On this #WayBackWednesday, we deep dive hands-first into our next 8-Bit History lesson with the Nintendo Game Boy!
The Game Boy, the (amazing) 8-bit, hand-held gaming device, was released in stages throughout the world through 1989 and 1990. It ran games from cartridges, offered a monochromatic display and battery life that extended beyond 10 (amazing) hours of gameplay. Players spent hours playing one of its first games released for the platform… Tetris.
But, as we know, where there are games, there is a market for cheating. And, the Game Boy platform was no different. One of the first platforms for “enhancing” play by giving players the chance to set infinite lives or power up continuously was Datel’s “Action Replay”. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Replay )
The Action Replay device connected to the cartridge bay of the Game Boy and then the game cartridge connected on top. Early versions of the Action Replay allowed players to pause the game and manually set memory address values. To see the Action Replay in action, check out: ( https://youtu.be/sh6zpmtcw6Q ).
As Action Replay and similar devices became more mature, they evolved to perform like machine code debuggers and assemblers. Users were able to bypass in-game cheating and game-authenticity checks.
Development of game cheats has become more complex as games have become more complex. But, at the same time, it has become more lucrative as gaming tournaments have offered larger prizes. In his 2020 BSides Munich talk, Philipp Schmied shared insights on the state of game hacking today – both the why and the how ( https://youtu.be/TeiD_ktiMp0 ).
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