Unearthing a 31 year old Easter egg in Ecco the Dolphin

> CD check gets rid of the This program can only be run from the original CD! nag screen.

A built-in no-cd patch, neat :-)

That’s super cool! I loved the original Ecco on the genesis. Beat it several times. I miss when games had real cheats/debug modes. It’s part of the reason I hot in to programming and development in the first place. I feel like kids these days don’t get this experience anymore.

> CD check gets rid of the This program can only be run from the original CD! nag screen.

A built-in no-cd patch, neat :-)

This sort of thing seems to have really fallen off after the Grand Theft Auto "Hot Coffee" scandal. Having hidden stuff in a game went from being a fun thing to a potential liability.

I think the other big thing that killed in game cheats and debug screens was Xbox and Steam Achievements/PlayStation Trophies. Some of the "value" in such tokens of game completion are the "skill checks" it takes to complete them. If a game provides cheats inside of it, it either needs to disable those Achievement systems, or it loses the ability to unlock them, and that's platform enforced by Xbox/Steam/PlayStation. So it's easier for most games to just not include cheats so they don't have to worry about accidentally violating platform terms on Xbox/Steam/PlayStation should players discover and "abuse" the cheat systems.

Similarly PC games with mod support often have to disable Achievement systems as soon as any mod is installed just in case the mod happens to offer cheats. Which also seems to have impacted mod culture to some extent with entire classes of gamers not installing mods ever to make sure that they still win Achievements.

It's an interesting social dynamic and I think one of the clearest lines in the sand for when cheat codes disappeared, especially in genres like the FPS where "God Mode" and "noclip" codes were genre staples until Achievements. (Because DOOM offered them, every FPS offered them. Until they stopped.)

PC games don't have to do this. Steam doesn't have a policy that achievements must prevent cheating. This is entirely a developer choice.

The main reason cheats have disappeared from mainstream games is because many of them prefer to sell them to you as micro-transactions, item pack DLCs, etc.

Steam Achievements are trivially to cheat at for most games, especially single-player like Ecco, for example via SAM.

PC games don't have to do this. Steam doesn't have a policy that achievements must prevent cheating. This is entirely a developer choice.

The main reason cheats have disappeared from mainstream games is because many of them prefer to sell them to you as micro-transactions, item pack DLCs, etc.

Steam Achievements are trivially to cheat at for most games, especially single-player like Ecco, for example via SAM.

Steam has the weakest enforced terms of all the three that I mentioned, but it does have terms in its contract with developers for how Achievements are supposed to unlock.

But most "triple A" games don't just release under Steam's weaker terms, they also want Xbox and PlayStation certification, which have been strongly enforced.

Steam has the weakest enforced terms of all the three that I mentioned, but it does have terms in its contract with developers for how Achievements are supposed to unlock.

But most "triple A" games don't just release under Steam's weaker terms, they also want Xbox and PlayStation certification, which have been strongly enforced.

Today we’re examining the PC version of Ecco the Dolphin. This game is adapted from the 1993 Sega CD version of Ecco, which is an enhanced version of the 1992 Sega Genesis original.

There’s a full-featured debug mode cheat for the console editions. Among other things, it lets you skip stages and become invincible. But on PC, you have to fight your way through this notoriously difficult title the hard way.

Debug mode in the Genesis version.

…Or do you? There’s some strange code in the function that handles this game’s About dialog:

This is checking whether the bottom-right corner of the dialog box is off-screen as it’s being dismissed.

The About EccoWin dialog box.

After that check, the code calls GetKeyState for Shift and Ctrl. If those are being held down as the dialog disappears, LoadMenuA gets called for menu ID 0x70.

What’s that do? It allows you to access a cheat menu by pressing Shift+Ctrl and right-clicking on the main window:

The cheat menu.

Stage lets you choose your starting stage, of course. Make a selection and press F2 to start playing. All of the items seem to work except for the one marked test only.

Life gives you unlimited health and air. The meters that track those stats disappear entirely when this cheat is enabled.

Unlimited life and air.

When the cheat menu is active, you’ll also see positioning information on the bottom of the screen. The numbers change as Ecco moves.

But wait, there’s more. That About EccoWin dialog handler function is checking for more conditions. The code asks:

Does the uMsg argument correspond to the WM_RBUTTONDBLCLK event?
Does the wParam argument have the MK_SHIFT, MK_CONTROL, and MK_LBUTTON bits set?
Is the cursor in one of corners of the dialog box?

Translating that into English:

Open the Help > About EccoWin dialog.
Hold down Shift+Ctrl+Left Mouse button, then double-Right click on the bottom-right corner of the dialog box. The OK button will change to kO.
Keep holding Shift+Ctrl and dismiss the dialog box.

Extra cheats enabled.

Now the cheat menu, still accessed with Shift+Ctrl+Right click on the main window, will have additional items: Easy, CD check, and border.

The enhanced cheat menu.

Based on the game code, Easy seems to be intended to reduce the cooldown timer associated with dashing. However, the in-game effect wasn’t terribly noticeable to me.

CD check gets rid of the This program can only be run from the original CD! nag screen.

border seems to have been intended to put some sort of resource meter around the edge of the screen. It doesn’t actually seem to be functional in the retail version of the game, though.

With the Stage and Life cheats, perhaps you will become one of the few people who have actually seen the ending of Ecco.

The dolphins’ message to Ecco

Many thanks to Bobblen for suggesting this game for analysis! I’ll be back soon with more Rings of Saturn.

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Unearthing a 31 year old Easter egg in Ecco the Dolphin

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