Making a "fake image" from values in-game? (so you can't rip the sprite)

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  • I'm planning to make a pixel game in the style of NES games, and I want to hear if this little thing would be possible in an extension.

    Basically, I'd want to have a secret character/entity whom I'd like to remain a secret until discovered deep in the game, and not by—for example—ripping the sprites out of the game.
    The sprite would be extremely simplistic, in a size of something like 32x32 pixels (or smaller, maybe). Only using up to 3 colors; transparent, black, and white (or just 2 colors if it's necessary).

    I'm thinking of a 32x32 array that would hold values like 0, 1, 2 (each representing a predefined color), which could then be interpreted into a "fake image".
    I'm saying "fake" because it shouldn't be an actual bitmap file which is generated at runtime, because then it would be rip-able from RAM when the game is running.
    I'm not that big on graphics-programming, but I imagine there could be a way to have a particle-like system to host a bunch of 1-pixel-sized objects with a color corresponding to that objects coordinate in the array, and then maybe even have the transparent ones be non-existent if possible. Or maybe by utilizing some form of vector-graphics if that's possible in Clickteam. If this "sprite" should be animated then it wouldn't be any more than 2 frames.

    This thing would be solely to have an actual secret which won't just be ripped from the game, I realise that hardcore hackers could find this secret but since everyone can rip textures these days I imagine that doing this would go a long way to secure the secret.

    Any answer/help is appreciated.

  • Personally I don't think it's worth going that far.

    Animating and coordinating a generated sprite like that at runtime sounds like a problem that you only need if your game is notorious and already has a community dedicated to finding such things, such as that of The Binding of Isaac, where there's a huge and passionate playerbase.

    If you haven't got a playerbase such as that yet I think you are working too pre-emptively.

    If you do want to do something like this - then I'd instead recommend that you hold the sprite data as images on a server somewhere, and then have the game get the images from the server after the fulfilment of the unlocking conditions. That way the sprite isn't embedded in your application.

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  • To me, that sounds more complicated than doing what I'm trying to do.

    I think this is actually a very simple task because of the fact that the sprite would be very small, and only have 2-3 different colors (including transparency).

    I'm not trying to do this because I know people will rip all the sprites out of the game to find all the secrets, I'm doing this in case people will do it. I haven't heard of any game that's done this exact kind of thing before (at least not for this exact purpose), so I thought I'd give it a shot.

  • Or you could use a various encryption object, and include the file with it, but then decode it when needed. There's plenty in my extension list (link in my sig).

    Darkwire Software Lead Programmer (C++ & C#)
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