Dear Ruby devs and game devs. I have a crazy announcement I want to share. Please boost.
Last week I released A Dark Room to the Nintendo Switch. Within the game, I also shipped a Ruby interpreter and a code editor as an Easter Egg.
*This Easter Egg effectively turns every consumer spec-ed Nintendo Switch into a Ruby Machine.*
1. Download A Dark Room from the US/EU.
2. Connect a USB keyboard and press the “~” key.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions.
@mayuutann Did you buy a Nintendo Switch?
@veer66 No, I didn't. I don't play games...
@mayuutann You can run Ruby now. 😅
hackers exploiting switch trough this game in 2.. 1..
> hackers exploiting switch trough this game
don't they already have full unpatchable control through Nvidia Tegra BootRom?
Welp guess we saw who was right and who was wrong now.
@rin @hj @amirrajan They released a new hardware revision where this is fixed. If you buy a new switch it will be patched.
(Old switches are still unpatchable and good though 😄)
@hj there is precedence for this: take a look at Fuze: https://www.fuze.co.uk/nintendo-switch.html
Also. Stop living in this world of fear. A kid's eyes would have lit up seeing this. And that is my intent/motivation.
PS: Let me worry about that. Go forth and create awesome crazy things.
And even if you get to this point, you will not have access to anything interesting from there.
@amirrajan Holy shit that's really fucking cool! Can't wait to mess with this!
@noirscape here is the source code for some of the stuff within the game. Feel free to monkey patch as needed: https://github.com/amirrajan/power-overwhelming
@amirrajan@ruby.social just tried it. one of the best easter eggs i've ever seen in a game :)
@glitch source code to help with your video game making journey: https://github.com/amirrajan/power-overwhelming
I've included parts of A Dark Room source in there too so you can "mod" it.
@glitch and if you need anything else added to it, I'll throw it up there for reference.
@vaartis yep! The Switch version is highly tuned for "active" play. Pacing is different and there is a much much deeper narrative (since it's assumed that the player is more attentive).
There is always a non-trivial decision to make or task to do on the Switch version.
@amirrajan does the ruby interpreter have graphics and input so one could make another game inside ruby?
@boots yep! Build all the things!!
Here is some sample code here: https://github.com/amirrajan/power-overwhelming/blob/master/kaigi_2019_logo.rb
@amirrajan \o/!!!
@amirrajan don't have a way to connect a keyboard to an undocked switch, so no video, but here's a pic!
@amirrajan ill probably play the game, too, since it looks neat, i just heard ruby interpreter + engine on the switch and got excited
@amirrajan (that white blob in the middle DOES say 4 for the record)
💚
@amirrajan i love a dark room already and this is just next tier as hell, omg
@amirrajan holy crap that’s awesome. I wonder if Nintendo will pull it?
@amirrajan Do you mind if I post about this on twitter or are you trying to keep it on the down low?
@debugninja keeping on the DL right now. But feel free to “carefully” spread the word
@amirrajan understood
@debugninja you let me worry about that and go build awesome stuff
@amirrajan You, good Sir, are brilliant.Thank you!
Aaaaa it does work! Thank you so much for this, I never thought I was going to be able to really do homebrew stuff on my Switch! (At least, not without screwing over my significant other who likes playing online.)
A hello world program running o…
@amirrajan holy shit lol. I’m not a programmer but I do own a switch and that’s cool as hell.
@Ethancdavenport never too late to learn :-)
@amirrajan u right! What’s your game about?
@Ethancdavenport @amirrajan coding is not that tough to get started with, it just looks really intense from the outside. there's lots of online free courses and a few of the books out there do a great job getting you started. at first, I found coding dull..and now that I can really use it, it feels like magic and I can't imagine doing anything else for work. give it a shot!
@amirrajan Nice, it even works with my USB-C to lots of connectors dongle
@amirrajan this is so cool!
@amirrajan whoa i had no idea you could plug a keyboard into a switch o_o
@amirrajan holy SHIT ive loved a dark room for a LONG time, ive beaten gridland multiple times, i own a dark room and the sequel on iphone, this is so badass. i wish i could fucking afford to spend money on switch games rn ;3;
@amirrajan how the hell did this pass lotcheck. this is amazing
@dankwraith ... they didn’t connect a keyboard and press “~” 😬
@amirrajan How cool is this?!
Here’s the proof. This is a Nintendo Switch, running A Dark Room, which allows you to execute Ruby code. The Ruby code in this video is a Quine that executes Ruby code.