The Pathfinder... It is said that he knows the land like the back of his hand... that he knows the secret ways... and it is true.

But where is he? How can you find him? Therein lies the puzzle...

A clue, perhaps? Alright then...

"Pray to Gradius and then touch the runes at the gate. But beware, for you must do it in order, or terrible consequences may befall you..."

(Note: Should you be lucky enough to discover the Pathfinder, please do not explain how... just be safe in the knowledge that you are geekier than you initially thought!)

Confusion follows the Pathfinder it seems... Hmm...

Perhaps it is a little deep, and perhaps I am a little too geeky for my own good.

It might be sufficient to say however, that within Gradius, was something that still continues to this day... and the gate can be found at Talisman Island!

<cough> Check my sig... <cough>

Well. I have outgeeked everyone it seems! So to save any head scratching, I shall explain.

As it is EASTER, I thought I would give everyone an EASTER EGG!

Gradius is a game (Retro Baby, Yeah!) from Konami and was the first game to feature the now famous KONAMI CODE.

People entering the code were gifted all of the powerups in the game at once. Similarly, in Contra they would be given 30 lives!

The Konami Code has been taken on by many game developers as a cool easter egg and now a lot of websites use it to give something interesting to visitors. Google would be your friend for that...

So to explain the "riddle" above.

"Pray to Gradius and then touch the runes at the gate. But beware, for you must do it in order, or terrible consequences may befall you..."

Gradius = Konami Code reference

Runes = Keys on keyboard

Gate = Index page of Talisman Island

Terrible consequences = None!

After entering the above on your control pad in Gradius, you would then press Start (or Select then Start in two player) then you would get the goodies.

In the absence of those keys on a keyboard, you would use Enter afterwards!

I am explaining this in full, because I am going to use this mechanic at some point in the future to hide something on Talisman Island. But I will announce when something is waiting to be found!!

I must admit that you got me confused, but Sounds pretty cool and fun

I am a bit disapointed to myself, that I am not geeked enough

He is a very funny and interesting Character. Possibility to draw a card makes him very powerful. Not to mention, how this will affect other Characters on the board, who would need now to encounter cards before they will be able to heal/replenish their stats. And he is always Neutral, so he can benefits from all the sides.

As for the Konami code itself, I wouldn't expect it on TI. It is a nice smile to the computer game fans. I look forward to the next possibility to see it in use!

Help a wannabe geek here I can't get this to work.

Hey, it worked on my first try! Interesting that you can implent that in a website (not that I know much about website coding).

I still can't make it work

I am happy that there are no terrible consequences

Mr B. Are you using the arrow keys on your keyboard?

Just a thought. When you are at the front page of Talisman Island, just press - Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Enter.

If this does not work for you then I can only assume that you do not allow javascript to work!

If you are still unable to see, let me know and I will email you

Your script crashed and locked when I visited using FireFox (Mac) 3.6.3. I received a debug error from Firefox that the script was in some infinite loop or other. I hadn't pushed any keys and simply had the page open in another tab while I was working on these forums. It locked the browser completely and opened a save dialog. Between the two, I couldn't dismiss the save until I clear the debug message. With the save dialog open, I couldn't clear the message and there wasn't anything to save. Had to force quite the browser and lost my post.

Hmmm... I can access it in 3.5.7 under Windows Vista. I wonder then if it is a javascript problem.

@JCHendee: ouch! It worked fine in Chrome, very cool implementation When I first saw this post I didn't know exactly what to think, tried looking in the source code and then thought that it must be a really obscure reference. Konami is getting fairly wide spread, you can use it on facebook and it unlocks the developer mode of my phone, so don't think it's too far off the beaten track and still pretty sly.

I like the character a lot, trying to figure out whether or not he'd be too overpowered but I don't think so. He's got some great moving and avoiding advantages, but they pass other characters, I think it's really well matched and still bringing some cool new strategies to the table. Good job!

You sir win the interwebs prize for Geekmaster. I bow and can only hope to follow in your footsteps.

Aahh Did not notice that you should use ENTER after the code.

It is a very nice character Jon and very original - Good job

Have you thought of making a section on your download site where characters can be downloaded, so that it is split in expansions and characters ?

Not really, as additional characters can be classified as an expansion in their own right. This is the reason for the card count on the download page.

There is also the issue that certain characters may have been created to interact with a specific expansion and would make no sense if downloaded separately.

Glad you finally managed to see him though!

Got your point there.

talismanisland said:

It could be, indeed. The other issue is the JavaScript language version itself versus the interpreter (compiler) in the browser... and then validation of script by its language attribute. Does you script tag have a version reference in it, or is it just "Javascript".

I think it may not have to do with your script. Most Mac lovers aren't even aware of how much of a patchwork of stuff they have laid over the top of the Unix environment. There in is a another variable impossible to account for.

And my machine is loaded for bear in a lot of unusual ways. I'll give it another try at a latter time.

Just plain old "javascript" I'm afraid. I've sent an email in the mean time so you can see what the fuss is about!