5 ms·

The Game Genie Generation

153 points by coloneltcb 1y ago

minimaxir 1y ago
Game Genie was likely the primary contributor of exposing kids to computer science in the 90's/00's, especially with "63" or "FF" appearing in every Infinite Lives cheat code. The "wow" moment for me was a Encounter the Specified Pokemon cheatcode for Pokemon Red where the specified Pokemon was their ID in hexadecimal. Once I got a GameShark which included a VHS on how to create codes with the GameShark (identifying which memory addresses change and how to fix them to a specific value), and admittingly that may have scared me off of the computer science path.
- chollida1 1y ago
  > Game Genie was likely the primary contributor of exposing kids to computer science in the 90's/00's I"d say the internet and creating webpages with javascript probably had a slightly bigger impact on young programmers at the time, by maybe 3 orders of magnitude.
  - minimaxir 1y ago
    I said computer science specifically: for web development in the 00's, Neopets was by far the biggest contributor for exposing kids to the power of the internet, but that was more limited to HTML.
    - bitwize 1y ago
      Not MySpace?
  - TylerE 1y ago
    This was way before javascript. The first Game Genie was released for the NES in 1990. The very first version of Javascript wasn't until 1995.
    - hdgvhicv 1y ago
      Qbasic and nibbles/gorilla was around at the start of the 90s, but the proposal was 90s/00s which is basically the time period of the internet pre mobile phone.
      - anthk 1y ago
        No, late 90's and very early 00's were almost devoid of JS and it was anecdoctical. It was Flash and some ActiveX malware, if not both. And NPAPI/IE plugins for video players and such.
        hdgvhicv 1y ago
        Well I was writing JavaScript in the late 90s, alongside things like server side includes. Come early 2000s I was paid for it.
  - anthk 1y ago
    No, not even in late 90's. Emulators for GB/GBA (sometimes MSX/ZX/C64...) and PSX/N64 did far, far more than JS. When you could play for free games for the N64 (which weighted just a few MB's, good enough to get them from cybercafés in CD-ROM and play THPS2 at home), you have to be good to at least understand what the graphics mode did to emulators, the filters, the audio quality on CPU usage, and sometimes even hex-editing some ROM headers to enforce compatibility with some emulators. And, a bit later, in early 00's, compiling them for GNU/Linux for performance and patching some of them to understand odd bootleg NES cartridge mappers.
- derefr 1y ago
  > especially with "63" or "FF" appearing in every Infinite Lives cheat code Except that those numbers did not commonly appear in Game Genie codes, because Game Genie codes are [trivially] enciphered. See e.g. https://gamehacking.org/library/114 https://gamehacking.org/library/114 for an explanation — the cipher used was different for each system. AFAICT this enciphering was done precisely to discourage third-party code creation. Galoob never made any explicit statements about why they did it, but I'd guess† it served as a kind of DRM for codes, so that Galoob could be the only source of them, and thus sell you code books or something. If you're remembering "a cheat-code device that preceded the GameShark that had literal address:value codes, and became the default input format for cheat codes in NES/SNES/GB emulators", then you're probably thinking of the Game Genie's competitor, the (Pro) Action Replay. --- † There was also possibility of a vague hope on Galoob's part of contracting with games studios to create and publish "licensed" codes — making their device into less of a "cheating device" and more of a kind of post-sales-marketing micro-DLC-publishing channel for games studios. Think of the type of thing that you see in e.g. Nintendo Switch Online with "special editions" of games that are just the regular game with a code applied. Studios could have been putting out "special editions" after-the-fact by publishing [i.e. working with Galoob to publish] officially-sanctioned codes in gaming magazines. This never materialized... probably because studios that wanted to do post-sales-marketing micro-DLC, had enough foresight to build it into the game, in the form of pre-written live logic whose only live codepath involves a long and esoteric title-screen button-combo no player would ever guess; or even pre-written dead logic, that can be made live by an executable payload encoded into a password-system password, or a link-cable / e-reader / wi-fi distribution.
  - bongodongobob 1y ago
    Using the letters was just shorthand, I think you're overthinking it.
    - LocalH 1y ago
      It wasn't shorthand, I'm pretty sure it was basic obfuscation. It was done by shuffling bits around then translating to letters using an algorithm that I don't know off the top of my head, but is well-documented. To me it shows explicit intent to cause codes to be harder to make.
tmnstr85 1y ago
The NES adaptor gives me flashbacks to my childhood. PS1 and PS2 mods had the same vibe. What a great era.
- konfusinomicon 1y ago
  game genie was amazing! still remember the commercial where the tv screen exploded.. i got a cd burner for Xmas in 1998, next step was a mod chip for my ps1. soldering it in was such a high risk, high reward project for a 14 year old. from buying the chip online with my parents credit card to buying the soldering iron and solder at radio shack with lawn mowing money, to disassembling the ps1 and following the directions ever so carefully. that first boot up was nerve racking. for the remainder of the ps1 era my friend and I would rent games, burn them, swap with each other and by the end we both had 200+ titles to choose from..a magical time indeed!
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    i remember figuring out that i had one of the lucky early-model dreamcasts that didn't require mod chips. coincided with the brief period where you could find pretty much anything on megaupload. i'm sure all of my burned games have disintegrated by now but i had an awesome collection of games back then :)
  - gosub100 1y ago
    That was how I felt following the guides to hack DirecTV for the first time.
j_timberlake 1y ago
Games used to be fun through their gameplay mechanics and physics, rather than through their progression mechanics (legendary gear, maxed levels). Giving yourself max-stats would ruin most modern games, because the game world stops being interesting without the progression ladder. Also, making a Nintendo-brand version of these would have been easy money, dunno why Nintendo stockholders were okay with less money.
- deelowe 1y ago
  Back then these sort of things were seen as tampering with other companies' ip. It was sort of taboo for any reputable business to build products like that.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Nintendo still views it as that and these kind of devices are still illegal.
    - autoexec 1y ago
      Today they'd brick your switch if they caught you using something like a game genie
- ZiiS 1y ago
  Would rase a lot of questions: if the game is better if you choose the stats why dose it not let you without another device?
OliveMate 1y ago
Codemasters being the company who made the Game Genie AND the best racing games out there is a square I've never been able to circle. It feels a tad unreal for me. One of those studios that's always had massive talent, although I'm increasingly concerned about their future as EA tightens their grip on them.
TacticalCoder 1y ago
Ah basically like the "Final Cartridge" or "Power Cartridge" for the Commodore 64? Stuff that'd freeze the machine and let you edit memory using hex codes? I had the "Power Cartridge" on my C128. Fun times.
- banana_giraffe 1y ago
  Not quite. The Game Genie presented a UI before the game started where you could enter codes. These codes were basically patches to the game's ROM. When the game ran, the Game Genie would intercept the requests for the bytes of ROM based off your code and replace them with a different value. There was a prototype of a more advanced model that would be closer to what you're describing, but it never made it to market.
mousethatroared 1y ago
The Game Genie allowed you to explore past levels you were stuck on.
izacus 1y ago
Honestly that sounds to me as a machine that horrifically voilates Nintendos and other companies' intellectual property and everyone that used this should be ashamed of themselves. Modifying the intent of developers? Horrifying. /s
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
https://github.com/scanmem/scanmem https://github.com/scanmem/scanmem "game genie" for linux (with a gui) Start a game, find a variable you want to lock/alter (eg. money, power, percent health), search the whole process memory for that number, change that number (get hit, spend/earn money), rescan the whole memory again, and repeat until you find the right memory location, and then alter or freeze it.
- anthk 1y ago
  Mednafen under GNU/Linux has a GameGenie (or similar) clone to input cheat codes, either by loading a text file, or from a prompt.
freedomben 1y ago
For those who didn't live through the era, it's hard to understate how much a Game Genie really did make things more fun and interesting. The thing basically gave you a huge menu of settings/tweaks you could make to a game, more common examples being "99 lives" or "Maximum HP" or something like that, but it could also make games more difficult for those who wanted that. It really felt to me like bumpers at a bowling alley, except the bumpers could be moved around to make it easier to get a strike or nearly impossible. I never got one myself, but a friend did and we had endless fun tweaking different properties of all of our games. It was much more about exploration than it was about "cheating" at games. Game Genie was one of my first experiences of being mindblown at somebody's clever hack and use of technology, and I am grateful to have been able to live through that age.
- dole 1y ago
  I was one of the unfortunate suckers who paid around $100 USD to get one shipped from Canada before the US ban lifted, but it sure made renting games from video stores a lot more satisfying.
- harimau777 1y ago
  Two other fun details: In some cases they could be used to get things that were in the game "legitimately" but which you might not have access to. E.g. getting Mew in Pokemon Blue/Red or Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow. Sometimes the codes would break in interesting ways. For example, an invincibility code might cause problems if it was on during a battle that you are scripted to lose. Or the "invincibility" code might actually work by instantly healing you; so you might find out that you are vulnerable if an enemy is strong enough to take all of your health with a single hit. Like the parent post said, there was a lot of experimentation even when everything was working "correctly".
  - echelon 1y ago
    In the name of "Show, Don't Tell," here are some fun examples: Super Mario Bros 3 (NES + Game Genie) equipping Hammer Suit / Invincibility: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FUVOM3rxZ5U https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FUVOM3rxZ5U Super Mario World (SNES + Game Genie) causing weird memory distortion glitches, enabling swimming anywhere, and other more useful things: https://youtu.be/o7_eFcpwq24?si=_io5oSzpRxdvuEMp&t=164 https://youtu.be/o7_eFcpwq24?si=_io5oSzpRxdvuEMp&t=164 Super Mario RPG (SNES + Game Genie) enabling the hidden developer debug menu: https://youtu.be/bH-uh9BnIfU?si=0L7qviRp5T-Nokjs&t=402 https://youtu.be/bH-uh9BnIfU?si=0L7qviRp5T-Nokjs&t=402 Pokemon Red (Game Boy SP + Game Genie) unlocking the unobtainable Mew (which Nintendo only gave away at rare in-person tournament events) at game start: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yzqTRbixnak https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yzqTRbixnak Zelda Link's Awakening (Game Boy + Game Genie) changing the value of "1" rupee to "255" rupees for effectively infinite currency (the creator isn't aware of the significance of "255"): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dRFqU_Dz3M8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dRFqU_Dz3M8 Super Mario 64 (N64 + Gameshark) adding Dorrie the Plesiosaur to Lethal Lava Land: https://youtu.be/DVBMdwn8Kc0?si=cUZ5ioG1GEvY0l-H&t=84 https://youtu.be/DVBMdwn8Kc0?si=cUZ5ioG1GEvY0l-H&t=84 Super Mario 64 (N64 + Gameshark) showing off the Gameshark menu and a bunch of Mario character animation swaps: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AptK2MbqLXQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AptK2MbqLXQ Banjo-Kazooie (N64 + Gameshark) replacing the main characters with the Rareware logo and adding an "infinite jump by pressing A" hack, which adds displacement or velocity with a button press (yes, this is totally absurd): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF6pwm00vtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF6pwm00vtY Zelda Ocarina of Time (N64 + Gameshark) spawning a hidden developer-only enemy, the Starfox Arwing, which shoots lasers at Link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KOQUhm1cNu8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KOQUhm1cNu8 Smash Bros 64 (N64 Emulator) spawning Master Hand (final boss) as a playable character in a standard stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1i9TRLifaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1i9TRLifaw Zelda Majora's Mask (N64 + Gameshark) spawning special items, equipping the wrong items, using the wrong weapons, manually adjusting the clock, etc.: https://youtu.be/ae2q9CjqXsc?si=IPB7XcPFWZyzpbh3 https://youtu.be/ae2q9CjqXsc?si=IPB7XcPFWZyzpbh3 Smash Bros Melee (Gamecube emulator) spawning infinite items and damage for total chaos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDZZiL4rqlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDZZiL4rqlk Quick Game Genie hardware overview: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WzHokvjdvDc https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WzHokvjdvDc
CursedSilicon 1y ago
That article was bizarrely difficult to read. Light on any details, all over the place story narration and the author trying far too hard to tie it to fucking AI today. Just talk about the game genie on its own merits, it's far more interesting than AI slop for some of us
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  Yeah I also thought that was a weird choice. The Game Genie is interesting on its own merits, there's no need for forced attempts to tie it in to the Current Thing.
- krupan 1y ago
  I agree. It's an interesting side note that it was cited in the Anthropic case, but the way it was used in that case is so weird that it really took away from the whole thing. It just kinda made me angry (again) about LLMs using all the information for free and with no citations instead of happy and nostalgic for the game genie (which still didn't help me make it past level 2 in Ninja Gaiden, dang it!)
  - CaptainFever 1y ago
    Huzzah, information is free.
- DanielBryars 1y ago
  Yes, if the ruling allowing the GameGenie is about the freedom to tinker, I see this being an effective defence for building an AI myself from my own books for my own use. But, removing the need to buy the book in the first place is the key problem that the article seems to ignore.

153 points by coloneltcb 1y ago

Game Genie was likely the primary contributor of exposing kids to computer science in the 90's/00's, especially with "63" or "FF" appearing in every Infinite Lives cheat code. The "wow" moment for me was a Encounter the Specified Pokemon cheatcode for Pokemon Red where the specified Pokemon was their ID in hexadecimal. Once I got a GameShark which included a VHS on how to create codes with the GameShark (identifying which memory addresses change and how to fix them to a specific value), and admittingly that may have scared me off of the computer science path.

chollida1 1y ago
> Game Genie was likely the primary contributor of exposing kids to computer science in the 90's/00's I"d say the internet and creating webpages with javascript probably had a slightly bigger impact on young programmers at the time, by maybe 3 orders of magnitude.
- minimaxir 1y ago
  I said computer science specifically: for web development in the 00's, Neopets was by far the biggest contributor for exposing kids to the power of the internet, but that was more limited to HTML.
  - bitwize 1y ago
    Not MySpace?
- TylerE 1y ago
  This was way before javascript. The first Game Genie was released for the NES in 1990. The very first version of Javascript wasn't until 1995.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    Qbasic and nibbles/gorilla was around at the start of the 90s, but the proposal was 90s/00s which is basically the time period of the internet pre mobile phone.
    - anthk 1y ago
      No, late 90's and very early 00's were almost devoid of JS and it was anecdoctical. It was Flash and some ActiveX malware, if not both. And NPAPI/IE plugins for video players and such.
      - hdgvhicv 1y ago
        Well I was writing JavaScript in the late 90s, alongside things like server side includes. Come early 2000s I was paid for it.
- anthk 1y ago
  No, not even in late 90's. Emulators for GB/GBA (sometimes MSX/ZX/C64...) and PSX/N64 did far, far more than JS. When you could play for free games for the N64 (which weighted just a few MB's, good enough to get them from cybercafés in CD-ROM and play THPS2 at home), you have to be good to at least understand what the graphics mode did to emulators, the filters, the audio quality on CPU usage, and sometimes even hex-editing some ROM headers to enforce compatibility with some emulators. And, a bit later, in early 00's, compiling them for GNU/Linux for performance and patching some of them to understand odd bootleg NES cartridge mappers.
derefr 1y ago
> especially with "63" or "FF" appearing in every Infinite Lives cheat code Except that those numbers did not commonly appear in Game Genie codes, because Game Genie codes are [trivially] enciphered. See e.g. https://gamehacking.org/library/114 https://gamehacking.org/library/114 for an explanation — the cipher used was different for each system. AFAICT this enciphering was done precisely to discourage third-party code creation. Galoob never made any explicit statements about why they did it, but I'd guess† it served as a kind of DRM for codes, so that Galoob could be the only source of them, and thus sell you code books or something. If you're remembering "a cheat-code device that preceded the GameShark that had literal address:value codes, and became the default input format for cheat codes in NES/SNES/GB emulators", then you're probably thinking of the Game Genie's competitor, the (Pro) Action Replay. --- † There was also possibility of a vague hope on Galoob's part of contracting with games studios to create and publish "licensed" codes — making their device into less of a "cheating device" and more of a kind of post-sales-marketing micro-DLC-publishing channel for games studios. Think of the type of thing that you see in e.g. Nintendo Switch Online with "special editions" of games that are just the regular game with a code applied. Studios could have been putting out "special editions" after-the-fact by publishing [i.e. working with Galoob to publish] officially-sanctioned codes in gaming magazines. This never materialized... probably because studios that wanted to do post-sales-marketing micro-DLC, had enough foresight to build it into the game, in the form of pre-written live logic whose only live codepath involves a long and esoteric title-screen button-combo no player would ever guess; or even pre-written dead logic, that can be made live by an executable payload encoded into a password-system password, or a link-cable / e-reader / wi-fi distribution.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  Using the letters was just shorthand, I think you're overthinking it.
  - LocalH 1y ago
    It wasn't shorthand, I'm pretty sure it was basic obfuscation. It was done by shuffling bits around then translating to letters using an algorithm that I don't know off the top of my head, but is well-documented. To me it shows explicit intent to cause codes to be harder to make.

tmnstr85 1y ago

The NES adaptor gives me flashbacks to my childhood. PS1 and PS2 mods had the same vibe. What a great era.

konfusinomicon 1y ago
game genie was amazing! still remember the commercial where the tv screen exploded.. i got a cd burner for Xmas in 1998, next step was a mod chip for my ps1. soldering it in was such a high risk, high reward project for a 14 year old. from buying the chip online with my parents credit card to buying the soldering iron and solder at radio shack with lawn mowing money, to disassembling the ps1 and following the directions ever so carefully. that first boot up was nerve racking. for the remainder of the ps1 era my friend and I would rent games, burn them, swap with each other and by the end we both had 200+ titles to choose from..a magical time indeed!
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  i remember figuring out that i had one of the lucky early-model dreamcasts that didn't require mod chips. coincided with the brief period where you could find pretty much anything on megaupload. i'm sure all of my burned games have disintegrated by now but i had an awesome collection of games back then :)
- gosub100 1y ago
  That was how I felt following the guides to hack DirecTV for the first time.

j_timberlake 1y ago

Games used to be fun through their gameplay mechanics and physics, rather than through their progression mechanics (legendary gear, maxed levels). Giving yourself max-stats would ruin most modern games, because the game world stops being interesting without the progression ladder. Also, making a Nintendo-brand version of these would have been easy money, dunno why Nintendo stockholders were okay with less money.

deelowe 1y ago
Back then these sort of things were seen as tampering with other companies' ip. It was sort of taboo for any reputable business to build products like that.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Nintendo still views it as that and these kind of devices are still illegal.
  - autoexec 1y ago
    Today they'd brick your switch if they caught you using something like a game genie
ZiiS 1y ago
Would rase a lot of questions: if the game is better if you choose the stats why dose it not let you without another device?

OliveMate 1y ago

Codemasters being the company who made the Game Genie AND the best racing games out there is a square I've never been able to circle. It feels a tad unreal for me. One of those studios that's always had massive talent, although I'm increasingly concerned about their future as EA tightens their grip on them.

TacticalCoder 1y ago

Ah basically like the "Final Cartridge" or "Power Cartridge" for the Commodore 64? Stuff that'd freeze the machine and let you edit memory using hex codes? I had the "Power Cartridge" on my C128. Fun times.

banana_giraffe 1y ago
Not quite. The Game Genie presented a UI before the game started where you could enter codes. These codes were basically patches to the game's ROM. When the game ran, the Game Genie would intercept the requests for the bytes of ROM based off your code and replace them with a different value. There was a prototype of a more advanced model that would be closer to what you're describing, but it never made it to market.

mousethatroared 1y ago

The Game Genie allowed you to explore past levels you were stuck on.

izacus 1y ago

Honestly that sounds to me as a machine that horrifically voilates Nintendos and other companies' intellectual property and everyone that used this should be ashamed of themselves. Modifying the intent of developers? Horrifying. /s

ajsnigrutin 1y ago

https://github.com/scanmem/scanmem https://github.com/scanmem/scanmem "game genie" for linux (with a gui) Start a game, find a variable you want to lock/alter (eg. money, power, percent health), search the whole process memory for that number, change that number (get hit, spend/earn money), rescan the whole memory again, and repeat until you find the right memory location, and then alter or freeze it.

anthk 1y ago
Mednafen under GNU/Linux has a GameGenie (or similar) clone to input cheat codes, either by loading a text file, or from a prompt.

freedomben 1y ago

For those who didn't live through the era, it's hard to understate how much a Game Genie really did make things more fun and interesting. The thing basically gave you a huge menu of settings/tweaks you could make to a game, more common examples being "99 lives" or "Maximum HP" or something like that, but it could also make games more difficult for those who wanted that. It really felt to me like bumpers at a bowling alley, except the bumpers could be moved around to make it easier to get a strike or nearly impossible. I never got one myself, but a friend did and we had endless fun tweaking different properties of all of our games. It was much more about exploration than it was about "cheating" at games. Game Genie was one of my first experiences of being mindblown at somebody's clever hack and use of technology, and I am grateful to have been able to live through that age.

dole 1y ago
I was one of the unfortunate suckers who paid around $100 USD to get one shipped from Canada before the US ban lifted, but it sure made renting games from video stores a lot more satisfying.
harimau777 1y ago
Two other fun details: In some cases they could be used to get things that were in the game "legitimately" but which you might not have access to. E.g. getting Mew in Pokemon Blue/Red or Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Yellow. Sometimes the codes would break in interesting ways. For example, an invincibility code might cause problems if it was on during a battle that you are scripted to lose. Or the "invincibility" code might actually work by instantly healing you; so you might find out that you are vulnerable if an enemy is strong enough to take all of your health with a single hit. Like the parent post said, there was a lot of experimentation even when everything was working "correctly".
- echelon 1y ago
  In the name of "Show, Don't Tell," here are some fun examples: Super Mario Bros 3 (NES + Game Genie) equipping Hammer Suit / Invincibility: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FUVOM3rxZ5U https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FUVOM3rxZ5U Super Mario World (SNES + Game Genie) causing weird memory distortion glitches, enabling swimming anywhere, and other more useful things: https://youtu.be/o7_eFcpwq24?si=_io5oSzpRxdvuEMp&t=164 https://youtu.be/o7_eFcpwq24?si=_io5oSzpRxdvuEMp&t=164 Super Mario RPG (SNES + Game Genie) enabling the hidden developer debug menu: https://youtu.be/bH-uh9BnIfU?si=0L7qviRp5T-Nokjs&t=402 https://youtu.be/bH-uh9BnIfU?si=0L7qviRp5T-Nokjs&t=402 Pokemon Red (Game Boy SP + Game Genie) unlocking the unobtainable Mew (which Nintendo only gave away at rare in-person tournament events) at game start: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yzqTRbixnak https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yzqTRbixnak Zelda Link's Awakening (Game Boy + Game Genie) changing the value of "1" rupee to "255" rupees for effectively infinite currency (the creator isn't aware of the significance of "255"): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dRFqU_Dz3M8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dRFqU_Dz3M8 Super Mario 64 (N64 + Gameshark) adding Dorrie the Plesiosaur to Lethal Lava Land: https://youtu.be/DVBMdwn8Kc0?si=cUZ5ioG1GEvY0l-H&t=84 https://youtu.be/DVBMdwn8Kc0?si=cUZ5ioG1GEvY0l-H&t=84 Super Mario 64 (N64 + Gameshark) showing off the Gameshark menu and a bunch of Mario character animation swaps: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AptK2MbqLXQ https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AptK2MbqLXQ Banjo-Kazooie (N64 + Gameshark) replacing the main characters with the Rareware logo and adding an "infinite jump by pressing A" hack, which adds displacement or velocity with a button press (yes, this is totally absurd): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF6pwm00vtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF6pwm00vtY Zelda Ocarina of Time (N64 + Gameshark) spawning a hidden developer-only enemy, the Starfox Arwing, which shoots lasers at Link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KOQUhm1cNu8 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KOQUhm1cNu8 Smash Bros 64 (N64 Emulator) spawning Master Hand (final boss) as a playable character in a standard stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1i9TRLifaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1i9TRLifaw Zelda Majora's Mask (N64 + Gameshark) spawning special items, equipping the wrong items, using the wrong weapons, manually adjusting the clock, etc.: https://youtu.be/ae2q9CjqXsc?si=IPB7XcPFWZyzpbh3 https://youtu.be/ae2q9CjqXsc?si=IPB7XcPFWZyzpbh3 Smash Bros Melee (Gamecube emulator) spawning infinite items and damage for total chaos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDZZiL4rqlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDZZiL4rqlk Quick Game Genie hardware overview: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WzHokvjdvDc https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WzHokvjdvDc

CursedSilicon 1y ago

That article was bizarrely difficult to read. Light on any details, all over the place story narration and the author trying far too hard to tie it to fucking AI today. Just talk about the game genie on its own merits, it's far more interesting than AI slop for some of us

bigstrat2003 1y ago
Yeah I also thought that was a weird choice. The Game Genie is interesting on its own merits, there's no need for forced attempts to tie it in to the Current Thing.
krupan 1y ago
I agree. It's an interesting side note that it was cited in the Anthropic case, but the way it was used in that case is so weird that it really took away from the whole thing. It just kinda made me angry (again) about LLMs using all the information for free and with no citations instead of happy and nostalgic for the game genie (which still didn't help me make it past level 2 in Ninja Gaiden, dang it!)
- CaptainFever 1y ago
  Huzzah, information is free.
DanielBryars 1y ago
Yes, if the ruling allowing the GameGenie is about the freedom to tinker, I see this being an effective defence for building an AI myself from my own books for my own use. But, removing the need to buy the book in the first place is the key problem that the article seems to ignore.