… time travel and “Cavern Creatures” …

Long ago … I would play this game on an Apple IIe computer at my cousin Ian’s house. It was called “Cavern Creatures”. The game itself was okay … nothing terribly difficult … with mildly humorous enemies such as Pac-Man and a Rubik’s Cube.

I must have been about 10 years old (or less) at the time. I still miss the monochrome green graphics of the Apple II and various PC computers of the time. I wish that someone would skin a contemporary OS with that style or at least let me run my computer from a blinking, green rectangular prompt, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. It looks like we’re headed towards more translucent, shaded nonsense.

ANYWAY!

So … after you solve the game … I remember the title screen would scroll down, slowly panning over the body of the Cavern Creature depicted above. My cousin and I screamed in terror as an unspoken male appendage was revealed in gruesome detail before our eyes. This image was not present on the main title screen … it only appeared to us later on … a disturbing introduction to the world of video game easter eggs circa 1984.

I recently decided to search for a screen cap of this disgusting image to prove that it indeed was real and not some bizarre memory. I found nothing online.

Trust me … I Googled every combination of “Cavern Creatures _______” fill in the blank that I could think of and let me tell you – I don’t recommend anyone try that. Luckily, I contacted my cousin Ian and he verified that the image was real and proceeded to curse me for the “refresh”.

I believe some force has gone back in time and erased this image for some unknown reason. In the internet age, I cannot believe that information like this would not be available. The Wikipedia page is devoid of any reference to the “shocker”. There is a vague reference to a “surprise” but they got it wrong.

So, time traveling evildoers, I’m on to you.