Games as Artforms

By BloxMaster

I’d like to quickly state that this is my first ‘article’ and it’s a bit of a departure from SiamJai’s articles so I’d like to say that if you are not into intellectual or opinional essays, some of my articles might not be for you, and you have my permission to skip them freely.

There are people who like to play games, and then there are those who like games as an art form. Naturally, you can be somewhere in-between. I think sometimes people get confused as to what people actually mean when they say ‘Games as an art form’. What does it mean? Why are games art? Do they have to have nice graphics to be artsy? And most of all, should I really care if games are an art-form? Let me explain it from my point of view.

Firstly, the expression ‘games as an art form’ indicates that like more typically thought of art forms, games are also art. The most basic answer I can give to express that games are art in the same way music can be art, or a painting, is that in nearly all cases, a game is made with an expression in mind. This is similar to how one may make a drawing for a friend as an expression of their bond; someone can make a game to express many things as well.

Game: a collection of art forms
If you want to go further, I would argue that games are actually a large collection of art forms. They can be one of the most elaborate pieces of art. In addition to this, they are actively enjoyed by many people. They are rare in that they engage with viewer, in this case, a player. Although from the outside games may or may not seem like art, when you pull them apart, you can understand why most of them are in fact art. Read the rest of the article here

Scarlet Stranger: a hacker’s goldmine

By SiamJai

Have you ever played games that look and feel great at first glance, but after five minutes or so you’ll come across glaring design mistakes and game-breaking technical bugs? These unpolished gems are a goldmine of secrets for the cheat-conscious gamer; a few simple hacks often reveal unused goodies the hasty developer carelessly left in the game.

Enter Scarlet Stranger, a Zelda-esque action RPG with charming graphics and all the shortcomings mentioned above. The folks at Jayisgames did a great job reviewing the game already, so I’ll only mention stuff relevant to this post.

1. Get secret items via inventory hack.
There are about half a dozen items that didn’t make it to the final game, but are still there, hidden. These include quest items such as a map and compass, along with interesting upgrades like the pouch that upgrades your carrying capacity.

To hack this, hook Cheat Engine (CE) to the Flash player, start a Flash*8 search and follow the steps below:

1. Visit the shop with some item in your inventory (a piece of rock or wood will do).
2. Drag that item into the first crafting slot.
3. In CE, search for the itemID (for values, refer to the table at the end of this post).
4. Remove the item from the crafting slot.
5. In CE, search for 0.
6. Add another or the same item back to that same crafting slot and do a search for its itemID.
7. Soon you’ll get only one address. Put something into the crafting slot again, change its ID to one of the rare item IDs, say, 9.
8. Remove the item from the crafting slot, and voila: in the inventory, the item morphs into your desired item!
9. Repeat for other items and values as desired.