Reverse Engineering Luck

In order to keep playthroughs as fresh as possible, video game developers often create environments and challenges which are impacted by chance; also known as RNG (random number generation). At our booth, visitors can expect to encounter academic topics concerning numerical sequences and probability as well as industry topics like problem solving in computer science. For the sake of recreation, much of what visitors will experience at our booth has a direct impact on many speed running communities.

Videos:

• An example of how speedrunners use the booth’s topics in their runs:
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hs451PfFzQ

Popular works:

• A few interview-driven explanations of the ways in which developers simulate randomness:
  • https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/how-classic-games-make-smart-use-of-random-number-generation

• The software used to build the tool featured in the YouTube link above is called Ghidra and it has an impact statement here:
  • https://www.nsa.gov/Press-Room/News-Highlights/Article/Article/3319971/four-years-later-the-impacts-of-ghidras-public-release/

Technical works:

• The best source of information about general uses of Ghidra. It has a few examples in the document that the reader can follow along with if they wanted to install the software:
  • https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3338503.3357725