Dream Fiction Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Dream Fiction Wiki
Sorry bub, but it appears to be you are playing a hacked version of the game. This may be a pirated copy, as you may experience things that might not appear in a legal copy of the game.
~ Official notice


This is a complete list of anti-piracy traps programmed within Drillimation games. Piracy has been an ongoing issue as long as video games were around for, and some clever developers have hidden anti-piracy traps within their games. Some notable developers, including Insomniac Games, Ubisoft, and Bohemia Interactive have planted these traps in-game.

Overview[]

Whenever a pirated version of a Drillimation game is started, one of the game's characters will show up and tell the player the following message:

Hi, I'm (person name)! Welcome to the full version of (game name)! Sorry bub, but this is actually a pirated version of the game. We knew you could get away with this. My parents wouldn't notice that! It's okay, though, I think I'll let it slide this time. I would've done the same. After all, games are expensive. I understand that you're not choosing to pay the price for them. Even more expensive is your computer or game console. But it's not any value to you. If you can't afford to buy this game, you couldn't afford to save a life or your machine.

In arcade versions of Drillimation games, the following warning language is used when starting up the machine:

North America[]

FBI Anti-Piracy Warning
This game is licensed only for non-commercial use in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Any sales, exports, or operation outside this territory, as well as any public performance, other use, or copying any part of it is strictly prohibited by international trademark and copyright treaties and may subject the violator(s) to severe penalties and prosecution to the full extent of the law.
Criminal copyright infringement without monetary gain is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and/or a fine of $250,000.
The contents of this game are protected by international copyright and trademark treaties. All rights are reserved to Namco/Drillimation.

Europe and Australia[]

FBI Anti-Piracy Warning
This game is licensed only for non-commercial use in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. All other rights are reserved by Namco/Drillimation. Any unauthorized sales, exports, or operation outside these territories, as well as public performance, other use, or copying any of this game's contents, may give rise to civil and/or criminal liability punishable by fine and/or imprisonment.
International copyright and trademark treaties protect copyrighted computer software, video games, and other programs. For more information, contact your local law enforcement agency.

Island of Sally[]

Bihez raqewnya rav nìk tup commercial use, mexew than playthroughu, television fegenilewqu as eqæ raqewnya conventionu. Gel denelu nat reserved es Drillimation.
This game is not for commercial use, other than playthroughs, television broadcast and at game conventions. All rights are reserved to Drillimation.

Appearance[]

For the first two generations of the series, the warnings were put on black backgrounds. Games that were made in the Driller Engine 1 Era use the Emulogic typeface, while games made in the Driller Engine 2 Era use the Chicago typeface. Games made in the Driller Engine 3 Era and beyond have their own background and typeface, depending on the theme for the game.

Driller Engine 2 Era[]

Any kid who's watched Star Trigon or Lucky Star in the 1980s and 1990s were able to do this. I can't even imagine what it would be like for an adult.
~ Susumu Takajima, during his copy protection interview in El Kadsre Gaming


Any game that was ported to MS-DOS, Windows, Macintosh, or TSUG usually had to have players answer trivia questions about the Drillimation anime or the game itself. Drillimation thought this would be easy for children to answer, but this prompted a negative response from adult players since they didn't care about the anime (this was exceptional for "brony" players). Some questions included out-of-date references, which drastically affected players if played today. For example, one question read "Reimu Hakurei has...", and one incorrect answer was "black hair" when the answer was "purple hair". As of today, this could be skipped if the player pushes Alt+F10 during installation.

Driller Engine 3 Era[]

Game Year Trap
Mr. Driller Drill Spirits 1997 Cracked copies of the game will cause most of the game's collectible items to not appear. In rare cases, the game will randomly change the language in PAL versions of the game.
Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith 1997 Cracked copies of the game will cause the game will randomly crash after stage 3. Several fraudulent bug reports were filed to Drillimation, as anti-piracy measures from Touhou 10 and Touhou 11 were circumvented in less than a week after the game was released on the home console. It took hackers much longer to crack Touhou 12, as another trap was implanted with the enemies not emitting power and point items when killed.
Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism 1998
Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object 1999

Driller Engine 4/5 Era[]

Game Year Trap
Touhou 13: Ten Desires 2001 Cracked copies of the game will always have most of the in-game drops removed so the player doesn't finish the game. If they manage to get to the end and right around the climax of the game's story, the game will randomly crash and erase all save data and high scores. This trap is still present in all games to this date.
Touhou 14: Double Dealing Character 2003
Touhou 15: Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom 2005

Gallery[]

Advertisement