General / Off-Topic I Was A Game Hacker! ;)

Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
In days of Yore, I used to spend some of my time finding cheats for games.

I just found a couple that got published in Commodore User, Issue 42, 1987, for the C16/Plus 4 games G-Man and Split Personalities ...

RU0BpP3.jpg


Those were Halcyon days, when game cheats were encouraged and published in magazines ;)

Anyone else got their cheats and pokes published? Let's see who the old timers are :)
 

Surfinjo

Surfinjo
I was under the impression the cheats were supposed to be found. I think they called them Easter Eggs.

In the days of Beeb Elite, I was eventually given a hack that gave me unlimited credits, maximum armour, huge cargo space and enormous weapons.

I took to wandering from station to station, buying up everything then to the next and selling. I did actually make a profit of sorts, but quickly fell foul of the illegal goods rules and was shot out of the sky by the feds.

Which only goes to prove, you can't evade the feds. :D
 

Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
Surfinjo said:
I was under the impression the cheats were supposed to be found. I think they called them Easter Eggs.

In the days of Beeb Elite, I was eventually given a hack that gave me unlimited credits, maximum armour, huge cargo space and enormous weapons.

I took to wandering from station to station, buying up everything then to the next and selling. I did actually make a profit of sorts, but quickly fell foul of the illegal goods rules and was shot out of the sky by the feds.

Which only goes to prove, you can't evade the feds. :D
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Ah that's different - Easter Eggs are deliberately put into games/programs by the developers. Cheats/pokes were found by ordinary Joes like me with too much time on their hands and a penchant for peeking into game code ;)
 

Gramps

Gramps
Most of these were just access codes for the developers to test various aspects of the game, like invulnerability used too test a fight sequence. These were not hacks which involve changing code to gain an advantage, brings back memory's though.
 

ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
Dave c said:
Most of these were just access codes for the developers to test various aspects of the game, like invulnerability used too test a fight sequence. These were not hacks which involve changing code to gain an advantage, brings back memory's though.
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Most look like direct pokes into memory addresses to me, so technically they are changing the in-memory code of life counters etc. rather than exposing a test cheat.

I remember Split Personalities. It was just a sliding puzzle game with pictures of Maggie Thatcher and stuff.
 
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Kazacy

Kazacy
On my spectrum eastern european clone i really loved infinite lives for Dizzy series, Exolon, Batty and many many more. I used even a custom firmware designed for this to search the memory locations for lives, money etc, i think it was called Opus and i was really proud when i managed to install the EPROM memory on a socket on the motherboard.
PS: in my opinion it wasn't hacking, the software wasn't write by me, i merely install the chip. In these days we have only lame cheaters which call themselves "hackers" :D
 
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Zeeman

Zeeman
On the Atari ST Version of Elite, if you enter your name as Jameson, you can then enter the hex editor mode and give yourself everything! Even Elite status!

Watch it though, some changes will crash the game.

ALso, holding TAB whilst jumping will drop you into Witch Space every time! Great for when you want to rank up quick!

Z...
 

Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
Zeeman said:
On the Atari ST Version of Elite, if you enter your name as Jameson, you can then enter the hex editor mode and give yourself everything! Even Elite status!

Watch it though, some changes will crash the game.

ALso, holding TAB whilst jumping will drop you into Witch Space every time! Great for when you want to rank up quick!

Z...
Click to expand...

Lol - this doesn't work in ED ;)

Although I can't help feeling that the devs do in fact have one or two hidden eastereggs in the ED/EDH code somewhere - not that I have the knowledge or the time these days to have a peek at x86/X64 code :p
 

Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
xondk said:
Just to clear up something, because it seems everyone is throwing around the word "Hacker" of late.

Using cheat codes, does not make you a hacker, not one bit.

Carry on.
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Yeah, I actually /found/ the cheats :p

Others have been /using/ the cheats :)

Regards o7
 

justhanging

J
Who remembers playing the bicycle race game on the Commodore 64? Man that was intense. I think I ruined my space bar a few times playing that.
 
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