7 ms·
9 year old me got my first "hacking" experience out of this game. With the shareware version, you could not select the ultra tank that could shoot 3 bullets for
by rhema 4mo ago
9 year old me got my first "hacking" experience out of this game. With the shareware version, you could not select the ultra tank that could shoot 3 bullets for a human, but you COULD if it were the computer player.
The "hack":
-start a game with a normal tank VS ultra computer player as p2.
-save the game (as a file).
-open the game file.
-read the ASCII text and just flip which player has which text.
Now, I had my ultra tank.
- leoooodias 4mo agoL33T!
- stackghost 4mo agoMine was similar but it was the original C&C. Found this sketchy-ass save game editor/mod editor, proceeded to give the little Nod buggies the laser from the obelisk of light to trivialize the single player campaign. That feeling of being the leetest of leet haxors just from editing some ini settings was pretty glorious.
- NBJack 4mo agoI recall the INI files of Red Alert were an open book for modding the game mechanics. I had spies with silenced pistols and "tesla cufflinks". It was really fun making crates spawn super frequently. I also vaguely recall making one of the planes into a nuke carpet bombers (fun, but the forced delay each time a nuke went off was a tad annoying). Then there were the Duke Nukem 3D CON files...
- vunderba 4mo agoCON files were great. One of the first enemies I made as a kid was a "basilisk"-type creature that if you looked at, there was a RNG chance it would wackplayer If you know, you know.
- wingmanjd 4mo agoMine was on a similar game, GORILLA.BAS. I would edit the banana code for a much bigger explosion. Lots of fun back in computer class!
- ido 4mo agoThe difference being that editing the source code was the point of the BASIC examples provided with DOS/QBasic/GW-Basic (they’re there to teach you programming!)
- bfdm 4mo agoBlast, tricked into learning by making you think you're cheating!
- parlortricks 4mo agoWe added other weapons to make a poor mans scorched earth as we were only allowed to make games.
- pimlottc 4mo agoMy school had a similar loophole: game weren’t allowed in the computer lab, unless you wrote it yourself…
- Induane 4mo agoI removed collision detection so I could throw bananas through buildings
- Barbing 4mo agoWhere would we be without computer class Something I wonder! Grateful :D
- thih9 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(video_game)
- 4mo ago
- jasonfarnon 4mo agoIt would be a nice thread on here, to see what people's first hacks were, especially from that era when people were usually just alone and stumbling on these things.
- wincy 4mo agoOoh the Dungeon Keeper demo actually had all of the characters, just not the art assets. So when I was 11 I modified the ini file and had invisible giants and vampire lords doing my bidding in my dungeon. I was very proud of myself.
- colordrops 4mo agoThe whole cracking scene was where a lot us cut our teeth learning to use machine code debuggers.
- stevekemp 4mo agoVery much so. Fixing software so that they correctly recognized my preferred serial number of #12345 was valid. Using soft-ice to register itself was always a deeply ironic. But to be honest I started before then, on the ZX Spectrum. First of all it was patching games to get infinite lives, or time. But later it became necessary to patch the loaders before you could even access the game-code - speedlock, bleeplock, etc.
- b3lvedere 4mo agoI remember saving a lot of allowance so i could buy the Multiface One for the ZX Spectrum. Instant hacking and saving possibilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiface
- stevekemp 4mo agoI never had one, and often lamented it! Being able to pause a running game and peek/poke at the RAM would have been very useful for hacking games, though of course I'd still need to crack the loader to share the POKEs with other people.
- invalidusernam3 4mo agoThis reminds me of something similar I did as a teenager in the 90s. Also some shareware game, can't remember exactly what it was about (I think a submarine game?). The shareware version only gave access to the first map. After digging around the files I found that it included all the maps and simply renaming map n to map 1's file name allowed you to play it
- dguest 4mo agoI "hacked" Cap'n Hector in Escape Velocity. The game was shareware and he'd show up to ask you to pay the fee. After the trial period he'd start lobbing missiles at you. There was a basic editor you could open to adjust all the ship stats and weapons, so while you couldn't turn him friendly you could at least de-claw him. I remember thinking it was weird how "easy" it was to work around, but it's hard to imagine the studio would care much: a pre-internet 14 year who loved the game that much is probably more useful as an ambassador than a paying customer.
- VorpalWay 4mo agoI did something similar for the sequel Escape Velocity Override when I was a kid. It also had the same Captain Hector. Though in my case I buffed my own ship's armor and shields instead. I was not very good at the game (still am not to be honest), so I kind of needed that anyway to get through it. I also remember that in EV Override you needed to stay below a certain amount of money to not trigger Captain Hector, and I would set the system clock back so it wouldn't think that the trial period had passed. There are two modern spiritual successors to the EV games that might interest you if you haven't heard of them. Both are open source and have a decent amount of content (but aren't complete): Endless Sky, and Naev. Where the former is much closer to the old EV games in feel.
- stavros 4mo agoAlso, if the game is single-player, you don't care: Simply let the players enjoy the game how they want to enjoy it.
- microtonal 4mo agoSounds familiar. As a kid I was bothered that I had to harvest spice or Tiberium (I forgot whether it was Dune 2 or Command & Conquer, but I think the latter). So I figured out where in the binary save file credits were stored and wrote a small Pascal program that would give me the highest possible credits so that I could focus on base and unit building :).
- Pxtl 4mo agoDune 2 before that was similarly hackable. The level definitions were just text files with an encoding that only certain editors would open.
- waltbosz 4mo agoI had a similar youthful hacking experience with this game, I was also 9 at the time. The computer players would say a little trash-talk phrase before making their shot. I edited the text file that contained all the phrases and added new ones with swear words. My older brother, who was the one that installed the game on our computer, noticed the new phrases asked me if I had edited the text file. I lied that I hadn't, then re-edited the file to remove my changes.
- pickleglitch 4mo agoI did this exact same thing. I added a bunch of Monty Python quotes.
- arnarbi 4mo agoScorched Earth was also my first hacking target. Found out that your cash balance and weapons inventory was all stored in a mysterious .ini file and you could just edit it.
- rrr_oh_man 4mo agoSounds like Nintendo World Cup and the special field selection trick