"I wanted to cheat. That's how I learned."
In 1994, if you wanted god-mode in X-COM, you couldn't Google cheat codes. You had to:
- Find a hex editor (XVI32 or EDX, probably from a BBS)
- Learn hexadecimal conversion (63 decimal = 0x3F)
- Map out data structures in binary save files
- Hope you didn't corrupt everything
This article chronicles the accidental education that came from trying to break a single-player game and what it reveals about how a generation of developers learned systems programming.
Key Technical Takeaways:
- Data structure discovery: Soldier stats stored in sequential 8-byte blocks
- Type constraints: Everything maxed at 255 (0xFF) because 8-bit unsigned integers
- Static vs runtime: Why save file editing was safer than binary patching
- System integrity: Some mechanics (Time Units, Bravery) were procedurally generated and couldn't be edited
The Evolution: Hex Editors → Cheat Engine
The shift from static file editing to runtime memory introspection changed everything:
Hex editing: Structure, permanence, constraints (editing files)
Cheat Engine: Flow, state, causality (editing live processes)
But here's the trade-off: Cheat Engine lowers the barrier to entry while reducing the accidental education. You can modify values without understanding file formats, data types, or memory addressing.
What We Lost
Games used to teach:
- File structures
- Binary data representation
- Memory addressing
- Compilation concepts
- The difference between static data and runtime state
Not through tutorials. Through wanting infinite cash and being forced to learn these concepts to get it.
Modern games are more accessible, more moddable, and ironically, less educational. Abstraction layers and built-in cheat consoles removed the friction that forced learning.
Full article: https://hobbyengineered.com/learning-hex-editing-reverse-engineering-games/
What was your first "accidental learning" moment in computing?
Top comments (0)