The Game Genie

The Game Genie was a device from the 90s that you could use with video game consoles. It was a pass-through system that attached between the game cartridge and the console. It would patch the program code of the game, so you could change variables. This would usually be used to “cheat” in the game, like having more health or power than originally intended.

So it is a device that attaches to a program and has the ability to change variables in that program at runtime.

That sounds a lot like … a debugger! Well, an incomplete one.

A useful development tool can also be used for game cheats. This is why some PC games (notably the StarCraft series) ship with anti-debugger protections. They need to prevent people changing things at runtime, but also (unlike the game genie) inspecting data you shouldn’t see (in the case of StarCraft, what your opponent is doing that should be hidden by the fog of war).

Have you ever used an unusual tool to help with debugging?