If you liked my previous post regarding "Fun with a hex editor," you might like this one as well. In fact, it's quite a bit easier.
I and my father were once sitting in the kitchen discussing this and that. My mother was on the computer playing some game she downloaded from the Internet, most likely Cubis, Bejeweled, or something similar. As I and my father was talking, all of a sudden, a voice broke through and said from a distance: "What's the matter with this thing? This doesn't make sense!"
I hate playing games. I'd rather tinker with the programs. So, here's what I did to perplex my mother. And you don't need a hex dump to do it!
When you download games from the Internet, they are stored on your hard drive in a given directory. If you open up the associated directory, you will find more directories and a host of files. The files that we're more interested with here are graphical. Graphical files may be stored in a file called 'images,' which may or may not be included in a file called 'bin.' It could even be in some other directory name, but you'll notice it when opening the directory. Make sure the Windows Explorer "Views" option is set to thumbnails or filmstrip.
What could you do with such graphical files? Simply stated, you could open them up in some sort of graphics edition program, including Microsoft Paint. Now, Cubis uses cube-like blocks as part of the game itself. Now, you have these blocks at your disposal, opened up inside a graphics editor.
Here comes the fun part. Now you can use the drawing tools and edit designs on the blocks. Or you could literally change the shapes all together. You could really screw up the person who loves to play the game, perplexing his / her mind.
If you have a sound editor, you can do the same with game sounds, which are also stored in a similar directory.
Imagine the endless fun you could have tinkering with online games someone has downloaded!
- Ray M -
15 Apr 2006, 1:37 am
