I remember playing this in college. Such good times.
Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
141–150 of 154 posts
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#142I did not realize Pocket Tanks was a derivative work.
Discussion of the genre’s legacy is not complete without Artillery Duel for the Atari VCS 2600.
https://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-artillery-due...
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#1439 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.
This might make a nice top-level Ask HN.
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#144PSA: YOU NEED TO PRESS THE START BUTTON IF YOU ARE HOSTING A GAME.
People are creating games and waiting and waiting ...
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#145Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#146[dead]
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true if it was just cheating. But in this case I was hacking the shareware payment enforcement. Rather than shutting down completely the game would send an invincible and fairly destructive enemy (Hector) after you. It was really a clever trick from the developers to make the game mostly unplayable if you didn't pay after the trial period.
Ahh it didn't click that this was shareware enforcement, thanks. I guess back in those days developers weren't really fussed about payment, because paying was really hard (mailing in checks, and nobody had credit cards). Many of them (us) made software for the love of it, and didn't care if it was cracked. I never got a single sale from my software but I didn't care.
I'm pretty sure I eventually either payed or ran one of those keygen-and-virus.exe scripts. At least I also remember Hector thanking me for paying.
It got me thinking: could I somehow pay them now? There's some sad news here: one of the original creators, Peter Cartwright, passed away [1] in 2026 :(
His project to remaster EV: Override, Cosmic Frontier, was fully funded after his death though!
[1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cosmicfrontier/cosmic-f...
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#148Great, I got the almost invisible red tank on a magenta background!
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#1499 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 like Nintendo World Cup and the special field selection trick
Re: Scorched Earth 2000 – Web
#150This triggered memories I forgot I had. Thank you!