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1

I have added an interface to input cheats, and of course the backend of this.

Current cheats include:

  • unlimited health
  • unlimited time
  • faster movement
  • no need to use keys (I have a door/key system)
  • triple firing lasers (normally there is only one)
  • grenades (changes your weapon to grenades)

How will I tell the user the cheat codes? Normally, cheats would be sold by the programmer, but this isn't that sort of game currently.

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1  
Leave the enterprising users to find them themselves by disassembling... – Peter Taylor Mar 16 '11 at 8:43
4  
Wait, cheats are put into games to be sold by the programmers? Whoa, apparently I’ve always misunderstood the purpose of cheats. – Konrad Rudolph Mar 16 '11 at 13:47
@Konrad Rudolph, I think the OP is talking about the horrible practice of basically selling cheats, when developers/publishers who sell DLC that unlocks stuff or gives unfair advantages in multiplexer games. – AttackingHobo Mar 16 '11 at 22:43

4 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

Put a cheats menu in the pause menu.

Before you allow the cheats to be used, warn the user that his current game/score will be invalidated if he wants to continue and use the cheat, but only warn for the first time in a session if they are using a cheat, so if they use one they can use the others with impunity.

Allow a user to unlock them somehow by playing through content of the game.

If you want to give them the codes you can either have the cheat code number be reviled to them if they reach a certain part of the game or reach a certain score, or unlock a certain achievement. Alternatively you can have the user just unlock it from the menu when reaches whatever criteria you set for it.

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I'm wondering how they'll find out the codes for the cheats though! How will I tell them the codes :P – user5925 Mar 16 '11 at 5:20
Updated it with a second part. – AttackingHobo Mar 16 '11 at 5:23
That was the bit i was asking about sir, i think the only way I can tell them the codes is through the game, but will they get a static code at the end of each level, or a randomised one? – user5925 Mar 16 '11 at 5:24
That's up to you. I personally would have the cheat menu there, and inside it has all the cheats saying locked, and when they click on it, or select it, it will then tell the player what he has to do to unlock the cheat. And when the user does any of the requirments for any of them, he will get the cheat unlocked and a message saying so. The user then can pause and activate the cheat from the cheat menu after he has unlocked it. And when he has unlocked the cheat, it stays unlocked. Solves the random cheat code issue, and gives players things to strive for. – AttackingHobo Mar 16 '11 at 5:30
If you're including cheats to help players who find the game too hard, linking cheats to in-game achievements is probably not the best approach. – Gregory Avery-Weir Mar 16 '11 at 14:00
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up vote 6 down vote

A creative way to tell the users about possible cheat-codes would be to hide them somewhere in the game content.

Examples:

  • A wizard you meet in a side-quest tells you about his secret spell of haste which goes like this: Right, Right, B & A.
  • Somewhere in the game you see a graffiti on the wall: Down, Down, Up, B = No Key.
  • Hide a cheat-code in secret areas of a level.
  • Unlock/show cheat-codes to the user when he achieves a special score or some other achievement that is hard to get.

It's up to you to make some of the cheat-codes really easy to find or almost impossible to discover.

As other have said: People that use a cheat-code should probably be excluded from any competition where they get an unfair advantage due to cheating (highscores?). A hint/warning next to the "cheat-input-field" should probably be good enough.

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Hidden cheats will be posted on the Internet, but it is possible to ensure the cheat will activate only if the player has visited the cheat area. – SHiNKiROU Jul 17 '11 at 23:49
up vote 2 down vote

Well When I play games I absolutely hate the opportunity to cheat until I've played the whole way through. Because I'll get frustrated with one part and want to skip it, so I'll revert to cheats, but it will make the whole game horribly boring!

What I'd do is have the player run through at least once before enabling cheats. Then once you do, enable them all, because it really should open up the game, make it a sand box of sorts.

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up vote 0 down vote

Put them in the manual and tell users to be careful. Unless you feature online highscores, it's absolutely the responsibility of the user not to cheat unless they have good reasons to do so (i.e. workaround a bug, played through the game 1000 times but don't want to play the first levels again each time, ...).

Many games keep cheats totally disabled by default and a INI hack is needed to enable them. That would be a useful way to protect users from themselves and their desire to cheat without thinking (assuming their is something like that ...).

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