Oh man, we played this in computer lab in high school to pass time after we were done with our assignments. I believe it was a java/flash version though (year 2000/2001)
9 year old me got my first "hacking" experience out of this game. With the shareware version, you could not select the ultra tank that could shoot 3 bullets for a human, but you COULD if it were the computer player.
The "hack":
-start a game with a normal tank VS ultra computer player as p2.
-save the game (as a file).
-open the game file.
-read the ASCII text and just flip which player has which text.
It would be a nice thread on here, to see what people's first hacks were, especially from that era when people were usually just alone and stumbling on these things.
This reminds me of something similar I did as a teenager in the 90s. Also some shareware game, can't remember exactly what it was about (I think a submarine game?). The shareware version only gave access to the first map. After digging around the files I found that it included all the maps and simply renaming map n to map 1's file name allowed you to play it
The game was shareware and he'd show up to ask you to pay the fee. After the trial period he'd start lobbing missiles at you. There was a basic editor you could open to adjust all the ship stats and weapons, so while you couldn't turn him friendly you could at least de-claw him.
I remember thinking it was weird how "easy" it was to work around, but it's hard to imagine the studio would care much: a pre-internet 14 year who loved the game that much is probably more useful as an ambassador than a paying customer.
Sounds familiar. As a kid I was bothered that I had to harvest spice or Tiberium (I forgot whether it was Dune 2 or Command & Conquer, but I think the latter).
So I figured out where in the binary save file credits were stored and wrote a small Pascal program that would give me the highest possible credits so that I could focus on base and unit building :).
I had a similar youthful hacking experience with this game, I was also 9 at the time. The computer players would say a little trash-talk phrase before making their shot. I edited the text file that contained all the phrases and added new ones with swear words. My older brother, who was the one that installed the game on our computer, noticed the new phrases asked me if I had edited the text file. I lied that I hadn't, then re-edited the file to remove my changes.
Scorched Earth was also my first hacking target. Found out that your cash balance and weapons inventory was all stored in a mysterious .ini file and you could just edit it.
Scorched Earth taught me the concept of software versions. It was the first program that I ever knowingly interacted with more than one point-release of. I had version 1.0, but a friend had version 1.2. My very young mind was boggled by the concept of software being updated.
Pocket Tanks was my ultimate childhood game that I played with my classmates during our computer lab lessons. I believe Scorched Earth was it's inspiration
I remember the original Scorched Earth being one of the few games that could actually do SVGA graphics at the time.
Most games of the era where 320x240 8 bit 256 colors, I had a 286 with 800x600 SVGA monitor and that game could actually use it although it was only 4 bit 16 color, don't think I ever played the 256 color in the last version.
In my first job after graduation in a small company I was talking to the VP of engineering, and he mentioned offhand: "yeah, I wrote Scorch when I was in college". Mind blown.
Last time I tried this game, I think I had managed to get a hold of the original executable or something: the rate of turn for the turret was tied to CPU cycles. Paying it on a computer about a decade younger than the game made it quite impossible to aim, as the turret would spin several laps if you so much as looked at the arrow key
I loved turning the explosion to the max and launching Nukes or Death Head MIRVs and watching the whole screen be annihilated. Despite many clones I've never found one that really captured the feel and fun of the original. I'd love to see a faithful remake that had a larger playing area though.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 77.8 ms ] threadScorched Earth: The Mother of All Games
http://www.whicken.com/scorch/
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32092060)
https://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-artillery-due...
The "hack": -start a game with a normal tank VS ultra computer player as p2. -save the game (as a file). -open the game file. -read the ASCII text and just flip which player has which text.
Now, I had my ultra tank.
The game was shareware and he'd show up to ask you to pay the fee. After the trial period he'd start lobbing missiles at you. There was a basic editor you could open to adjust all the ship stats and weapons, so while you couldn't turn him friendly you could at least de-claw him.
I remember thinking it was weird how "easy" it was to work around, but it's hard to imagine the studio would care much: a pre-internet 14 year who loved the game that much is probably more useful as an ambassador than a paying customer.
So I figured out where in the binary save file credits were stored and wrote a small Pascal program that would give me the highest possible credits so that I could focus on base and unit building :).
I think Super Mario 2 being what it was really messed me up.
Most games of the era where 320x240 8 bit 256 colors, I had a 286 with 800x600 SVGA monitor and that game could actually use it although it was only 4 bit 16 color, don't think I ever played the 256 color in the last version.
This made my whole day. Thank you.
Last time I tried this game, I think I had managed to get a hold of the original executable or something: the rate of turn for the turret was tied to CPU cycles. Paying it on a computer about a decade younger than the game made it quite impossible to aim, as the turret would spin several laps if you so much as looked at the arrow key
This version is ok but I prefer the original which is easy enough to run via dos-box, emulators of similar ilk or even online in a few places:
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Scorched_Earth_1991
https://dos.zone/scorched-earth/
https://www.playdosgames.com/play/scorched-earth
I loved turning the explosion to the max and launching Nukes or Death Head MIRVs and watching the whole screen be annihilated. Despite many clones I've never found one that really captured the feel and fun of the original. I'd love to see a faithful remake that had a larger playing area though.