Cheat Engine

[Rydian]

So with older/simpler games on a custom engine (such as Cave Story), I can generally browse for the hex of the ASM I want to change inside Doukutsu.exe, make the edits, and bam I have a cracked/modified copy of the EXE (so I can make a patch, etc.)

Of course, if the executable is packed or encrypted in any sort of way, that doesn't work. Is there any easy way to get around that?

[++METHOS]

First, you have to identify the packer. You can use PEiD to do that. Once identified, use PEiD or some specific unpacker to unprotect the .exe.

[Rydian]

[Gniarf]

...Or make a loader that will start the game, wait until decryption is done and apply your patch. d i a b l o2oo2's* Universal Patcher can do that if you're able to find a dword that tells when the decryption/unpacking is finished.

*sorry for the spaces, wordfilters think it's an rpg from blizzard.

[TsTg]

PE identifier tools:

-RDG Packer Detector
-Exeinfo PE
-ProtectionID

they all are good apps to try

[Rydian]

So I tried BIT.TRIP RUNNER (steam version) as a test (since it doesn't appear to be flash with a launcher), but none of the programs were able to detect anything specific, other than ProtectionID noting that it had Steam security in it.

Yet when I bring it into a hex editor, I can't see any of the 'raw' ASM like I do with other simpler executables (nethack, Cave Story, etc.)

Is there some essential step I'm missing due to my inexperience?

[TsTg]

did you try editing it in ollydbg ?
and can you post the entrypoint bytes here

[Rydian]

Tried opening it in Olly 1.10, got these messages...





And while it appears to open fine, the code there does not match what I see in CE's memory viewer. I even tried searching the main CPU thread window for just "7C 05", and while it found some entries, none of them seemed to be what I'm looking for.

For reference, this is the note I saved on the mod I'm trying to do as an example.