> I suspect that [modifying data in memory] is how the Game Genie for the Nintendo Entertainment System worked.
Game Genie, Action Replay, and other similar devices worked on a different principle - the "codes" represented patches to the code in the game cartridge, not to data in memory. (The original Game Genie for the NES could patch up to three bytes.)
In practice, these patches often amounted to simple modifications like changing the constant value used to initialize a "lives" or "health" variable, or patching out code which caused the player to take damage or die.
One of the first save files I modified was SimCity 2000. I had just learned about hex numbers and thought well they have to store my money somewhere so I just searched for the hex values of my current money and voila it was there. Also learned about signed/unsigned int ... as there is a max or you go negative
I lament that these kinds of rogue explorations are less and less available to kids these days. Sure in many senses there's much more in the space to engage with, powerful tools like scratch and now LLMs to answer every question but I suspect most kids today will be nostalgic for some mobile game they have no agency to explore outside the rails or some online game that will ban you for cheating.
Contrast that with experiences like the author and the taboo joys of rooting around in the files and "hacking" something to do the thing you want.
Most kids growing up in the 90s didn't have game genies or hack bits and bytes on computer games either. At least there weren't personalized ads or microtransactions infecting most games though, but whether or not one plays an open world sandbox and hacks at it or rides the rails of a "normal" game has always just been a choice certain kids are attracted to and certain kids aren't.
I think they will still do it. Steam has a ton of games with local storage and modding is highly encouraged in many of them. Additionally, there's a growing interest in classic gaming, in particular NES/SNES, even from people who didn't live through the early generations. These games will remain eternally hackable.
The best selling game of all time is relatively recent and supremely hackable/mod-friendly. It also contains gameplay elements that simulate electricity and logic gates. People have built computers in-game.
Hah, it's probably considered one of the greatest games of the 90s.
Game Genie, Action Replay, and other similar devices worked on a different principle - the "codes" represented patches to the code in the game cartridge, not to data in memory. (The original Game Genie for the NES could patch up to three bytes.)
In practice, these patches often amounted to simple modifications like changing the constant value used to initialize a "lives" or "health" variable, or patching out code which caused the player to take damage or die.
Contrast that with experiences like the author and the taboo joys of rooting around in the files and "hacking" something to do the thing you want.
When I looked on the disk, I saw that the pictures were listed as, eg LADY01 up to LADY05.
11 year old me was pretty excited when I thought, "what would happen if I renamed the files?"...
Minecraft
- https://log.schemescape.com/posts/