-- Question about cheat codes -- *Curious*

No Im not asking for cheats lol. Im just curious, I dont know much about computers and programming and all that and this issue has been bugging me..... so I have a question for those of you well-versed in all of this:

How do cheat-codes in Comanche 4 (and other games) come about in the first place? Do the game developers themselves "bury" the cheats in the game for fun?

Or do people just examine the software code of the game itself and manupulate it to create a cheat?

Im talking about the cheats well-known to FPS-players where u press the ~ key and then type in some moronic sentence or word and u get infinte ammo..etc...etc...

Thx :)

[Edited on 2-12-2003 by HardcoreUproar]

Imagine you are creating a game, and you dont want to log in, pick the game, etc, etc everytime you want to test a change in the code. well, you make a "back door" so you can get in quick and test your changes. If you want to see how objects interact with each other, sometimes you have to be invisible, unkillable, etc. or you won't be able to see what's happening so you can fix it. Unfortunately, most of this stuff gets left in the code, along with some intentional jokes and easter eggs when the code is finally shipped cause everything is always rush rush rush, so there you have it. "Finished" code with all sorts of bugs. Plus if you got fired or sent on another project and someone else took over, you might have 2x the bugs. Multiply this by all involved in the project, and you have the buggy game, operating system, or whatever. If you have a company that doesnt care to fix it and come out with prompt patches, then it just gets multiplied again.

Well put !

Yup, thanks for the explanation.

Nice wiper

Thanx 4 d explanation Wiper. V interesting!