Also: World League Basketball
How many video games include a marriage proposal? At least one! Plug in a second controller and use it to enter this sequence at the main menu of NCAA Basketball Final Four 97:
Select, Start, Triangle, Up,
X, Square, Up, X,
Left, Up, XA new PUZZLE item will appear:
If you select it, you’ll get a question:
Melissa, will you marry me? Love, Scott
If you answer Yes, I will, you’ll get this message:
And they lived happily ever after...And if you answer No, I won’t, you’ll get this one:
Error, please try again
Heartwarming!
I found this by noticing this ?? PUZZLE ?? item in the list of strings for the main menu:
80068944 "?? PUZZLE ??"
80068954 "SECRET"
8006895c "EXHIBITION GAME"
8006896c "CONTINUE SEASON / TOURNAMENT"
8006898c "START NEW SEASON"
800689a0 "START NEW TOURNAMENT"
800689b8 "TEAM INFORMATION"
800689cc "OPTIONS"Then I did my usual memory snapshot diff trick to figure out which memory addresses hold controller input. That led me to the function at 80076398, which reads button presses from controller 2. It compares your button presses to the sequence at 8009add4. This uses the standard PlayStation mapping for buttons:
8009add4 0001 0000 # Select
8009add8 0008 0000 # Start
8009addc 1000 0000 # Triangle
8009ade0 0010 0000 # Up
8009ade4 4000 0000 # X
8009ade8 8000 0000 # Square
8009adec 0010 0000 # Up
8009adf0 4000 0000 # X
8009adf4 0080 0000 # Left
8009adf8 0010 0000 # Up
8009adfc 4000 0000 # XIf you match it, the counter at 800d2000 increases. If that counter reaches 11, the new menu item is activated.
Hmm, but what about the SECRET string just below the ?? PUZZLE ?? one? The same function checks controller 2’s button presses against another sequence:
Select, Start, Square, Circle,
Triangle, Triangle, Circle, Right,
Left, XIf you enter that, a different new item pops up:
This SECRET menu has:
Half length
An I-L-L / I-N-I toggle (the Fighting Illini?)
Big Head Mode
Roll Credits
I’m not sure what the I-L-L / I-N-I thing does, but Big Head Mode sure does what you’d expect:
As does Roll Credits. The Scott from the marriage proposal above seems to be Scott Corley, lead programmer:
I hope it worked out for Scott and Melissa!
I said above that “at least one” video game has a marriage proposal in it. I should have said “at least two,” because the exact same one is in another game from the same development studio as NCAA Basketball Final Four 97.
World League Basketball uses the same button codes as above. Enter them to make the same ?? PUZZLE ?? and SECRET options appear.
The marriage proposal screen has the same options and text, as does the secret menu screen. Big Head mode works the same way:
The credits are different. Scott Corley isn’t listed in the staff roll, but the team behind NCAA Final Four ‘97 gets a special thanks:
I sent a note about these Easter eggs to Scott Corley. He said that he had recently pulled out the game to show the marriage proposal to his son. But he’d forgotten the code and couldn’t make it work! He and Melissa did indeed live happily ever after.
I found a few more video game marriage proposals: Mortal Kombat 1, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Klax. Are there others than I’m missing?
For many more adventures in reverse engineering retro game Easter eggs, see my archive. And to get the next article as soon as it comes out, subscribe to Rings of Saturn here on Substack. More soon!
Read the original article
Comments
The heart-warming gem:
> I sent a note about these Easter eggs to Scott Corley [the game's developer]. He said that he had recently pulled out the game to show the marriage proposal to his son. But he’d forgotten the code and couldn’t make it work! He and Melissa did indeed live happily ever after.
By jdeibele 2025-11-1818:36 I proposed on 01/01 and got married on 07/07. Both 2001 so 01/01/01 for the proposal but I didn't want to wait until 07/07/07.
I originally wanted to do 01:01 on the 1st but we both were asleep by then. We dated for almost a year before the proposal.
By giancarlostoro 2025-11-1817:14 We got around this by keeping the same number but swapping the months out. Started dating in August, actually got legally married same month, but the ceremony was in October all of the same day. I used the cheat code of familiarity to never forget.
By QuantumNomad_ 2025-11-1814:45 At least we know he’s not cheating
Or he could have just googled "scott corley melissa".
Using archive.is just because the article is region locked to US-only: https://archive.is/SeCmf
By eleveriven 2025-11-1810:18 The fact that they did live happily ever after just makes it even sweeter
By elzbardico 2025-11-184:47 This made my day
By MarkusWandel 2025-11-1812:161 reply "Ever after" with a time limit. If you actually google as someone suggested, the third hit is for the divorce proceedings.
By alchemist1e9 2025-11-1812:261 reply Wrong marriage. They are still married today and had four children.
By johnisgood 2025-11-1814:223 reply "had" or "has"? Huge difference! I will assume "has".
Edit: oops, yeah, "have", not "has". My bad. :P
By inanutshellus 2025-11-1814:26 Arguably Melissa had four and thus they have four, eh?
By UniverseHacker 2025-11-1814:271 reply “Have” is the word you are looking for, “has” isn’t grammatically correct. However, “had” in past tense is also correct, as it refers to the fact that they were born in the past, it does not imply (as you seem to be saying) that the children aren’t alive anymore.
By doubled112 2025-11-1822:561 reply I used to have kids. I still do, but I used to too!
By johnisgood 2025-11-1911:46 You continue to have kids! :D
By alchemist1e9 2025-11-1814:25 sorry I changed to “have”.
By robotnikman 2025-11-1818:04 Aw, that's sweet! Glad it worked out well for him, always nice to see some good news.
By proofofconcept 2025-11-185:092 reply Reminds me of this vid by a guy who did a romhack of Chrono Trigger to propose to his then-gf who was playing through it for the first time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_HMLvLB7b0 "I proposed by hacking Chrono Trigger (Oct 24, 2008, 6m 57s)"
He writes in the description about what he was going for as far as making it seem like part of the actual game while still referencing their romantic history, and how well it worked (good for them!).
That's me! I made that 17 years ago, still happily married. Took me like two weeks of full time tinkering. It involved a lot of trial and error messing with a hex editor.
By Herodotus38 2025-11-1817:47 I remember that video! 14 years ago it inspired me, to program a text adventure game proposal for my wife (still happily married). Thanks!
By proofofconcept 2025-11-187:13 Good for you both! That is so awesome :D
By brian-armstrong 2025-11-187:42 Thank you for sharing the video way back when. I remember thinking it was very touching.
By westmeal 2025-11-1810:20 Props man, wish you guys a happy life :)
By jihadjihad 2025-11-1820:40 The way "romhack" was spelled made me think it meant "romance hack" for a second, which based on the video you linked seems appropriate, too.
Not video games, but the article reminded me of marriage proposals in scientific articles:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%281...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037843711...
By collinmcnulty 2025-11-1812:56 For others clicking through, check the acknowledgements
