Darwinia (video Game) - Intros

Intros

Darwinia features a number of intros randomly selected when launching the game. These contain a number of references that may be obscure to some players, especially those unfamiliar with older European computers. These include:

• Cracktro text scroller: a spoof of the crack intros that were common among pirated computer games, especially on platforms popular in Europe, such as the Amiga and Commodore 64. The text humorously references both coding for 38 hours straight and finishing the intro in 12 minutes. Allegedly, the release of Darwinia on the Steam platform was delayed for several hours when a Valve employee saw the intro and believed there had been a security breach.
• The Matrix: one intro features green Darwinians dropping from the top of the screen to form a logo, a reference to The Matrix (See Matrix digital rain).
• Real-time Raytracer: another cracktro-style intro featuring a raytraced scene of spinning spheres. This was a popular effect in many old demo scene productions.
• Cannon Fodder: a black screen displaying the text "This game is not in any way endorsed by Sensible Software" while the beginning of the theme from Cannon Fodder plays. The text is a reference to the message that shows at the start of Cannon Fodder, "This game is not in any way endorsed by the Royal British Legion." Some see this as an acknowledgement of Cannon Fodder's influence on Darwinia.
• ZX Spectrum: one of the intros is designed to look like the ZX Spectrum when loading a tape-based game.
• Life: a simulation of the cellular automaton game of Life in which Darwinians live, die and spread in a grid based on just a few basic rules.
• MBTI into: this intro scrolls through the four dichotomies on a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, listing introversion last as it is the name of the developer.