Secret Collect.

Game Category: New Game

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Secret Collect.
Description	A flashing maze to create many times!
Release date	January 12, 2004
Play Game
Box Art

"The greatest secrets man has ever known have been scattered all over the globe and its your job to find them." — Videlectrix

Secret Collect (promoted with a period as "Secret Collect.") is a low-quality graphic adventure game. Accessible from the Scrolling Shooter Games Menu and the Strong Bad Email video games, this game has you, the red dot Strong Bad, as you try to collect other squares "that look nothing like [Strong Bad]". Use the arrow keys to move.

Yellow squares take you to the next level. Blue squares speed you up slightly.

Date: Monday, January 12, 2004

Page Title: Furtive Acquire

Old Page Title: Secret Collect featuring a Strong Bad!

Fun Facts

Explanations

• The page title, "Furtive Acquire", is synonymous with the words "Secret Collect".

Trivia

• On the Viidelectrix version, the page title was "Furtive Acquire". This later became the page title for the regular version of the game.
• On the Viidelectrix version, each level starts when you point the Wii remote (or mouse cursor) at the red dot, which then moves towards wherever the remote (or mouse) is pointing.

Remarks

• On all packaging, both in the email "video games" and the Videlectrix website, the game's name has a period at the end. "Secret Collect.", rather than "Secret Collect".
• The animated zapping bars are an imitation of "color cycling" or "palette shifting" - a process where the color palette used by an image is changed in a way that makes it look like the image is moving, even though it is unchanged. This trick was often used in early games, as it required less memory or processor power compared to storing an animation as several images.
• On the "Click to start" screen, the color of the entire screen changes every few seconds, imitating the initial screens of older Atari 2600 games and the screen saver built into Atari 8-bit computers like the 800XL.
• On or around 14 Jul 2005, the game was changed. The change wasn't mentioned on the main page.
  • Extra levels 11-14 were added to the game.
  • The diagonal parts of the "Y" in Level 10 were changed to short jagged vertical stripes.
  • A glitch was removed where you could click at any time and you would be returned to the first level.
  • Some glitches were removed where in level 5, you could go through one of the green walls. In level 9, you could walk through the wall directly beneath you for a huge shortcut. In level 10 you could walk into the center of the "A".
• On or around Sunday 16 Oct 2005, the game was changed again, again not mentioned on the main page.
  • Levels 15 and 16 were added.
  • You now start on level 15 (presumably for debugging purposes - levels 1-14 still exist in the game).
  • A glitch was fixed where, once the final level started repeating itself, you had an infinite number of lives.
  • A glitch was fixed where the counter for the level was too narrow, so some of the wider numbers were trimmed, and on levels after level 10 you could only see the "1".
• On or around Sunday 4 Mar 2007, the game was changed once more, again not mentioned on the main page.
  • A glitch was fixed where you start on level 15; you now start on level 1.
  • The score font was changed to the pixelated font.
• You can only collect 4 blue squares in the entire game - collecting a blue square in one level will make one disappear in later levels, and after collecting 4, no later levels will have blue squares. Thus there is strategy involved choosing when to collect the blue squares.
• When you finish the final level (currently level 16), that level repeats endlessly.

Glitches

• When you lose the game, the counter changes to "MANS: -1"; however, the minus sign is invisible, making it appear as "MANS: 1".
• When on a level other than one on the Wii Flash file, if you right-click and hit "rewind" you'll wind up where the block is in the current level and the game will freeze.

Real-World References

• This is based on games from the first two generations of video game consoles, specifically the Atari 2600.

Fast Forward

"Collect, collect, collect!"

"No way! The Secret Collect remake's graphics look EXACTLY like me this time!"

• An '80s-style cartoon of this game, starring a talking block (who bears a resemblance to Mr. Strong from the Mr. Men series instead of "a Strong Bad") is briefly seen in the email web comics.
• A DS homebrew version of this game was created by Phlip, the same person who made the featured DS homebrew version of Population: Tire.
• In 2021, Strong Bad tweeted a 3D rendering of Secret Collect.

External Links

• play "Secret Collect."
• play "Secret Collect." on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Secret Collect."

• play the Wii version of the game
• view the Flash file for the Wii version of the game
• download the DS version of the game