EXE File Packers: a Exercise in Antivirus Annoyance

Through the years most antivirus programs overall have gotten better at not giving false positives, especially in regards to game trainers.

Although it seems if a program is compressed/packed with a EXE packer most AV (AntiVirus) programs will still give false positives - many of which are insane warnings.

The advantages of using a EXE file packer however are obvious - smaller file sizes, encrypted data, and even basic protection from would be thieves. As such many trainer authors will not release a trainer without using a EXE packer.

FreeBASIC t2EservoMemory Library/Code & FB Trainer Tutorial

I have completed my FreeBASIC trainer tutorial, which is part of the Spelunky tutorial series. As such I have released my FreeBASIC memory functions that I use to create trainers in FB - I call it the t2EservoMemory functions.

The idea was based from the NomadMemory.au3 library for AutoIt, created by Nomad. Beyond the idea, and basic function call parameters everything was re-written by me to work in FreeBASIC.

You can access the functions from my FB library or add them to your trainer from the source code in the project file.

Programming Languages for Game Trainers Compared

For the last few weeks I have been actively searching for a new programming language to learn. I was using AutoIt for nearly everything (including writing my GNU GPL freeware program ASCII GCTB - which is a NFO game cheat text builder), and wanted another option.

I have experience in several programming languages, so I tried anything that was freeware/open source/GNU. The only listed program that costs money is the professional/ultimate versions of Visual Studio - so feel free to try them all yourself.

The following languages I downloaded, tested, and have posted my results. I wanted a programming language that had a IDE, GUI builder, support to create 64-bit in the future/or currently, could access the Windows API interface, use Assembly language when I need to, and possible multiple platform support.

Trainer Spy Programs - TSpy 2008 & TSpy XP

Trainer spy programs are a love-hate relationship, or simply hate, for many game hackers. If you do not know what a trainer spy does, it tells you where a trainer writes data to a game (with other information).

That information is useful as you know what process a trainer writes to (many games have several processes), the address it writes to, the size of written data in bytes, and what is written.

The intended purpose of what to do with that information varies by users, stealing trainer details to make their "own" trainer, learning purposes, or by the trainer author to verify their trainer works correctly.

*Updated 01/11/2012

The Spelunky v1.1 Tutorial Series is Finished

I have completed the five part tutorial series for the PC video game Spelunky v1.1. Here is a look at the finished trainers created in the series. In order, they were made with Game Trainer Studio (GTS) v2.0, Cheat Engine (CE) v6.1, AutoIt v3.3.8.0, and FreeBASIC v0.23.0.

*Updated 01/16/2012

Game Trainer Creation Tools Compared

As I just recently got back into creating game cheats I have been thoroughly looking for program tools - memory scanners, trainer builders, tutorials, etc. See the list on my Links page.

I did find one great new trainer creator Game Trainer Studio 2.0.0. I also found a tool called Trainer Maker Kit Patch v1.0 (also found at GameCopyWorld) that patches trainers created by Trainer Maker Kit to make them less likely to be flagged by virus scanners.

*Updated 01/16/2012