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Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

scorch2000.com

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Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#111

Post by whynotmaybe »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #52
rhema wrote: post #27

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…

It 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.

Opening Eye of the Beholder II save files and moving items in your inventory to detect the hex code.

Then trying other random codes and finding stuff in your inventory like animal carcass

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#112

Post by microtonal »

HerbManic wrote: post #72
jasonfarnon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It 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.

While not the first hack by a long shot and not even mine but I always loved the idea of how it worked. There used to be program called Gamehack or something like that. Essentially you would start the game and point this application at said game in RAM, then take note of something like the score being "187" or whatever. Jump into 'Gamehack' and it would search for everything in memory with that value. You would then…

This reminds me of Game Genie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Genie

They really markted that well has having to enter codes, but of course, they were just ROM addresses + values to pretend to be at those addresses.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#113

Post by meshko »

felooboolooomba wrote: post #103
meshko wrote: post #2

for the 25th anniversary (approximately) I vibecoded what i wanted to do for years -- port of the original remake (yes) to JavaScript. Alive again.

Great work! People are not realizing to press "start". Possible to add audio notification and/or highlighting the button red when ready?

yeah this is what happens when you let LLM design the UI. The whole flow needs to be updated.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#114

Post by seizethegdgap »

HerbManic wrote: post #72
jasonfarnon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It 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.

While not the first hack by a long shot and not even mine but I always loved the idea of how it worked. There used to be program called Gamehack or something like that. Essentially you would start the game and point this application at said game in RAM, then take note of something like the score being "187" or whatever. Jump into 'Gamehack' and it would search for everything in memory with that value. You would then…

Sounds like a precursor to CheatEngine

https://cheatengine.org/

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#115

Post by evilgeneralist »

GavinAnderegg wrote: post #32

Scorched Earth taught me the concept of software versions. It was the first program that I ever knowingly interacted with more than one point-release of. I had version 1.0, but a friend had version 1.2. My very young mind was boggled by the concept of software being updated.

I was thinking about this last night. "If it's a different... version.. then it's a different game"

I think Super Mario 2 being what it was really messed me up.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#116

Post by Pxtl »

microtonal wrote: post #108
rhema wrote: post #27

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…

Sounds 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 :).

Dune 2 before that was similarly hackable. The level definitions were just text files with an encoding that only certain editors would open.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#118

Post by waltbosz »

rhema wrote: post #27

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…

I 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.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#119

Post by pickleglitch »

waltbosz wrote: post #118
rhema wrote: post #27

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…

I 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…

I did this exact same thing. I added a bunch of Monty Python quotes.

Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web

#120

Post by b3lvedere »

stevekemp wrote: post #83
b3lvedere wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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

I 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.

Oh it was. It had its own handy interface where you could alot of things live in the memory. I remember hacking for infinite lives/credits and finding out secret passwords. It was a very fun and very expensive ( for me ) device. I did not need it for copying games. There were some local hobby clubs which had almost every game and software.
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