Puzzles: Cheating

[ChrisGreaves]

Back in the early days of the PCs the BBS carried a wide range of “cheat” techniques whereby one could display to the class of students amazing feats of intelligence.
My favorite was in Minesweeper (WinMine.exe).

In Minesweeper one customizes the board to be as huge as possible 24x30 in my Win7 version of Minesweeper and sets the board to have the minimum of ten mines. Click anywhere on the board and there is a strong chance that the puzzle will resolve itself.
If not, with one hand tap the F2 function key, click on the “Start a new game” option with the right hand, and continue this three-step process (click on board, tap F2, click New Game), and within about half a dozen tries the solution will appear showing an elapsed time of one second(!).
Doing this immediately after lunch while the class is assembling creates quite an impression, and often helps to identify those who have had a beer or two with their lunch – they tend to be slower on the uptake.

Better yet in WinXP and its predecessors, one could edit the INI file to show that “Chris Greaves” had solved each of the three levels in one second, an added bonus was setting the INI file to be read-only after the edit, so that one’s glory remained for all to see in perpetuity. Or at least until a brighter teacher came along, which in my schools was unlikely.

The arrival of Win7 and the inability to fiddle the INI files should be seen as only a minor hurdle.
For example, with Spider Solitaire I have found that my best efforts hover around 33% success rate at the intermediate level.
Until I thought about it.
My stats now read 100% at all levels.

I’ll give you all a week to work out how I fudged it.
Hint: I didn’t use RegEdit or similar to modify the registry or other files.
It’s time to re-apply ourselves to beat the cheat-proofed games.

I'll release the password for the attached file in a week; in the meantime, for those who don't trust me not to cheat, I suggest that you d/l the file and hang on to it for a week.
Honest!

[Rudi]

I’ll give you all a week to work out how I fudged it.

Do any of these work on spider solitaire?

Spoiler

Deal for another row:
Press "M" during game play and you will be shown a move,
Then, press "D" and the game will deal the cards out for you for another row without having to have to press it.

Avoid Losing a Game
Play a losing game until the last move. Exit, but save the game when asked. Select "Yes" again to replace your saved game, then start the game over again. The losing game will not count against you in your overall score.

To put a card anywhere
Step one- you have to make a legal move, for example, if there is a six of hearts and a seven of clubs, pick up the six of hearts and HOLD it over the seven of clubs
Step two- press ESC on your keyboard then tap any other card with your left mouse button and that card will be on the seven of clubs. EG: There is a six of hearts a seven of clubs, and an ace of clubs, pick up the six of hearts and hold it over the seven of clubs, then press ESC on your keyboard, then tap the ace of clubs with your left mouse button and the ace of clubs will be on the seven of clubs.

Instant Win in Solitaire
Hold SHIFT+ALT+2 to win the game automatically.

Force a Win
Open Solitaire in Windows.
Hold down "Shift + Alt", and press the "2" key.
Watch the cards waterfall down!

Win Without Playing
Start a new game of Spider Solitaire. Instead of playing the game, hold down the control key [CTRL] and numbers 1, 2, and 3.
Continue holding all four keys for 5 seconds.

[ChrisGreaves]

Do any of these work on spider solitaire?

Er. I dunno. I wunno until I get back to my own computer.
(Cuts reply short, logs out, turns off, takes the stairs two at a time ...)

[AlanMiller]

For example, with Spider Solitaire I have found that my best efforts hover around 33% success rate at the intermediate level.
Until I thought about it.
My stats now read 100% at all levels.

One simple way is to kill the process off with Task Manager, if you've reached the "brick wall"
The game will not be registered as ever having been played!
NOTE: Kill the process SpiderSolitaire.exe, not the running application.

Alan

[geecee]

For example, with Spider Solitaire I have found that my best efforts hover around 33% success rate at the intermediate level.
Until I thought about it.
My stats now read 100% at all levels.

One simple way is to kill the process off with Task Manager, if you've reached the "brick wall"
The game will not be registered as ever having been played!
NOTE: Kill the process SpiderSolitaire.exe, not the running application.

Alan

Works for me.

[geecee]

I’ll give you all a week to work out how I fudged it.
Hint: I didn’t use RegEdit or similar to modify the registry or other files.
It’s time to re-apply ourselves to beat the cheat-proofed games.

I'll release the password for the attached file in a week; in the meantime, for those who don't trust me not to cheat, I suggest that you d/l the file and hang on to it for a week.
Honest!

OK Chris. Today's the day

[ChrisGreaves]

OK Chris. Today's the day

Was it? (grin!)
Soz. I was busy out the west end.
"Jupiter3" without the quotes, but anyway, Alan Miller got it right and FWIW I suspect that the technique works for most of the hidden scorecards.

[AlanMiller]

Alan Miller got it right and FWIW I suspect that the technique works for most of the hidden scorecards.

I hit on it as a powerful way to kill something in its tracks when trying to get rid of some malware. It gave enough (temporary) reprieve from the malware throwing junk in my face, for me to search for something to remove the malware with.

Had you asked a Linuxer the same question, they would probably have not even had to think about it and used the Arnold Schwarzenegger equivalent among the Linux commands - the kill command:

Code: Select all

$ ps ux // to find PID number
$ kill -9 <PID number>

I'm curious though, as to where the scores might be hidden. They must be stored somewhere, in which case they must be hackable.

Alan

[ChrisGreaves]

I hit on it as a powerful way to kill something in its tracks when trying to get rid of some malware.

Right on! My original use, too. (In DOSdays I'd just yank the power cable!)

[ChrisGreaves]

For example, with Spider Solitaire I have found ...

Another weak fiddle is to examine the screen at the start of the game.
If you don't like the dealt cards, tap the F2 key to start a new game.
provided you haven't touched a card, I think that the old game does NOT count in your scores.

For example, if you have more patience than I, in the Intermediate game (two suits) tap F2 until all shown cards are of a single colour; in theory this should get you off to a good start!

[AlanMiller]

Another weak fiddle is to examine the screen at the start of the game.
If you don't like the dealt cards, tap the F2 key to start a new game.

Or F2 then Esc if you don't have the patience to wait for the animated card deal to complete!

Alan

[Jax2]

I'm a bit confused about all of this. If you're trying to show your score off to others and make it seem like you never fail at a game or a puzzle, ok, but if it's on your own personal computer, you're the only one seeing the scores, so what exactly is the point? You're not fooling yourself, who happens to be the only person who matters :)

[AlanMiller]

I'm a bit confused about all of this. If you're trying to show your score off to others and make it seem like you never fail at a game or a puzzle, ok, but if it's on your own personal computer, you're the only one seeing the scores, so what exactly is the point? You're not fooling yourself, who happens to be the only person who matters :)

I guess it's just the age-old challenge of trying to beat the system that's trying to beat you! Akin to the old days of Win 3.1, when people would try to use hex editors (or the old Windows Write) to hack Notepad.exe and change its title to something personalized. Why? Coz you can.

Alan

[Jax2]

Good answer heh... I ran a BBS for close to 7 years before the internet came out and you are correct, of course, many sysops wanted the challenge of hacking door games heh... I remember how many times perfectly good games of Tradewars got ruined because a sysop would give himself a massive army and destroy everyone who was playing. Many a good BBS died because of things like that though lol!

[AlanMiller]

BBS! Now you're making me feel my age. I remember hacking the software itself for a sysop who wanted his own ACSII art all over the screens.
Those wuz the days.

Jennifer.jpg

Alan

[Rudi]

Nice art Alan...

[AlanMiller]

The arrival of Win7 and the inability to fiddle the INI files should be seen as only a minor hurdle.
For example, with Spider Solitaire I have found that my best efforts hover around 33% success rate at the intermediate level.
Until I thought about it.
My stats now read 100% at all levels.

I’ll give you all a week to work out how I fudged it.
Hint: I didn’t use RegEdit or similar to modify the registry or other files.
It’s time to re-apply ourselves to beat the cheat-proofed games.

I'll release the password for the attached file in a week; in the meantime, for those who don't trust me not to cheat, I suggest that you d/l the file and hang on to it for a week.
Honest!

An even better way to cheat is to use the inbuilt (but albeit hard-to-find) "features" of the games themselves.
In Spider Solitaire for instance, I can click "Win" and register a win any/every time:

brettSpider2.png

Now I'll give you a week to figure out how to do it!

Alan

[ChrisGreaves]

Now I'll give you a week to figure out how to do it! Alan

Alan.
Don't DO that to me!
At my age ...

I saw the " a week to figure out how to do it", re-read the thread, and came to what I thought was the post(geecee Post=103435 ), two years old, and PANICKED!>
I have no file cheat.zip on my system now (although it may be on an encrypted backup) and no idea of the password.
And no idea of what I was talking about.

Were I not waiting to meet a friend for lunch I'd probably have checked myself into the cardiac unit of Trillium Health Centre (just kidding!).
I will save this page to disk and start a recovery process later this evening ...

[AlanMiller]

I figured out the answer to your puzzle in the thread - to kill the process rather than close the game "gracefully". So no need for the cheat.zip file.

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out how I managed to get the cheat menus (shown in picture) into the games.

The clock is ticking.

Alan