Hackaday Prize Entry: A Better Way Of Cheating

July 17, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 26 Comments

Believe it or not, some video games are still developed for the PC. With video games come cheat codes, and when they’re on the PC, that means using a keyboard. You can easily program any microcontroller to send a string of characters over a USB port with the touch of a button. Believe it or not, a lot of people haven’t put these two facts together. [danjovic] has, leading him to build a simple and cheap USB keystroke generator for quickly typing in cheat codes.

[danjovic] is basing his build around a Digispark, a cheap, USB-enabled ATtiny85 dev board. This, of course, means there’s not a lot of pins to play with – there are only four I/O pins, and one of them is connected to ground by a LED. That leaves only three I/O pins, but [danjovic] managed to put seven different cheats in his project using diodes and something that is almost charlieplexing.

If you’re wondering, this is a very inexpensive project. [danjovic] is using a Chinese digispark clone, a handful of 1N4148 diodes, and a few tact switches. Anyone with a well-stocked part drawer or a tenner on eBay could build this. If you want the proof of work for this project, you can check out the demo video below.

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Lightweight Game Console Packs A Punch

July 13, 2016 by James Hobson 9 Comments

Any maker worth their bits will look for new ways to challenge themselves. [Robert Fotino], a computer science student at the University of California, is doing just that: designing and building his own lightweight hobbyist game console that he has appropriately named Consolite.

[Fotino] wrote his own compiler in C++ that converts from C-like languages to a custom-designed assembler that he has dubbed Consolite Assembly. To test his code, he also wrote an emulator before loading it onto the Mimas V2 FPGA board. Presently, Consolite uses 64KiB of main memory and 48 KiB of video memory; a future version will have 32 bit support to make better use of the Mimas’ 64 MiB of on board ram, but the current 16-bit version is a functional proof of concept.

An SD card functions as persistent storage for up to 256 programs, which can be accessed using the hardware switches on the Mimas, with plans to add user access in the form of saving game progress, storage outside of main memory, etc. — also in a future update that will include audio support.

As it stands, [Fotino] has written his own versions of Breakout, Tetris, and Tron to show off his project.

Not wanting for diligence, [Fotino] has provided thorough documentation of nearly every step along the way in his blog posts and on GitHub if you are looking for guidelines for any similar projects you might have on the back burner — like an even tinier game console.

[via r/FPGA]

Going Lo-Tech For The Perfect Pokemon Go Throw

July 13, 2016 by Mike Szczys 48 Comments

We have our eyes on the horizon for an epic GPS spoof to catch some legendaries in Pokemon Go, but until that hack shows up, we really like [Brian McEvoy’s] hack for the perfect Poke Ball throw.

[Brian] started out thinking that a mechanical build would be the best way (we know he’s got the servo motors and controllers to drive them from this tea steeping robot he built last year). But the mechanics of that are just too complicated for what you get in return (less wasted Poke Balls).

He came to the realization that your finger is the best machine, it just needs some augmentation. Most of his Poke Ball throws missed to one side or another, so he turned to papercraft to guide his way. He made a tray from some paperboard packaging, then used two small stacks of Post-it notes to create a channel where your finger slides. Simply hold the phone and the paper with one hand, and use your other to follow the paper channel to a successful capture. The paperboard doesn’t affect the screen’s ability to sense your finger.

This is one we’re definitely going to try out. But visions of hardware hacks for the game that has rocked the world still dance through our heads. Are you working on anything? If so, we’d love to hear about (so send in a tip!). Those still in the idea phase can ring in below. We are weighing the feasibility of doing a man-in-the-middle between a phone and its GPS chip to spoof location. That feels like a pretty tall mountain to climb.

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Cheating At Video Games: Arduino Edition

June 22, 2016 by Elliot Williams 9 Comments

[Javier] has put in his time playing Final Fantasy X. In the game, there’s a challenge where you have to dodge 200 consecutive lightning strikes by pressing a button at just the right time. [Javier] did this once, but when he bought a new PS Vita handheld, he wanted the reward but couldn’t bear the drudgery of pressing X when the screen lights up 200 times.

So he did what anyone would do: hooked up a light-dependent resistor to an Arduino and rubber-banded a servo to press the X button for him. It’s a simple circuit and a beautiful quick hack, all the more so because it probably only took him a half hour or so to whip up. And that’s a half hour better spent than dodging lightning strikes. According to his screen-shot, he didn’t stop at 200 dodges, though. He racked up 1,568 dodges, with a longest streak of 1,066. You can watch a video on his blog and pull the code out of his GitHub.

Why do this? Because that’s what simple computers are for. We hate these silly jumping mini-games with a passion, so we applaud anyone who cheats their way around them. And while not as hilarious as this machine that cheats at Piano Tiles, [Javier]’s hack gets the job done. What other epic video game cheats are we missing?

Fallout 4 Gets Logic Gates, Is Functionally Complete

June 22, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 24 Comments

Fallout logic. This is literally called Fallout logic. This is far more confusing than it should be.

Fallout 4, the latest tale of post-apocalyptic tale of wasteland wanderers, got its latest DLC yesterday. This add-on, Contraptions Workshop, adds new objects and parts to Fallout 4‘s settlement-building workshop mechanic. This add-on brings more building pieces, elevators, and most importantly logic gates to Commonwealth settlements.

The Fallout logic gates are used in conjunction with electric generators, lights, and automated sentries used to build settlements. Although a simple NAND would do, there are several types of logic gates including AND, OR, XOR, NOT, NAND, NOR, and XNOR.

The in-game explanation for these gates is very, very weird. AND, OR, and XOR “transmit power or not depending on the combination of power to their inputs”. NOT, NAND, NOR, and XNOR are apparently different, “only transmitting power if their inputs are connected directly to the output of other logic gates”. The reason for this arbitrary distinction between different sets of gates is currently unknown except to a few programmers and project leaders at Bethesda. It should be noted {AND, OR, XOR} is not functionally complete.

With implementations of logic gates in video games comes some very interesting if useless applications. Already Fallout 4 has light boxes, allowing for huge animated billboards. Fallout speakers, the wasteland’s equivalent of Minecraft’s note block, can be used to play simple melodies. You can do anything with a NAND, so we would expect automated, sequenced versions of animated billboards and monophonic synthesizers to appear in short order.

Functional completeness can add a lot to a game. Since Minecraft added redstone logic to the game, we’ve seen some very, very impressive block-based builds. The Minecraft CPU generally regarded as being the first, most complete CPU took about three months to design and build. This build didn’t use later additions to the redstone toolbox like repeaters, pistons, and the now-cheaty command blocks.

Forty-Year-Old Arcade Game Reveals Secrets Of Robot Path Planning

April 28, 2016 by Dan Maloney 20 Comments

What’s to be gained from reverse engineering a four-decade-old video game? As it turns out, quite a lot, and as you’ll learn from [Norbert]’s recent talk at the ViennaJS meetup, it’s not just about bringing a classic back to life.

The game in question is Kee Game’s Sprint 2, a monochrome 2D car race that allowed two players to compete head to head. The glorious Harvest Gold and Burnt Orange color scheme just screams 1970s, and it might be hard to see why this game was once a popular quarter-eater. But it was quite engaging for the day, and [Norbert] was interested in reverse engineering it. That he did, using JavaScript to build a faithful browser-based emulation of the game. And he took it further, creating a 3D first-person version of the game.

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Robot Beats Piano Tiles

April 28, 2016 by Elliot Williams 21 Comments

Machines running out of control are one of the staples of comedy. For the classic expression, see Chaplin’s “Modern Times”. So while it starts out merely impressive that [Denver Finn]’s robotic fingers can play an iPad piano video game, it ends up actually hilarious. Check out the linked video to see what we mean.

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