Hook

Copy protection

The Amiga version was protected using a variant of the Rob Northen Copylock routine, in that a failed second protection check would cause a key item, namely a mug, to disappear from the game. This was done in hopes that crackers would only detect and remove the first standard check and fail to notice subsequent checks with more subtle in-game consequences. According to an interview with programmer Bobby Earl, this turned out to be the case for at least one of the early cracked versions of the game.

The copy-protection used in the PC version was similar to that of some Software Toolworks games of the early 1990's; the diskettes were protected, but the installed versions were not -- but the installed versions were custom-tailored to your PC so that you couldn't use them on other computers. Here is an excerpt from the read.me file that came with the game:

Due to the complex nature of the file system used in Hook, it may no longer function correctly if any major hardware attributes of your PC change in any way (e.g. adding extra RAM or an additional Hard Disk). If this is the case then you must re-install Hook from the original floppy disks.

German version

The German translation was plagued by the fact that the game didn't implement the special chars in German language (such as ä,ö,ü and ß). Any dialogue containing these characters became distorted. This was the same on the Amiga version of the game.

Technology

Hook was one of the first smooth-scrolling adventure games on the PC, using a 256-color tweaked VGA mode (though all the in-game art comes from the Amiga version (32 colors)).

Information also contributed by phlux