This newsletter is where I share my explorations in retro game reverse engineering. It’s been featured in publications ranging from Yahoo! Finance to a journal for resale professionals and Portuguese-language tech news sites.
One of my pandemic-era projects was to learn how to use Ghidra, the SRE tool. I first taught myself by deconstructing one of my favorite video games from the 90s, and then branched out from there.
I’ve gotten good at reading various assembly languages, navigating code bases without any function names or variable labels, and sniffing out where hidden things might be lurking. I’ve found hundreds of previously-undiscovered cheat codes, cracked a few passcode systems, restored scrapped game features, and even stumbled across a secret marriage proposal.
If you’d like to work with me on digital archaeology, send me an e-mail. Depending on the season, I may have consulting slots open. Retro game systems are my specialty, but the same tools and techniques are useful in other domains.
For more from me, see:
memory_fallen on Twitter/X
Sonic Weekly podcast, where I discuss Rings of Saturn most weeks
