
Haxing Minesweeper - perch56
https://osandamalith.com/2018/04/07/haxing-minesweeper/amp/
======
szemet
On Windows XP we still had xyzzy[1]. I had so much fun that time in school,
claiming that I had psychic powers of seeing through the minesweeper table...
;)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy_(computing)#Other_comput...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy_\(computing\)#Other_computer_games_and_media)

edit: The article links the original WinXP binary, and the cheat still works,
even with wine ( [https://www.winehq.org/](https://www.winehq.org/) ) ;)

------
muterad_murilax
In case anyone else is wondering, the debugger used is OllyDbg [0].

[0] [http://www.ollydbg.de/](http://www.ollydbg.de/)

------
dmitriid
In Win2000 you could read from and write to memory of any app [1]. Which we
did for minesweeper. By setting proper values and forcing the window to
repaint we implemented a simple snake game. The body of the snake consisted of
bombs and "fruit" you had to eat were flags. I don't remember how we captured
keyboard input though.

[1] If your app had admin rights IIRC

~~~
unrealhoang
There were GameHack and ArtMoney, they allow you to track memory address for
specific value in game (gold, money, scores...) by input the value before and
after changing it, and then allow to change the value at that address.

~~~
dmitriid
A modern version of these tools is Cheat Engine, which is brilliant:
[http://www.cheatengine.org](http://www.cheatengine.org)

~~~
xenophonf
Watch out for the adware bundled into its installers, though. :(

~~~
Andoryuuta
Yeah.

There is a link on the download page to a zip of the files, without an
installer (or the installCore adware/bundleware).

>"For those that want to have Cheat engine without automated installer and
installCore recommendation during installation, click here"

~~~
xenophonf
To be honest, that's not really acceptable.

We as a community should be pushing back hard against open source developers
who want to monetize their work with malware. There are better ways for them
to make money from their work than something that's ethically dubious at best.

------
foxhop
I remember when my buddy Charles hacked minesweeper for fun and learning. I
thought it was so cool. He wrote about it here if you are looking for another
reference point: [http://www.charleshooper.net/blog/minesweeper-hacking-
viewin...](http://www.charleshooper.net/blog/minesweeper-hacking-viewing-
process-memory-in-windows/)

------
Rjevski
I always thought Minesweeper would compute the minefield dynamically as you
played instead of generating a fixed map of the minefield at the beginning of
the game.

~~~
rashkov
There is one place where it's dynamic, which is that if your very first click
is on a mine, then it'll relocate it to the upper-left corner (or the next
available spot).

~~~
Spare_account
I'm now questioning my memory because I'm convinced I have hit a mine on the
first click before ...

~~~
davvolun
Maybe a clone?

