The two examples that come to mind are Mario World and Paper Mario, where custom code injections are frequently used by speed runners (credit warps) or even to write custom programs within the game like Flappy Bird which Sethbling did. What is it about the design of these games which allow for this type of manipulation, whilst in other games this isn’t possible?
In: Technology
It’s based on how the games store information.
You can think of all saved data as either memory or storage.
Anything in storage like save files is put there and saved. If you close the game and open it again, that data will still be there. It’s kind of like a filing cabinet.
Anything in memory is stuff that the game is actively holding and looking at. If you shut down the game, what is stored on the memory is trashed.
What allows code injection in games like Mario World and Paper Mario is basically how the games handle their memory and what they do store. The more complex a game, the more complex the storage of its memory is. In a game like God of War, you have this super complex world and so trying to save anything in memory could be hundreds of lines of code. Meanwhile in games like Super Mario, the storage of where a powerup was picked up is as simple as an x,y coordinate and a data tag for the powerup.
For a real world way to think about it. Imagine trying to explain to your friend where a coin is in a messy house. You would have to explain many different things to them in order for them to find the coin. Meanwhile, if the coin was in a blank room, telling them where it is would be very simple. Inerting code is just a bunch of those very simple directions that can be read as something else when put together.
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