Question

How did Game Genie work?

Answer 1

GG works by changing variables. So for instance let’s take MegaMan when you have a game of MegaMan there might be a variable called CUT_BLADE. And the game starts out with CUT_BLADE=0 meaning you don’t have it. When you defeat Cut Man the game changes the varible to CUT_BLADE=1 which means you have and can use the cut blade. GG works by simply changing the number. Now the variables aren’t all named so obviously so we don’t know which one controls which weapon so could guess and such. So there are lot of variable in games. There might be a number which controls how many fireballs Mario can have on screen which is 3 and never changes but with GG you might be able to change it to 15 and be all powerful. There might be a variable for how fast Toad moves in SMB2 you might be able to double his speed. When you’re developing a game it’s very annoying to die all the time when you’re testing the level. So if you want to put a secret cliff at the very limit of a jump you might create a mode so the game doesn’t let you die. These modes often remain in the game just turned off so with a GG you might be able to acces the ‘debug mode’ and be able to do things like become invincible. fly in game that don’t allow flying, warp to specific levels.