How can I "programmatically approach" the PC games?Don't get it wrong, I don't want to develop a game. What I want to learn is difficult to describe. I'd like to understand how PC games "happen", make my own tools to analyse, intercept and modify them both while running (and while not running too). I know this description feels broken but it's the best way I can put it.
>>108229014Cheat engine stuff?
>>108229014PC games don't "happen" kek use cheat engine ffs. Shrek 2 is a good platformer tho.
>>108229103>>108229138Thank you for bumping my thread. I'm not trying to be offensive at all but, Cheat Engine is a memory scanner, and I wasn't talking about running some app, changing some values in a game and being happy about it. I was talking about actually learning this stuff and making my own (small) tools to understand the under the hood stuff.Also, I remember trying out Cheat Engine like couple of years ago by following some Youtube video, all I did was changing my ammo count in Far Cry 6, I didn't understand anything at all. You may come at me with something like "You are a beginner, you will start from this" etc. but I don't believe that approach.
>>108229014you need to know assembly language, and how binary gates work.
>>108229467then you might want to decompile the games, try running them on ghidra or someting similar, or if you want just the rendering part try renderdoc.i would say however that it is easier to learn how to develop a game by yourself and learn some basic game dev techniques rather than reverse engineering an existing game if you are just curious about how games work in general.
I have nothing to add, but good luck, anon.
>>108229014First learn lambda calculus then learn some comp sci basics then learn assembly. From there I recommend you learn Zig and then finally Rust but this might be controversial advice here.
>>108232478Thank you :D
>>108232521Zig? Rust? Could you name three titles made with zig or rust?
>>108229014AI is perfect for this. Ask Claude Code to dump the memory used by the process and begin analyzing the game state.
>>1082290141. understand what a "loop" is and how it works2. understand what a "game loop" is and how it works
>>108234971Is it free? Also how could AI scan my PC?
>>108234971>>108235900Are there app versions of these chatbots, where you install on your PC and it sees everything on your PC?
Just decompile the .exe to ASM and read it line by line. It may take a while, but this is how you can do that. I think ghidra can do this
>>108229014Look at source code of simpler game engines. Maybe Love2D?Also check out RenderDoc
>>108229014You could but unfortunately we're full.
>>108235900>>108235974Claude Code is local yes and it only sees what you give it access to. Usually you have a project folder and give it access to that alone.
>>108236031Horrible advice. He won't understand anything if he doesn't know what he is looking for.>>108232521There is no reason to learn any language unless the game engine he is going to use/study requires is.Zig is especially bad idea since it's unstable meme lang that literally no one uses. Rust only makes sense if you already know what you are doing and why exactly you need it. It's not a language for prototyping or research.>>108229542You don't.>>108229558>then you might want to decompile the gamesVery bad idea unless he already has good undetanding of the binary he wants to analyze and knows how games/engines work.
>>108236460Claude is neither local nor free.
>>108236472I know it's gonna sound childish, but I'd like to have "developer powers" basically.Studying the game, its files, "deciphering" its proprietary file formats, knowing what happens when the game morphs into running form and interfering with it. Making my own tools to read and edit game files, writing my own tools to alter the game's 3D world while the game is running. For example especially I'd like to know how do 3D graphics "happen."I remember watching a Youtube video years ago where some guy was able to load the entire 3D world of a Windows game into his own custom tool. I guess it was a "game engine editor" for an in-house game engine. No documentation. The guy developed the editor himself. Having lots of sliders etc. for each element in the 3D world. It's basically like writing a software like Blender but it's specifically for your target game. Also, I remember watching some another Youtube video where, again, someone developed a tool for an MMORPG, while the game was running he was lauching his own custom tool clicking some stuff, changing some sliders and the stuff in the 3D world of game was altering in real time and I just think this kind of stuff is cool.I tried to learn some programming, C and C++, but I believe these type of generic tuts are a waste of time desu. Showing isolated exercises, basically just demonstrating concepts, constructs, features, syntax and semantics of a programming language entirely out of context.
>>108236621>Studying the game, its files, "deciphering" its proprietary file formats, knowing what happens when the game morphs into running form and interfering with it. Making my own tools to read and edit game files, writing my own tools to alter the game's 3D world while the game is running.In order to be able to reverse engineer proprietary code, you first need to understand how things like that work. Go study open source game engines or use the same proprietary engine you want to study so you understand the principles behind a finished game.>For example especially I'd like to know how do 3D graphics "happen."Use RenderDoc>I remember watching a Youtube video years ago where some guy was able to load the entire 3D world of a Windows game into his own custom tool. I guess it was a "game engine editor" for an in-house game engine. No documentation. The guy developed the editor himself.Read how various open model file and asset bundles work so you understand the principles behind that before you start reverse engineering asset files of an existing close source game. Again, go study open source engines to see how they work.>Also, I remember watching some another Youtube video where, again, someone developed a tool for an MMORPG, while the game was running he was lauching his own custom tool clicking some stuff, changing some sliders and the stuff in the 3D world of game was altering in real time and I just think this kind of stuff is cool.Learn how Cheat engine works and study some hacks for older games done using it. Again, you will need to understand the principles behind making games, study open source game engines first and try to develop simple hacks for them afterwards.>I tried to learn some programming, C and C++,You will need to understand C and C++ if you want to reverse engineer game engines.
