Pokemon Red and Green versions began development in 1989, and were considered complete and fit for release in 1995. It took a long time, because of the problems surfacing along the way. These were considered at the time to be due to the game being on the cutting-edge of new technology, because the programmers were overcoming bugs nobody had to work around before.

In 1992-1993, when the first playable sections of the game were complete in alpha form, is what started the long struggle. HM moves didn’t exist at this point, instead, the player had to use items to get around. For example, the “surfboard” item allowed the player to surf across water. This item was still in the programming when the Beta version was released, and some more hardcore gamers managed to hack it into the game again. Instead of “cut”, the player would use the item “axe” on trees. Instead of “flash” you would use a “candle”. The “escape rope” was supposed to be replaced by the move Dig, for some reason though that item wasn’t removed.
It made perfect sense, and seemed to work just fine until one of the alpha version testers used the candle inside a building. The screen fogged up, the “smoke screen” attack animation covering everything. A text box appeared saying “Hurry, get away”.
The door sound played, the character would be returned to the overworld, the building would be blackened and un-enterable.
The Axe, worked perfectly for removing the small trees. It also worked on people. And some sections of the fence that hemmed in the entire playable world. Upon using the Axe on a human NPC, the sprite would vanish, and be replaced by a small patch of dark pixels. This looked most like the blood it represented in red version, and just slightly odd in green.
It became a morbid joke among the testers, who all assumed these things were programmed in just to try and spook them, and that these things would of course be removed from the final versions. They were. Mostly.
Escape Rope was considered a step too far by some. Upon standing facing a doorway, if you were to select and use the escape rope, it would form a noose and the player character would be hung from it! The only way to get out of this was to switch the game off and continue from the last save.
One of the testers left and a new person hired in his place. The new guy didn’t much like the sick jokes the programmers played on the testers. The others laughed it off, told him not to be so touchy. But he insisted that these were children’s games, and the programmers shouldn’t be adding these things, even if they were only temporary, or meant as a joke. That was so long ago, I’ve forgotten his name. It was Kenta.. or something. He complained to the higher-ups about the ‘added extras’, and some of the programmers were questioned and one was even fired over the incident. The claim was that they were deliberately wasting time and resources.
To be fair, by this time we had music and basic sound effects in the game which made the extra effects that little more gruesome. Using the Axe on a person, would trigger a high pitched squealing sound along with the disappearance and puddle of blood.
Burning buildings had an added repetitive crackling sound effect that imitated fire to the best of the old technology’s ability, and a singular crack would play when the Escape rope was used.
None of the programmers actually owned up to putting the dark extras in, they all claimed to have never seen them before, but they began to suspect each other, realising their jobs were on the line, and claimed to have suspicions about each other. Who knows if that programmer that was fired actually did have anything to do with it? It was decided that the items would be scrapped entirely, and HM moves were invented to enable the player to progress instead. The remaining programmers found a lot of trouble trying to erase the items from the code, and resorted to burying them, making them unusable or inaccessible. The effect was the same as erasing them, wasn’t it?
It worked. The whole incident was forgotten. Until the Beta versions were released to the public and hackers started taking an interest in the game’s coding.
There were the famous incidents surrounding lavender town, and the music that so badly affected younger players. There were one or two cases in which hackers had uncovered the buried items in the games coding, and the disturbing images that came with them combined with the overall music caused them to completely lose themselves. It was all covered up, mostly. Almost no records of what happened exist but I remember hearing on the news back then that a high school student had taken an axe to her classmates, she’d pulverised them as much as possible into indistinguishable puddles of human flesh.
Her surviving friends said she had become obsessed with her new Pokémon game in the time leading up to the attack. One of them, interviewed for a TV news bulletin described the girl as “like a maniac for Pokémon. She was always excited about secrets in the games”.
The axe wielding girl was of course hospitalised. She never spoke to anyone, but the nurses that took care of her claimed to hear her humming a tune at night. They said it was creepy and unsettling, the tune made them uncomfortable. The girl will be in her 30’s by now, hopefully still somewhere secure.
An older fan of the games’ office building burned down just months after the incident with the girl and the axe. It was mostly played off by the media as a tragic accident. Fire is quite a common risk in old multi story buildings full of paperwork after all. The strange thing was that only the one man survived, he had, apparently left the building almost pre-emptively, blocking doors behind him as he went. All the police could figure out about the fire was that it had started in the stationary cupboard, where someone had apparently left a box of candles, the only evidence of which was a pool of melted wax among the charred shelves and debris. He claimed to be shocked and horrified by the tragedy, saying he had nothing to do with it. He was under suspicion though and the police found several boxes of candles and a few hacked and edited copies of Pokémon red and green in his apartment. I don’t remember what happened to him after that, if he was convicted of arson or not. I remember a news bulletin on TV showing a burned game cartridge supposedly found in the man’s home.
There were more, all hushed up and forgotten with time. But with the modern world’s computer technology and game roms and so on, there is a real risk that someone might be able to uncover these items again.. unless in newer versions the old alpha coding was successfully removed but nobody would have been looking for it in order to do so would they?
The thought terrifies me. I don’t think I can handle seeing these things happen again, knowing I was part of it, that someone might eventually find me and question me. The music plays in my ears every day, that tinny pulse of lavender town and although I’ve survived this long, it is time to end the struggle. I’m writing this as a warning to anyone who may read it. Don’t go looking for the buried items. My Escape Rope is waiting.