SHIFT

An obvious "Portal" mock, "SHIFT" is very successful in telling people that it's only a SHIT comparing with "Portal".

pǝʇɟıɥs Badge (medium – 15 points)
Complete each stage.

I completed the game within 10 minutes on my first run and you should have no problem doing that as well.

This game is below my taste so I am not giving a walkthrough, though you can already find some on YouTube.

Rating



"SHIFT" is just yet another negative example of what any serious game developer should try best to avoid - losing own style. Ripping off all the "Portal" references and ideas, and the inversion space concept from Nitrome's "Yin Yang", I really don't think there's still any SHIT left in here. Perhaps a bunch of ugly black and white square boxes.

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Balloon Invasion

Doubtlessly, "Balloon Invasion" is the hardest badge game to hack on Kongregate to date, however its content is far less excellent when comparing with the paranoiac anti-hacking mechanism.

Thumb Tack Badge (easy – 5 points)
Complete any map on any difficulty.

There is no technique for this game - just click-click-click like an idiot till the end and you win.

It was very simple to do this with Cheat Engine when the game was first out:




But last I checked it, the author has made it into a root variable, probably since version 1.2 - the guy definitely checks around some major hacking communities.

Huge Manatee Badge (medium – 15 points)
Defeat the first boss on any difficulty.

If you are still wondering what the hell Greggy's been shitting about:




You can unlock the first secret level if your first five missions are all 5 stars, and completing that secret level gives you the badge as well. It's easier than the boss level.

Army of Lots Badge (hard – 30 points)
A commander is only as good as his units! Make heavy use of support reinforcements.

Not very hard either; you should be able to fulfill at least one of the three requirements for each boss level.

► Cheat

But if you want to save some fucking time, you can do this inside the Fuel of War mode and modify their costs to something like 10, spamming the sky with lots of these sperm-like reinforcements all you like.

Thunderous OPEC Guardian Badge (impossible – 60 points)
Completely rock.

Okay, so here finally comes the main point.

Some real asshole thought up a great idea of creating a badge that is worth of a precious amount of 200+ hours. 200+ precious hours of click-click-click and sperm-sperm-sperm. If you seriously enjoy doing this, I advice you to seek out a psychiatrist now immediately before it's too fucking late.

"Balloon Invasion", in spite of its boring gameplay, utilizes heavy countermeasures against hacking and cheating; there is first the root variable method against Cheat Engine, then the checksum method against .sol Editor, with commercial-level encryption that is yet decompilable. The encrypted ActionScript makes the usage of Katana or Niflheim difficult, and reverse engineering of the checksum calculation near impossible.

Fortunately, NightEternal - the creator of Muspell and Niflheim - eventually found us a method that defeats the evil checksum trick. The basic concept is, when the game is loading up a save, it uses various data inside the save to produce a "correct" checksum, to be compared with the checksum inside the save. Hence if we exchange the data inside the .sol file with any value we like, and have it load up by the game, for a single moment, the "correct" checksum that will make our hacked save works should exist inside somewhere of our RAM, only to be washed away a few instants later. With proper assembly language knowledge, however, it is possible to break the process and retrieve this "correct" checksum for our use.

If you are seasoned with assembly language, you may want to download this fine instruction written by NightEternal:

Balloon Invasion Assembly Debugging by NightEternal.pdf

Otherwise, you can download an already tampered .sol file directly, also made by NightEternal:

giabBalloonInvasionSaveData.7z

Although you will find yourself still having to waste somewhat 150+ minutes to complete the two last levels, it's certainly far better than 200+ hours.

Rating






Conclusively, "Balloon Invasion" is purely a shitty horrible nightmare. You give nothing other than 200+ hours of sperms fighting balloons, and you even don't let people play shit in their own way. The entertainment value is no wonder a plain and simple zero.

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StormWinds 1.5

"StormWinds 1.5", apparently the version 1.5 of StormWinds, sums up to nothing but a pathetic brain cell killer.

"Hold the Line!" Badge (easy – 5 points)
Destroy 25 enemies.

No, fucka. Don't tell me you are so dumb you can't do this.

When Kongregate Attacks Badge (medium – 15 points)
Destroy the evil forces of Kongregate before it's too late.

Okay, the sucka actually means that you need to score 10000 points in that particular challenge. And this honestly isn't very hard, considering there is a flaw in the score calculation that will reward you with 20000 points if you manage to get a 100% accuracy - even if you have only one shot fired:




Be aware though if you attempt the exploit above while having 4 Radio Plasmid Guns installed, you will get a fluffy -300% accuracy and a -60000 bonus instead.

Churchton Windchill Badge (hard – 30 points)
Complete 5 campaigns.

The sucka makes it as if you can choose 5 arbitrarily from a pool of many to complete, but the fact is unless you buy the "Deluxe" thing, you can choose nothing; there is only a total of 5.

So, any tips? No there isn't. You don't need tips when intelligence is not involved. This game is essentially your homey retarded shooter in disguise, the kind of "MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction" or "The Last Stand", that sort of cheapshit. Just buy a few Dual Machine Guns and pull the trigger till the end and ta-da, you win, congratulations. Good perfect for shit-dipping lameass teens.

► Cheat

Now if you want to cut down some waste of time (highly recommended) or have some fun, you can use Cheat Engine to modify the upgrade points of your gun towers:

[How to Kongregate] Cheat Engine in Action - Hacking StormWinds 1.5

Rating



It should be less than one star in my humble opinion, but the part fucking down big stupid Kongregate flying dickheads is not so awful it managed to redeem some rating.

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Campaign Game

"Campaign Game"! Wait, where the hell's John McCain?








The character set of the game's been a little bit outdated.

Million Dollar Candidate Badge (easy – 5 points)
Raise a total of $1,000,000.

You'll likely have this goal completed if you could win a hard game.

Diebold Hacker Badge (medium – 15 points)
Win a single-player "hard" election the true American way.

This can be challenging but should not be overly difficult; generally, if you want to pick up a relatively easier start, have a east-west setup rather than a north-south one:








The east-west setup enables you to capture some regions rapidly.








The north-south setup will make things even harder.

You will definitely want to have a fundraiser with you in the hard mode; for the other two slots I personally found maximizing your aggressiveness a very useful strategy, hence you can opt for two hatchetmen.

The rest depends on your playing style and actual situations, but overall: capture as many regions as soon as possible, be careful and use your brain. Remember the only thing you need to win the campaign is to destroy the opposing candidate alone.

► Cheat

You can use Cheat Engine to easily achieve an infinite money status:

[How to Kongregate] Raise Infinite Money for Your Own USA Campaign Game!

Rating



Conceptually this could be a fun game, but the truth is the lack of change in the way it's played will bore you out fairly soon just after a few rounds.

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Tighter Policy on Internet Slang & Shorthand

A tighter standard on the language usage throughout the whole site - the blog and the Forum - will be applied. Specifically, internet slang & shorthand will be grimly moderated. I never like the idea hacking being linked with the image of retarded teens not being able to spell correctly, yet it's such a prominent phenomenon inside the Forum I think it's time I need to do it the hard way.

So watch out your phrasing from now on - if you want to stay on this site.

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What's Next?

"How to Kongregate" has been a success I could only dream of when I first started out this all. Was like, "oh, great, there I found yet another interesting way to hack those fucking games! Must write it down somewhere!" and so this place I used to call "a tiny shelter" was created from null, never knowing it's going to become the thing it is today.

This blog has been playing a key role to many recent events inside the Kongregate community. Before "How to Kongregate", no one dared to challenge COCAK and their self-claimed "semi-official" status; the showing up of "How to Kongregate" destroyed the taboo of "there can only be COCAK" and see for yourself now how many Kong-related blogs have been set up one by one following the boom led by "How to Kongregate". Of course, they will never admit that they were inspired by "How to Kongregate"; those hypocrites are dying hard trying to maintain perfect profiles and keep great distances from the topics of their so-called "playing with impurities", going as far as neglecting the existence of this blog - but sadly for them, this will never work. As long as "How to Kongregate" being the sole blog facing honestly and unprejudicedly to the necessity of game hacking, this place will stand and thrive for the time to come. The little but helpful community mustered by our Forum is just the best to be a proof. While I never think it would grow into something being able to be on par with the Cheat Engine Forums - they make the software after all - I can say without a hesitance however that our community is doubtlessly among the most active ones for whatever that is related with Kongregate. I must thank you all who have participated in our Forum discussions so far for helping to make a fundamental difference between "How to Kongregate" and other Kong-sites. Please keep it up!

As for the main blog, you may notice it's not catching the things up as quick as you have hoped. For one it's because our community is doing an awesome job; oftentimes when I have spotted a new badge or two on Kongregate, I came back to the site and would see someone has already posted it with hacking details on the Forum; for two is due to the lack of challenging factors in recent badges - you should know about the way ActionScript 3 is doing already, just search for whatever you are seeing and voilà - which is a somewhat important source of motivation.

I think I will begin to write about some games that are good but are not on Kongregate, games I really like, better than trying to come up with some readable reviews for those awfully fucktard games just because junkasses inside the Kongregate office decided to put up a little propaganda for shits they've sponsored. That doesn't mean I am gonna stop all the badge articles and videos, no - I still need the ad revenues they generate to keep the Forum running - just that they will come after our community has discussed these games for a while, serving as refined notes for those who do not read our Forum; also, you're going to see some articles featuring games having nothing to do with badges and so on, but nothing too radical. Meanwhile I still plan to fill up each badge with a hacking guide one day, just with no definite date I could promise.

My appreciation again to all your support so far to "How to Kongregate", and wish you will like this slightly new direction of the blog.

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