Game Hacking: Viewing The Memory for Answers

By Fable Fox, http://www.fablefox.com


Good News and Bad News

The good news is that, yes, you are reading another article by Fable Fox. The not so good news is, you will notice that there isn't much, or any other technical article by me in this HUGI - if there is enough time to get the article into this HUGI 35. The bad news is that my day work is taking (and taxing) my time, and my health isn't good, as a matter of fact, it has deteriorated. The number of pills I have to take per day is increasing, I often have check-ups with the doctors, etc, etc.

I guess all those prices to be successful that I used to pay in credit are now due, except I'm still not successful (yet). Oh well...

Anyway, I just want to put an end to my old save game hacking tutorials. Enjoy it!

Puzzle Games

Ever played adventure games and a character asked you questions? Ever played a puzzle game that involved texts? Well, the answer is obviously in the memory. Anyone who used to play Fool's Errand or At The Carnival might know that the memory contains all those text answers (3 in Three that we cover in this article was written by the same programmer too). This is going to be simple. Please note that Sword of Xeen runs under DosBox, while 3 in Three runs under Executor. The cheat engine I use is the free ArtMoney SE.

Bam! There is a text puzzle inside adventure games. Instead of googling for a walkthrough, we might as well look in the game own's memory.

Activate ArtMoney, and search for a sample text. In this case, the word is 'apple'.

And you will get the result.

Activate the Memory editor, and select option 'moving in search result'. This is the drop down menu, in case you need help here. Select the first option.

Keep on clicking Next until you notice that the memory contains the answer.

Return to the game, type the answer and receive your bonus. Woohoo!

Keep doing it for other puzzles (some of it gives you level up! :-)).

Text Puzzle

Games such as 3 in Three, Fool's Errand, At the Carnival (now all of them are freeware) contains a lot of text puzzles. You can use the search funtion to look for the right location.

Hmmm... What is the third word?

This one is wrong, it shows the text that we enter.

Aha! It's 'alone'! And I spelt the word 'indipendent' wrongöy (just look at 3 in Three screen capture). Ha ha ha. Thanks to the ArtMoney memory editor, the text puzzle is no longer a problem.

If you keep looking, you might find the aswer to all the questions! There are nine main questions, as the screenshot suggests.

I hope you people enjoy the article. I could use some rest, my doctor ordered it in fact. I hope you people enjoy my poems for Annete O'Toole too (Hi Anne!).

PS - In case any HUGI reader has access to Annete O'Toole, please tell her I say hi. Tell her to reply, while I'm still here to hear it.

- Fable Fox