the "I'm Free" message.

What all this is, is a manifestation of in-house humor.  If you 
don't get it, that's good, because you're not supposed to.  It's one 
of those "you had to be there" things.  At any rate, the story goes..
during the development of ROTT, when a level was tested where in a 
pushwall was inadvertantly directed out of the level bounds, someone 
joked, saying, "I'm free."  He probably wishes he hadn't, for all 
the confusion it's caused customers who have run across it -- either 
that, or, if he were more like me, he feels a deep sense of 
satisfaction in having successfully dumbfounded a significant enough 
percentage of the gaming community to warrant mention in FAQs such 
as these. 
