No way, anyone could come up with MK's fatality combinations. I think Midway had a hand in revealing the secrets.

In the first game, a few of them aren't that tough to figure out. I've done a few accidental fatalities back in the day. Of course, I wasn't sure how I did them. But yeah, strategy guides were one way, but they were also printed in magazines like GamePro.

I wish I could remember where I saw fatality for the first time. But I believe I had codes for MK Trilogy (don't remember where I got them from though).

We did.

Just used the template for special moves from Street Fighter and we spent countless hours trialing them.

It was easy once we discovered Cage's head punch, once we knew that four button combinations were the key.

And if I remember correctly, Cage's and Sub-Zero's were the first two, and the last was Scorpion's I think.

And we didn't have gaming magazines or totally free travel and import after communism fell here. Finding out the fatalities was just a questiojn of time and effort.

Back in our day, we didn't have this fancy thing called the interwebs. We had to figure it out on our own! Because back then, kids had more time and patience for things.

I don't think I ever knew anyone with a strategy guide, but fatalities and cheats were in ready supply in magazines. Once one person had them, word of mouth would usually get it around. Magazines, hardcore gamers and pencil & paper was the MKO of its day.

It's already noted, but you really could accidentally stumble across the odd fatality. A few plays and you'd figure out what it was you did. Scorpion's OG toasty fatality comes to mind as one of the ones I stumbled on.

By MKII, I want to say some arcade cabinets had fatalities written on them. Can't actually remember if it was "official" design, or just arcades taping stuff to them. Both happened. During MKII there were arcades giving out trading cards that had fatality and bio info, too.

Can't remember when it started, but I know by MK3 console ports had at least one fatality listed in the manual, too. At that point, you already had a few general ideas to try, too.

Good times. Not knowing was fun. Finding out was fun.

There was a printed special move/Fatality manual at my local arcade/video store for MKII, it would be updated as more and more were found.

Someone wrote nudealities in there, lol

Just by good old fashioned word of mouth or by trial and error. I figured out a few just like that especially Sub-Zero's fatality in MK3, BLK, BLK, RUN, BLK, RUN.