Password (video games)
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In many
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s of the 1980s and 1990s, passwords are used to select a starting
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, or to restore the game to a particular state visited in a previous playthrough. Such passwords are given to the player when a level is beaten, or when all continues are used. Overlapping in many ways with cheat codes, passwords are distinguished from codes in that they are revealed to the player outright rather than hidden within the game code, and using them is generally not considered cheating. They are rarely used today, having been largely supplanted by saved games.


Rationale and history

Passwords were used when storage was either impossible or expensive. On early
ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, electroni ...
s, games could not be saved without an additional memory card being integrated into the game, significantly increasing (often doubling) the manufacturing cost. By using passwords, nothing needed to be written on the cartridge, as the password itself contained all the information needed to continue the game, and thus a memory card was not necessary, lowering costs. These costs were particularly a concern on low volume titles by smaller third-party developers. With the advent of optical based media at the tail end of the 16-bit era, data could not be stored on the game media, and a saved game required the introduction of non-volatile memory to the console either in the form of internal memory or
memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...
s which stored game data once the system was powered off; passwords avoided the need for this. In the fifth generation of video game consoles, passwords retained practical use in conserving memory blocks. Platform and
puzzle A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at th ...
games often required no data to be preserved other than the level achieved – which was easily encoded in a simple password – and thus using one of the limited blocks for this data was seen as wasteful. More importantly, some consoles of the time, such as the
PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...
and
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, had no memory available for saves out of the box, and the need to purchase separately sold memory cards could be a deterrent to purchasing a game. Some modern video games still use passwords as a homage to the early days of gaming, or for some other advantage, but they are now rare. Passwords, as with saved games, have been primarily used for home systems, but have found some use in arcades, as in ''
Gauntlet Legends ''Gauntlet Legends'' is an arcade game released in 1998 by Atari Games and Midway Games. It is a fantasy themed hack and slash styled dungeon crawl game, a sequel to 1985's popular '' Gauntlet'' and 1986's '' Gauntlet II'' and marks the fin ...
,'' which uses passwords to record player statistics/abilities and progress.


Non-alphanumeric

Non- alphanumeric password systems are possible. Instead of a string of letters and numbers, grid-based systems achieved some popularity in 1980s, which often took the form of a table of colored dots or other
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
s. These tables were generally much smaller than the virtual keyboard required for alphanumeric passwords, making password entry more efficient. Additionally, grid-based systems avoided the potential for the player confusing similar-looking alphanumeric symbols (e.g. lowercase "L", uppercase "I", and the numeral "1" appear identical or nearly identical on many displays).


Password length

If player progress consists only of one variable, such as the stage number, then a short password such as a single word suffices.
Algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
s can compress, encrypt, and otherwise manipulate save data containing many large variables. The less the algorithm encrypts, the more easily players may notice patterns, such as an increment by one every level. They can then exploit these patterns to
cheat Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cr ...
or even beat the game. With a little luck, even a long password can be discovered by chance, as was the case for the infamous JUSTIN BAILEY code from ''
Metroid is an action-adventure game franchise created by Nintendo. The player controls the bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from Space Pirate (Metroid), Space Pirates and other malevolent forces and their attempts to harness the powe ...
''. While any save information is convertible into password form, it is practical only for game progress consisting of fewer or smaller variables. Overlong passwords needed by games such as
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s with many large variables eventually cancels out the
usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...
benefits from generating a password.


Combinatorial linguistics

Since a player works with a password one character unit at a time, one way to simplify a password for a player's use would be to shorten it, to minimize the password length and maximize the pool of available symbols, making it informationally denser. Languages with more graphemes can more readily exploit this.
Enix was a Japanese video game publisher that produced video games, anime and manga. Enix is known for publishing the ''Dragon Quest'' series of role-playing video games. The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975, as . Th ...
's 1986 and 1987 Japanese Famicom releases of its highly successful first two ''
Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publi ...
'' RPGs used passwords composed from a set of 64 hiragana. However, the 1988 third game in the series and Nintendo's international releases of the first two for the
NES The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...
in 1989 and 1990 used battery-backed saves. This may be partly explained using Anglo-Japanese comparative symbology: *
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• 62 symbols if using all of (not including
punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
): ** numerals • 10 digits **
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
• 26 letters (or 52 with both
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
s) * Japanese • 228 symbols if using all of (not including
punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
or
kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
): ** numerals • 10 digits **
hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
and
katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
• 46 to 83 each (92 to 166 combined) ***46 basic
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...
(or 48 with rarely used
(: , : ) is a nearly-obsolete Japanese (Japanese phonetic characters, each of which represents one mora). The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent iin the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed th ...
and
in , or in , is a nearly obsolete Japanese . The combination of a W-column kana letter with in was introduced to represent ein the 19th century and 20th century. It is presumed that represented , and that and indicated different pronun ...
) ***9 or 10 small kana, "ぁぃぅぇぉっゃゅょ" and the rarely used "ゎ" ***25 voiced kana, such as "が" and "ぱ" **
romaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
• 26 letters (or 52 with both cases)


Modern use

The use of passwords for saving progress has been generally replaced by saves, while passwords have taken on the distinct role of adding in extra characters, vehicles, or weapons. For example, in '' Animal Crossing'', passwords are used for giving items to friends; players could trade in an item for a password, and their friend could enter in the password to receive that same item. A handful of games, such as the PC-Engine version of ''
Ys I & II is an action role-playing game compilation released by Hudson Soft and NEC for the PC Engine CD-ROM² in 1989 and TurboGrafx-CD in 1990. It consists of enhanced remakes of the first two ''Ys'' games by Nihon Falcom for the PC-8801 home compute ...
'' contained a password feature in addition to the conventional game save. In '' Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey'', every demon that the player can own has a unique password of thirty-two characters that can be used to summon that demon from the Compendium even if the player has never encountered it. If a demon created through fusion has different skills from its normal version, a different password will be stored in the Compendium along with the original password, allowing players to store custom demons. Many arcade games, such as the Initial D arcade game, use hashes to allow people to submit their fastest lap times to online score tables (though Initial D uses a proprietary magnetic card to save user data). The hash is used to stop people forging lap times. The password can then be entered on a website to have the time added online. An alternative to this is for the arcade consoles to be networked (internet-connected), as via Konami's e-Amusement system. It is also common in
Warcraft 3 ''Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', after '' Warcraft II: Tid ...
mods, where saving data between games is virtually impossible, but generating and reading passwords is not.


See also

* Saved game


References


External links


Video Game Password Generators
of ''
GT Advance Championship Racing ''GT Advance Championship Racing'', known in Japan as , is a racing game developed by MTO and published by THQ. It was a launch title for the Game Boy Advance. The game's sequel, '' GT Advance 2: Rally Racing'', was released on June 30, 2002 in N ...
'' - a game which was seriously hurt by the removal of a game save in favor of a password system {{video game gameplay Video game design