At first he had assumed that the machine code contained straightforward instructions for some new game-play the programmer had been creating. Every programmer has their own style; their own fingerprint as Richard Grey liked to call it and knowing who had written this particular piece of code, he was intrigued as to why Paul de Freitas had chosen to use machine code and not some much simpler computer language to develop what was, on the face of it, a relatively simple patch for an existing game. All programming for games was created with back doors to allow the programmer to test out the elements of the game without the need for actually playing through entire levels. Regular players with a modicum of technical knowledge took delight in discovering these illicit ways in – hence the proliferation of forums and discussion sites for gamers where ‘cheats’ were exchanged and discussed. Far from being worried about this, many games designers would insert ‘easter eggs’, which were little surprises and prizes for those clever enough to figure things out.
