There have always been parts of a game that frustrate: be it because of a tough patch that you can’t get through or because you haven’t grinded enough. There are always moments that you wish you could breeze through and for the most part, cheat-codes have been helping players get through that tough patch without much hassle. But while there are games that come with cheat-codes built into the game, most developers aren’t open to the idea of players cheating their way through their games. Thus, the advent of third-party trainers and codes that work by changing vital parts of the game’s code to help you cheat. During the times of old Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) games, a third-party cheat-code system called the Game Genie Code was developed to help players cheat in games that came in a cartridge form. In modern PC games, there are third-party developers that have produced trainer software that modify game code in real-time to provide you options like ‘god mode’, ‘infinite ammo’ and ‘teleportation’.

But while cheat codes and trainers have been the preferred mode of cheating in a game, these methods require games to support codes right out of the box or hope a third-party developer has made a trainer for the game. But with the new Cheat Engine, you can turn into a cheat developer yourself. Cheat Engine is a Windows software that works exactly how a trainer would have but gives you the flexibility to develop cheats for any game that you might want to hack into.

At its core, Cheat Enginesworks by intercepting certain codes from the RAM and changing them in real-time. Much like a trainer, Cheat Engine needs to be running while the game is running. But unlike trainers that are made with a specific game in mind, Cheat Engine works with all kinds of games; this versatility comes with its own share of complexity. While working with the software, users will need to identify key values on their own and freeze them with the help of the engine. This might be daunting to new users of the app so today, we bring you a guide on how to use Cheat Engine to hack your games.

First of all, download the software from cheatengine.org and install it onto your computer. Once the software has been installed, open it. You’ll be greeted with a complex user-interface with value identification tools on the right-hand side of the screen and a value list on the left-hand side.  Below both these interfaces, there is an address code list that will help you manually control the addresses and their values. On the top function bar, right below the menu bar, you’ll see a flashing icon depicting a computer and a magnifying glass. This is the processes button, it will help the software identify the game process and help it look for addresses within the codes of the running game. Start by running your game and clicking on the flashing processes icon on the Cheat Engine interface and identify the game’s exe from the list of processes that show up. Now that Cheat Engine has identified the process that it needs to hack, there are two ways of going about hacking your game.

You can either try to search for ‘Cheat Tables’, these are lists of addresses for a specific game that other gamers have already identified. If you’re lucky and you find these tables for your games, all you need to do is open the table on Cheat Engine once you’ve identified the game’s process. You can open a .CT cheat table file on Cheat Engine by double-clicking the .CT file itself or with the help of the open button beside the process identification icon on the function bar. Doing this will bring up a list of addresses on the software’s address list at the bottom. You’ll notice that there is a check box beside all of the addresses; if you click on them a red X mark appears inside the box. This means that the value that the address refers to has been frozen, meaning if the address points to, say, your bullet count, it’ll freeze the value so that you never run out of bullets. But even with cheat tables, since you don’t know which address refers to a specific aspect of the game, a certain level of trial and error is needed to fully understand the addresses and their implications on the game (some cheat table creators are helpful enough to share a txt file explaining the addresses).

But what if you can’t find a cheat table for a specific game, you can always use the tool manually. The basic idea behind identifying a specific value in Cheat Engine is for the tool to identify change. Putting it in simple terms, if the health bar in your game drops, it’s signified by a change in a specific value in the game’s code. So to identify which value changes when your health drops, you need to constantly monitor values every time your health bar drops in the game. This process can be simple if you have a numeric health bar, but if you have a health-bar, isolation of the value might be complex.

Let’s start by considering a numeric health-bar. If your character has started out with 100 health points, type in 100 in the value textbox beside the Hex checkbox on Cheat Engine. Hit the ‘First Scan’ button right above these options. The address list on the left-hand side will give you a lot of addresses with the value 100. So, now take some damage in-game and see what value your HP drops to. As an example, it’s say you got hit by an enemy soldier and your HP dropped to 87. Now, switch back to Cheat Engine and enter 87 in the textbox where you entered 100 before. Now click on the ‘Next Scan’ button. This will show you all the addresses that changed from 100 to 87. Since the change in value is so specific, the address list on the left-hand side should filter to one value, if you’re lucky. If only one value shows up, this is your HP address, right click on this address and select ‘Add selected addresses to the addresslist’. This will bring the address down to the address list on the bottom, freeze the value by checking the checkbox next to the address or simply change the value as per your requirements.

But if your game features a health-bar instead of health-points, you will need to narrow down the health address from a plethora of values. Start by selecting ‘Unknown initial value’ from the Scan Type drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the Cheat Engine interface. This will bring up a lot of values. Now take some damage in-game and come back to Cheat Engine. Here, from the same drop-down menu, select ‘Decreased value’ and hit ‘Next Scan’. This process will not isolate the health-bar address immediately but will narrow down the address only to the ones that have decreased in value. Keep narrowing down these addresses by taking hits in game and hitting ‘Next Scan’ on Cheat Engine whenever you do. Doing this will keep refining your address list until you only have one or a couple of addresses. Now, all you need to do is add these addresses to the address list and freeze them for infinite health.

With a combination of these two methods, you can isolate different kinds of address in your game, from bullet-count to the number of first-aid kits that you have in the game. But apart from these basic methods of address identification, Cheat Engine can be used in a host of other complex ways like creating hot-keys to replenish a specific value when playing the game or even modifying the game’s speed by implementing a speed-hack. Experiment with the tool a little bit and explore the various advanced features that the tool offers. Cheat Engine is a very powerful tool and understanding how the tool works can give you tremendous power over your games.