“A Dark Room” Developer bundles Ruby interpreter and code editor into Switch release (already taken down; see threadmarks for updates)

[Mexen]

But is the code executing outside of the game? Can you control your Switch? If it is just an editor running code in-game then I guess for people who care it is a nice portable way to carry Ruby around. Me? I have an entire OS with my environment on a flash drive.
I also never learned Ruby. Still pretty cool from a dev perspective outside of ethics etc.

 

[Deleted member 19066]

Guess I need to delve into Ruby a bit more to get something out of this. His "hello world" example script he gives in the easter egg works (using a line drawing function to display hello on the screen) but a simple 'puts "Hello World"' or 'print "whatever"' runs but doesn't display anything.

I wonder if he just planned to tell everyone once the sales dipped low enough. :P

 

[Stiflers Mom]

What a fool.
Nintendo will sue his ass off and the will never get a game published ever again.

 

[Expy]

def cool
# could be interesting
end

 

[LordOcidax]

This guys is about to get banned from every console and sued by Nintendo... Smart. Whats the point of this??? Make things harder for others devs?

 

[Drain You]

I keep checking this thread but maybe I glossed over the answer, can this really do anything? Furthermore can it do anything more than the hacking scene has already done? I agree that this was irresponsible and wrong, I'm just wondering if anything could actually come from this, or is just limited to within the game or whatever.

 

[eseqko]

Arghhh I actually was planning to buy this game with my next paycheck at the end of this month.

 

[Deleted member 19066]

Arghhh I actually was planning to buy this game with my next paycheck at the end of this month.

Click to shrink...

Fuze is coming out in a few months, iirc. It looks like a pretty comprehensive game making program using a modified version of BASIC (akin to SmileBasic/petite computer,) with a heck of a lot more features than this game gives you.

Also, Gaming Resetera is weird. I can understand "that was dumb." I can't understand "this is going to harm me/I can't believe he betrayed his publisher/I hope he gets shunned." Why does it bother some people so much when other's break the rules for the sake of cool/dumb shit? The rules aren't made for the sake of consumers/developers. The rules are made for the sake of publishers. We want consoles to be more open.

 

[Hailinel]

Fuze is coming out in a few months, iirc. It looks like a pretty comprehensive game making program using a modified version of BASIC (akin to SmileBasic/petite computer,) with a heck of a lot more features than this game gives you.

Also, Gaming Resetera is weird. I can understand "that was dumb." I can't understand "this is going to harm me/I can't believe he betrayed his publisher/I hope he gets shunned." Why does it bother some people so much when other's break the rules for the sake of cool/dumb shit? The rules aren't made for the sake of consumers/developers. The rules are made for the sake of publishers. We want consoles to be more open.

Click to shrink...

More open in what way?

Because there's such a thing as "too open" when it comes to quality control concerns.

 

[Drain You]

Fuze is coming out in a few months, iirc. It looks like a pretty comprehensive game making program using a modified version of BASIC (akin to SmileBasic/petite computer,) with a heck of a lot more features than this game gives you.

Also, Gaming Resetera is weird. I can understand "that was dumb." I can't understand "this is going to harm me/I can't believe he betrayed his publisher/I hope he gets shunned." Why does it bother some people so much when other's break the rules for the sake of cool/dumb shit? The rules aren't made for the sake of consumers/developers. The rules are made for the sake of publishers. We want consoles to be more open.

Click to shrink...

I feel like the person you quoted was just talking about wanting to play the actual game, I could be wrong though.

 

[Oniletter]

We want consoles to be more open.

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Because "more open" in this context, as good as the intentions may have been st some point, inevitably leads to rampant piracy that harms the chances of new games coming to the system ( especially niche software) and hacked to shit online play.

I personally don't want current systems to be "more open".

 

[Cheerilee]

I keep checking this thread but maybe I glossed over the answer, can this really do anything? Furthermore can it do anything more than the hacking scene has already done? I agree that this was irresponsible and wrong, I'm just wondering if anything could actually come from this, or is just limited to within the game or whatever.

Click to shrink...

One of the big developments in 3DS hacking was a game that had a crudely-designed level editor in it. Hackers figured out that you could make a level that could divide by zero and overwhelm itself, which could become an entry point for hacking a 3DS.

That's what hackers could do with a level editor. Imagine what they could do with a programming language.

But then again, the Switch is already hacked.

But then again, hackers can never have too many hacks.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Fuze is coming out in a few months, iirc. It looks like a pretty comprehensive game making program using a modified version of BASIC (akin to SmileBasic/petite computer,) with a heck of a lot more features than this game gives you.

Also, Gaming Resetera is weird. I can understand "that was dumb." I can't understand "this is going to harm me/I can't believe he betrayed his publisher/I hope he gets shunned." Why does it bother some people so much when other's break the rules for the sake of cool/dumb shit? The rules aren't made for the sake of consumers/developers. The rules are made for the sake of publishers. We want consoles to be more open.

Click to shrink...

The only thing this dude do is probably have Nintendo reconsider their cert process, making it harder for other devs to get on the system as easily

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

fucked up that consoles aren't open out of the box

Click to shrink...

You wouldn't be saying that if you were the one trying to sell software for it...

I bet it was fun for all the Spectrum/C64 coders to have their games freely copied and distributed in playgrounds with immunity...

... this idiot will never be able to release a game for consoles ever again. All for 5 seconds of fame. Moron.

 

[bad poster]

You wouldn't be saying that if you were the one trying to sell software for it...

I bet it was fun for all the Spectrum/C64 coders to have their games freely copied and distributed in playgrounds with immunity...

Click to shrink...

yeah, if only all those schoolchildren had paid for their games - we might have games on PC now

 

[neon_dream]

Well, reading more of the developers responses to this then he's actively gone looking for trouble with Nintendo

This Easter Eggs is also for you adults that have forgotten what it felt like to print "hello world". "The sky is the limit" mentality has been beaten out of us and replaced with "don't do anything that will get you into trouble with the masters that feed us".

I've created the first spark. The fire is smoldering. Now *everyone* needs to make sure these embers don't die.

Build. Share. Teach a kid to draw a square instead of saying "ooooo you're going to be in troubllllleee" for fucks sakes.

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Clearly the masters in this case refer to Nintendo and their gated rules, but what a terrible way to get that message out. All he's done is burn bridges with virtually no reporting on this. Essentially, few people will know what's happened here or care about it.

https://ruby.social/@amirrajan/101991347839280423

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Anyone and everyone has access to programming software and hardware. It's 2019. There are programming apps on istore and google play for kids who want to learn.

This guy hasn't opened the world to the masses. This isn't activism. It's pretentious, self-important, self-indulgent idiocy.

 

[cucholix]

Hopefully this doesn't affect other small devs if Nintendo decides tightening approval process.

 

[score01]

Seems like a good way to get banned from ever releasing games on a Nintendo platform again.

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Um yes. What exactly was the dev thinking? Trying to stick it to the man?

How much harder would it be for him to focus his energies on getting kids to code in something like a pc - where there are no limits and practically everyone has access to one?

 

[pronk]

This Easter Eggs is also for you adults that have forgotten what it felt like to print "hello world". "The sky is the limit" mentality has been beaten out of us and replaced with "don't do anything that will get you into trouble with the masters that feed us".

I've created the first spark. The fire is smoldering. Now *everyone* needs to make sure these embers don't die.

Build. Share. Teach a kid to draw a square instead of saying "ooooo you're going to be in troubllllleee" for fucks sakes.

Click to shrink...

Its great to encourage kids to program and stuff but I don't understand their way of going about it. Sure if you own a Switch you are free to do what you like with it, including cracking it to make your own software, but Nintendo isn't obliged to publish anything you want on their store. It just comes across as a bit childish.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

Anyone and everyone has access to programming software and hardware. It's 2019. There are programming apps on istore and google play for kids who want to learn.

This guy hasn't opened the world to the masses. This isn't activism. It's pretentious, self-important, self-indulgent idiocy.

Click to shrink...

No arguments here

 

[Weltall Zero]

Anyone and everyone has access to programming software and hardware. It's 2019. There are programming apps on istore and google play for kids who want to learn.

This guy hasn't opened the world to the masses. This isn't activism. It's pretentious, self-important, self-indulgent idiocy.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, when I read that "I created the first spark" my eyes rolled right out of my skull and out the door.

I think they're still rolling down the street, but I obviously can't see them.

 

[Numberfox]

Well, the certification process for indie games might have just been made tougher and longer because of this stunt, which seems worse for indie devs in the long run, so... thanks, I guess?

 

[Threekola Miroswish]

Yeah, when I read that "I created the first spark" my eyes rolled right out of my skull and out the door.

I think they're still rolling down the street, but I obviously can't see them.

Click to shrink...

The All Spark?

 

[andymoogle]

Anyone and everyone has access to programming software and hardware. It's 2019. There are programming apps on istore and google play for kids who want to learn.

This guy hasn't opened the world to the masses. This isn't activism. It's pretentious, self-important, self-indulgent idiocy.

Click to shrink...

Not only that, but there are also plenty of games that has a programming mentality to them. Also games where building is encouraged. A certain Minecraft is pretty popular among kids.

There are hundreds of ways to encourage kids to be creative. This is certainly not one of them.

 

[Pooroomoo]

Fuze is coming out in a few months, iirc. It looks like a pretty comprehensive game making program using a modified version of BASIC (akin to SmileBasic/petite computer,) with a heck of a lot more features than this game gives you.

Also, Gaming Resetera is weird. I can understand "that was dumb." I can't understand "this is going to harm me/I can't believe he betrayed his publisher/I hope he gets shunned." Why does it bother some people so much when other's break the rules for the sake of cool/dumb shit? The rules aren't made for the sake of consumers/developers. The rules are made for the sake of publishers. We want consoles to be more open.

Click to shrink...

As I (and many others) wrote, this will no doubt make the certification process on the Switch much tougher. At the very least there will be further delays for all Indie games needing certification, and most likely some Indie games that would have passed certification before will now no longer pass because the rules have become tougher, all thanks to this smartass.

Added: I just realized something truly bad for me (and others) as a consumer - patches certification already takes a long time with Nintendo. This "great feat for freedom" will now most likely cause the patch certification process to be even longer as well, meaning consumers will need to wait even longer for patches for the games they bought. Yay.

 

[Deleted member 8791]

Just heard about this for the first time and read through the whole thread. Wow. It feels like this dev will come to regret this for the rest of his career.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

i'm really having a hard time finding sympathy for anyone involved or finding any cause of concern. if you want to sandbox, stuff like this should be caught and lessons should be learned. if nintendo wants that indie money, they can't really put up more roadblocks for devs, they just need a better process that doesn't impact them (which is completely possible). a better review process doesn't mean "omg no games are going to get approved now" and if it does that is a huge problem for nintendo.

they're obviously going to blacklist this person and that is within their right.

You wouldn't be saying that if you were the one trying to sell software for it...

I bet it was fun for all the Spectrum/C64 coders to have their games freely copied and distributed in playgrounds with immunity...

... this idiot will never be able to release a game for consoles ever again. All for 5 seconds of fame. Moron.

Click to shrink...

hell yeah comparing this to a 35 year old platform

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Well that's just a pretentious way to react to your game being taken down for shit you didn't rate it for.

 

[ZeroDotFlow]

You wouldn't be saying that if you were the one trying to sell software for it...

I bet it was fun for all the Spectrum/C64 coders to have their games freely copied and distributed in playgrounds with immunity...

... this idiot will never be able to release a game for consoles ever again. All for 5 seconds of fame. Moron.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. Piracy is such a problem that I'm surprised computers haven't gone the same route and completely locked down everything to prevent piracy.

You should be forced to pay a fee if you want to open up your OS. Can't trust people at all. Force people to only buy games from the Microsoft Store, developers can pay an enterprise fee for everything else.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Agreed. Piracy is such a problem that I'm surprised computers haven't gone the same route and completely locked down everything to prevent piracy.

You should be forced to pay a fee if you want to open up your OS. Can't trust people at all. Force people to only buy games from the Microsoft Store, developers can pay an enterprise fee for everything else.

Click to shrink...

I hope this is sarcastic, because as a developer this is honestly one of the worst ideas I have ever seen on this website.

 

[Tiggleton]

Yeah, when I read that "I created the first spark" my eyes rolled right out of my skull and out the door.

I think they're still rolling down the street, but I obviously can't see them.

Click to shrink...

...but you can see where they're going, right?

 

[Weltall Zero]

...but you can see where they're going, right?

Click to shrink...

All I see is stretches of sky and asphalt alternating quickly, with the occassional tree. @_@

 

[Aztechnology]

im sure ruby has something akin to python modules. i assume you can't import anything though?

Click to shrink...

With gems, but outside of rails I think you need the rubygems library to install gem dependencies. Not sure if you could accomplish that or not with just a ruby console or something. How extensive was this, did anyone get a chance to use it?

 

[BY2K]

So the guy is now playing the victim for his dumbass move.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ls-he-sneaked-in-basic-code-editor-easter-egg

"I deeply regret how this has blown up," Rajan said.

"A simple toy sandboxed environment has been framed as this massive exploit. And of course it's the community that exploits these things that pushed it up to that level. I'm partly to blame with my sensationalised media posts.

"I acted alone and stupidly. It was a last second 'spark of inspiration' and I snuck it in assuming that plugging in a USB keyboard and pressing the "~" key wasn't part of the test plan.

Click to shrink...

"Having Circle deal with some of this cannon fire is not something I'd ever want. These past three days have been the worst days of my life. And I don't know what to say except I'm sorry, and all I wanted to do was allow kids (and coding adults that have forgotten the joy) to discover what I discovered 25 years ago.

"The narrative that has played out online is exactly what's wrong with this trashcan fire of a world," Rajan continued.

"Everyone is an armchair expert. Everyone thought the worst. You've seen that I've been called a dick, idiot, and everything in between. Because sensationalised news sells. If the narrative was 'I added a sandbox to A Dark Room that lets you mod the game and provide a medium for kids to code (and technical parents to show their kids what they do),' it would have gone unnoticed.

"Again, I'm partly to blame for sensationalising the extent of the 'coding' environment."

Click to shrink...

I don't know how someone in their right mind would think that hiding a code editor and ruby interpreter in a game that is accessed by using a debug function without telling the console maker is a good idea.

 

[Pooroomoo]

So the guy is now playing the victim for his dumbass move.

Click to shrink...

It seems he conveniently forgot that he also said "The sky is the limit" mentality has been beaten out of us and replaced with "don't do anything that will get you into trouble with the masters that feed us". His intent seems to clearly have been, at least to some extent, "stick it to the man". Not sure what world he lives in that he thought this will end well for him.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

So the guy is now playing the victim for his dumbass move.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ls-he-sneaked-in-basic-code-editor-easter-egg





I don't know how someone in their right mind would think that hiding a code editor and ruby interpreter in a game that is accessed by using a debug function without telling the console maker is a good idea.

Click to shrink...

I mean I'm all for discovery, but people like this seem to forget you can get a much more flexible and free platform and more importantly more affordable platform to work on via stuff like Raspberry Pis, etc.

I mean, even homebrewers have said that part of the reason a lot of their efforts have died down relative to the old days is that back then, consoles were beefy compared to their price point. Nowadays technology competent devices are sold for the cost of a dinner.

 

[asmith906]

Some brilliant hacker's gonna use this to jailbreak the Switch right? Either way, cool thing to do by the dev.

Click to shrink...

It's a little late considering the Switch is blown wide open

 

[MegaXZero]

So the guy is now playing the victim for his dumbass move.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ls-he-sneaked-in-basic-code-editor-easter-egg





I don't know how someone in their right mind would think that hiding a code editor and ruby interpreter in a game that is accessed by using a debug function without telling the console maker is a good idea.

Click to shrink...

Holy crap. He's STILL playing up that whole the man is out to get you angle:

"I genuinely feel that within their company there are many many developers/programmers that can empathise and will completely understand," Rajan added.

"But they are not 'the suits in charge,' unfortunately.

Click to shrink...

He really doesn't know when to shut up. But apparently the publisher Circle isn't happy about this. So good luck to this guy getting a game published again after this.

 

[Kwigo]

So the guy is now playing the victim for his dumbass move.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ls-he-sneaked-in-basic-code-editor-easter-egg





I don't know how someone in their right mind would think that hiding a code editor and ruby interpreter in a game that is accessed by using a debug function without telling the console maker is a good idea.

Click to shrink...

Holy shit he's acting like without his self-sacrifice, no one would be able to code anymore. This guy has some sort of god complex.

 

[reminiscingLemon]

Agreed. Piracy is such a problem that I'm surprised computers haven't gone the same route and completely locked down everything to prevent piracy.

You should be forced to pay a fee if you want to open up your OS. Can't trust people at all. Force people to only buy games from the Microsoft Store, developers can pay an enterprise fee for everything else.

Click to shrink...

Yikes, just ...yikes. How on earth would ANYONE learn to code in this kind of environment? If you have to pay an enterprise fee to get that level of access to the hardware surely only people who already know how to code would be able to continue.

 

[The Albatross]

It's a sandboxed, fake Ruby interpreter, right? You can't actually do anything with it.

If he hadn't posted about it, it probably would have snuck in as a funny little easter egg. His own fault for posting about it to spoil the easter egg, of course people are going to misinterpret the functionality because they don't understand what it is.

This statement he originally made is false:

"This Easter Egg effectively turns every consumer spec-ed Nintendo Switch into a Ruby Machine."

It doesn't turn any Nintendo Switch into a Ruby machine. The interpreter can't do anything, it's a fake interpreter.

 

[Deleted member 5028]

This fuckin' guy

"I genuinely feel that within their company there are many many developers/programmers that can empathise and will completely understand," Rajan added.

"But they are not 'the suits in charge,' unfortunately.

"So all I can do is brace myself and try to get some sleep."

Click to shrink...

So noble a sacrifice

 

[Kouriozan]

Don't ever mess with Nintendo, their legal teams are scary.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

This guy really went all Poe Dameron over his game being taken down.

 

[BY2K]

The worst part is, if his goal really was to make people discover programming, there's legit ways to do it.

The 3DS has a small code editor game where you can program small things without potentially affecting the system. And I believe one for Switch is coming out soon.

 

[makonero]

What a self-important dumbass

 

[kittens]

I love this

 

[Deleted member 43084]

Oh he actually did have a publisher? Yikes.

 

[Deleted member 2171]

It's a sandboxed, fake Ruby interpreter, right? You can't actually do anything with it.

If he hadn't posted about it, it probably would have snuck in as a funny little easter egg. His own fault for posting about it to spoil the easter egg, of course people are going to misinterpret the functionality because they don't understand what it is.

This statement he originally made is false:

"This Easter Egg effectively turns every consumer spec-ed Nintendo Switch into a Ruby Machine."

It doesn't turn any Nintendo Switch into a Ruby machine. The interpreter can't do anything, it's a fake interpreter.

Click to shrink...

Even if it's sandboxed, it's still bad to to sneak something through cert. Publishers don't even let you have undocumented functionality/easter eggs in games anymore, thanks to Hot Coffee, let alone an entire hidden runtime.

For his misplaced "fight the masters that control us" monologue, he's likely made cert harder for indies for no reason.

If he had actually communicated to Nintendo that he wanted to make a Ruby learning software for the platform, they probably would have been in support of it and worked with them to make it robust. They've had BASIC and other types of programming software on their platform before.

 

[Mejilan]

What a stupid and pointless hill to die on.
Shame. It's actually a decent game.
At least, I enjoyed the browser version enough to clear it twice.