Breakout

Discussion of challenges you have already solved

How did you beat Breakout?

Played through by hand
58
32%
Wrote a bot to play it for you
3
2%
Figured out the solution by reverse engineering
67
37%
Tweaked the bytecode to make it easier to win
29
16%
Other
23
13%
 
Total votes: 180

gfoot
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Brighton, UK

Breakout

Post by gfoot »

So how did people solve Breakout? I originally just played through it by hand, rather than hacking it. There was a forum post implying that Breakout was hackable in a way that doesn't work for Breakout Extreme - is there a simpler way than tweaking the Java bytecode?
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m!nus
Posts: 202
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:49 pm
Location: Germany

Post by m!nus »

I found the solution in the sourcecode after decompiling it, didn't work as well for the extreme one though since it's way too obfuscated
MerickOWA
Posts: 182
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:54 pm
Location: HkRkoz al KuwaiT 2019 HaCkEr 101

Post by MerickOWA »

played breakout by hand.

played breakout extreme almost to the end, had to guess on the last level/character.
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adum
Posts: 392
Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:49 pm
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Post by adum »

i think i made breakout extreme even harder to play as well as decompile. impressed you played it...
Karian
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:21 am

Post by Karian »

after playing trough the first one, I also didn't have any problem playing the second one. I didn't have the feeling it was harder. Even more something like allready knowing how to more or less handle the ball.
Allosentient
Posts: 273
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:47 pm

Post by Allosentient »

I used a memory editor, made the whole thing a joke. Change number of blocks remaining to 1, hit 1 block and you are done. Worked for both breakout and breakout extreme, but extreme took several tries before it worked, the last level spit out a random letter for some reason.
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m!nus
Posts: 202
Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:49 pm
Location: Germany

Post by m!nus »

alternatively you can change the number of lives
eike42
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2008 1:17 pm

Post by eike42 »

I had some fun playing and then figured out the last letter by trying ;)
the_impaler
Posts: 61
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:31 am

Post by the_impaler »

Sometimes I feel like xkcd guy is doing challenges here as well - there was fibonacci comic and then this :
http://xkcd.com/347/
gfoot
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Brighton, UK

Post by gfoot »

Damn it, I spent hours last night reading those comics, from the point you linked to the end - probably about 200 comics.

I've also just realised why my room number in the hotel I'm staying in is 89, when there are only 10 guest rooms here. The Fibonacci sequence really does show up everywhere!
the_impaler
Posts: 61
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 3:31 am

Post by the_impaler »

Yep. i like it a lot. And the tag line is quite good.
My favorite is when mother named her son "Robert' drop table students;' Robertson" and then got a call from school principal.
paradox.is.taken
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:04 am

Post by paradox.is.taken »

just a brief warning to anybody stuck on breakout extreme... Forget about bytecode look into memory editting. I lost 10 hours reading about java bytecode commands and trying to get a good bytecode editor. However the obfuscation software made the bytecode such a mess that it was near impossible. Plus apparently there is any good software for editing the bytecode, i found only a good viewer...
gfoot
Posts: 269
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:34 pm
Location: Brighton, UK

Post by gfoot »

paradox, it is a bit of a mess but as I said above, I did solve it by hacking the bytecode. Actually I assumed that Java bytecode always looks that messy!
wrtlprnft
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2008 4:48 pm

Post by wrtlprnft »

I decompiled it with jad, figured out where the number of blocks was decremented (getfield/iconst_1/isub/putfield) and changed the calculation to getfield/iconst_0/imul/putfield… I tried reverse engeneering it first, but didn't succeed.

As for actually playing it: I never got past the second level.
paradox.is.taken
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:04 am

Post by paradox.is.taken »

I tried very similar things but with lives variable, but somehow it never ran after i tweaked the code. I suspect the code for the lifes was seriously obfuscated since I changed MAXLIVES but nothing happened.

What software did you guys use for editing bytecode? I tried some terrible homebrew softwares: cafebabe and jbe. Both were pain in the ass to use.
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