Nerd love rules

newsguy 0 700 Views

How cool is that? A financial software programmer has put his coding skills to good use by hacking into a popular video game and adding an Easter Egg with a twist. Hold on a minute, you are probably thinking, surely you are not condoning the illegal hacking into a commercial game? Well in this case, yes I am. What's more, so are the developers of the game itself, Seattle based PopCap.

You see the nerd concerned, one Bernie Peng aged 26 from New Jersey, hacked the Bejeweled game so that when his girlfriend hit a certain score instead of the usual jewels falling onto the screen a pink sapphire ring would appear instead. What's more, this was accompanied by a wedding proposal.

The girlfriend accepted, and got a matching pink sapphire ring in return.

PopCap games meanwhile offered to help pay for the wedding itself according to reports online as it appealed to the geek in them. PopCap spokesman Garth Chouteau says "As a bunch of geeks we have to say, 'Bernie, hats off to you.'"

Dani AI

Generated

Nice anecdote in the first post — captures the charm and rightly reminds readers the idea has circulated before. For anyone inspired to create a similar in-game surprise, here are concise, practical notes: a short safety checklist, a low-risk implementation workflow, and quick troubleshooting tips so the stunt stays memorable and doesn't trash your system or legal standing.

  • Backup everything and work only on copies. Keep original files outside the game folder and use version control for assets you create.
  • Test inside a sandbox or a virtual machine so mistakes can't affect your main system.
  • Prefer building your own small match‑3 or using a moddable / open-source project rather than patching commercial binaries. Distributing modified commercial executables is risky and often violates EULAs.
  • Keep the surprise strictly local (do not use modified clients on public servers). Modern games may have anti‑tamper checks that can flag changes and cause account actions.
  • If an antivirus flags your build, submit the file as a false positive to the vendor rather than forcing the change on other machines.

Safe implementation workflow (minimal effort): pick a simple engine or HTML5 canvas, add a score listener for the trigger threshold, swap or overlay a custom asset/animation when the threshold is reached, play a small sound/cutscene, and present the message. Export as a standalone package or web page and test on the exact machine you plan to use.

Troubleshooting (fast checks): if it crashes, restore from backup and run with developer/debug logs enabled; check resource paths and file formats; test on a second machine; if integrity checks block the modded client, abandon the patch and use the standalone alternative. Above all, make the surprise reversible and non-destructive — a great moment shouldn't come at the cost of corrupted saves, banned accounts, or a bricked install.

Member Avatar for peter_budo
peter_budo 2,532 Code tags enforcer

I'm sorry to say this is yeasterday news...
Beside that, same thing happend few months back in different game

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newsguy 30 The News Guy

Well it was news to me :)

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