Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. Kazuhisa Hashimoto put that sequence into Konami’s Famicom version of Gradius for his own use. “I hadn’t played it that much and couldn’t beat it myself, so I put in the Konami Code,” he said in a 2003 interview. “Because I was the one who was going to be using it, I made sure it was easy to remember.” He forgot to take it out, and the cartridge went on sale in Japan on 25 April 1986 with the cheat still inside. Two years later the American Contra made it famous as the way to start with 30 lives. By 1991 Nintendo Power was calling it “the Konami Code”, and it has since spread far beyond Konami’s games.
Fast facts
- Sequence: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A, often printed with a final Start.
- Author: Kazuhisa Hashimoto, programmer of the Famicom Gradius.
- First game: Gradius on the Famicom, 25 April 1986. The 1985 arcade game does not have it.
- Made famous by: the NES Contra (1988), where it gives 30 lives instead of three.
- Named in print: “The Konami Code strikes again”, Nintendo Power, February 1991.
A cheat for the programmer
The arcade Gradius was hard, and Hashimoto had to make the home version work. “The arcade version of Gradius is really difficult,” he told Retro Gamer. “I never played it that much, and there was no way I could finish the game, so I inserted the so-called Konami code.” By his own account the conversion took a team of four less than half a year. Konami at the time sent its most experienced programmers to arcade games, and in Hashimoto’s words “the employees who didn’t know a thing about programming or game creation were put into the custody of a single ‘teacher’ who would teach them all to program as they went along”. Wireframe suggests that in a small team moving that fast, a cheat left in the code could easily go unnoticed.
In Gradius the code works while the game is paused. Nintendo’s European Club Nintendo told players to press Start, enter the sequence, and release the pause: the ship, which it called the Warp Rattler, would be supercharged “with options, barriers and missiles”. It was not unlimited. The code worked “only a limited number of times; up to the total number of times you destroy the Big Core plus one”, the Big Core being the game’s recurring boss ship. Because the cheat takes effect as soon as B and A are pressed, the final Start in Gradius only unpauses the game. That is why printed versions of the code disagree about whether Start is part of it.
Contra and the 30 lives
Gradius hid the code; Contra made it famous. The first issue of Nintendo Power, in the summer of 1988, gave the sequence a headline of its own: “Start your game with over 30 extra men with this ‘extra life’ command.” “Contra is not an easy game,” it explained. “Sometimes it seems like you get wiped out before you even get started.” Entered on the title screen, the code gave 30 lives, and Nintendo Power later added that “thirty more fighters will appear when you continue”. Players knew it as the “Contra code” or the “30 lives code”, and Sega Retro calls it “almost necessary for players to have a chance of beating the game”. Wireframe credits the game’s popularity in America for the fact that the code became tied to Contra rather than Gradius.
The sequel did not reuse it. Nintendo Power reported in 1993 that for Super C “a new code was created which allows for ten fighters in reserve”: right, left, down, up, A, B, Start.
Konami’s house code
By the early 1990s the sequence was turning up across Konami’s range. In February 1991 Nintendo Power opened a tip for the Game Boy’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan with “The Konami Code strikes again”, describing it as “the code that works on a number of Konami games”. In that game, pausing and entering it refilled the energy meter once per game. In January 1993 the magazine’s Classified Information section treated it as a convention in its own right: “The programmers of Konami games created a long-standing code which makes for special circumstances in several games.”
| Game | What the code did | Where to enter it |
|---|---|---|
| Contra | 30 lives, and 30 more on continuing | Title screen |
| Life Force | “extend your ships in reserve to a total of 29” | Title screen |
| Gradius | “Your ship will be loaded with special Power-Up items” | Paused |
| Nemesis (Game Boy) | “what it does for Gradius” | Paused |
| Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy) | Refills the energy meter once | Paused |
It was never universal. Wireframe notes that the first three Castlevania games on the NES did not have it, and that the 1990 spin-off Kid Dracula recognised the code but only displayed a message meaning “There’s nothing here”. Sega Retro finds that “for many years, the Konami code was restricted to just Konami games”, with “even Konami failing to include it in many of their releases”. On Mega Drive it works in Konami’s Castlevania: Bloodlines and in a few games from other publishers, such as The Jungle Book and Mega Turrican. On the Saturn it does something useful mainly in Konami’s shoot-’em-up compilations, such as the Gradius Deluxe Pack.
Beyond Konami
The code’s fame grew through the 1990s, when Konami put it into newer series such as Dance Dance Revolution and Metal Gear Solid. By the 2000s other studios were using it as an Easter egg; Wireframe lists The Bard’s Tale, LittleBigPlanet 2, BioShock Infinite and Just Cause 4. Web developers hid it in pages too. Typed on the Overwatch website, it sent the game’s D.Va mechs trickling down the screen; on a Bank of Canada page for a commemorative $10 note, it set off a shower of banknotes and a warbling version of the Canadian national anthem.
Hashimoto’s death, at 61, was reported in February 2020. The news came first from Yuji Takenouchi, a composer who had worked with him at Konami in the 1980s, and Konami remembered him as “a deeply talented producer who first introduced the world to the ‘Konami Code’”. Besides Gradius, he worked on Konami’s Ganbare Goemon, Lethal Enforcers and Snatcher.
Sources
- Retro Gamer issue 53 (2008), p. 25: Konami lookback; Kazuhisa Hashimoto, “who programmed the Famicom Nemesis”, on why he inserted the code.
- “The Story Of The Konami Code And Early Days Of NES Development”, Siliconera, 17 December 2011, translating a 2003 interview with Kazuhisa Hashimoto (web, secondary): “Because I was the one who was going to be using it, I made sure it was easy to remember”; a team of four and less than half a year for Gradius; the “teacher” for new programmers. https://www.siliconera.com/the-story-of-the-konami-code-and-early-days-of-nes-development/
- “Killer Feature: Gradius”, Wireframe issue 62, April 2022, pp. 112–113: Hashimoto’s 2003 interview; how the code was left in; Contra and the code’s American fame; the first three NES Castlevania games and Kid Dracula; later Konami series and other studios’ games; the Overwatch and Bank of Canada websites; Hashimoto’s other games.
- “Konami: Developer Profile”, Wireframe issue 10, March 2019, pp. 50–51: the code’s first appearance in the 1986 console Gradius, two years before Contra; “dozens of the company’s console games” since.
- Wireframe issue 34, March 2020, news: Hashimoto’s death, broken by Yuji Takenouchi.
- “Kazuhisa Hashimoto, creator of the Konami Code, has died”, Video Games Chronicle, 26 February 2020 (web, secondary): his age, Konami’s statement, Snatcher. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/kazuhisa-hashimoto-creator-of-the-konami-code-has-died/
- Famitsu.com, “AC版『グラディウス』が稼動開始した日”, 29 May 2024 (web, secondary): the Famicom Gradius on sale on 25 April 1986; the “Konami command”. https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/6202
- Club Nintendo (UK), Classic special edition, 1990, Gradius tips: entering the code while paused; options, barriers and missiles; the limit tied to the Big Core.
- Nintendo Power issue 1, July–August 1988, p. 60: the Contra “extra life” command.
- Nintendo Power issue 21, February 1991, p. 34: “The Konami Code strikes again”, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan.
- Nintendo Power issue 44, January 1993, Super Power Club insert, Classified Information, p. 26: “The Konami Code” with Start, and its effects in Contra, Life Force, Gradius, Nemesis and Fall of the Foot Clan; the separate Super C code.
- Sega Retro, “Konami code” (web, secondary): “Contra code” and “30 lives code”; Start as optional; the code’s slow spread beyond Konami; the Mega Drive and Saturn games that use it. https://segaretro.org/Konami_code