Debug Mode [Programming & Tech]
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- Today I'll talk about "debug mode," an invaluable tool that helps development proceed smoothly. You might even catch a tiny snippet of debug footage I normally wouldn't be able to share with the public.
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I found it interesting that Sakurai mentioned how debug modes are mostly stripped out of games by the time they release these days... that wasn't necessarily true in the past. There are plenty of older games where you can at least partially access the debug mode via cheats or hacks, and sometimes even with in-game codes. I always found it fascinating to be able to play around with the debug mode features that ultimately made it into the final game.
He did say "nowadays"
It depends on the implementation.
The most usual thing is to have a compilation flag that decides that certain parts of the code are stripped at release. But sometimes, coders only put it in the call, not the methods or classes used to debug. It makes it possible to find ways to access it.
Another option that sometimes is used, as in Cities Skylines II, and a lot of old games, is to add command prompt params for this. But it is too easy to crack.
Debug mode is one of the most important things needed when you implement a game. You need to be able to tune the values. To test things is something incredible time consuming
@@rafaelleone678Ah, yeah, that was kinda the point I was trying to make - it's usually in the older games where you find the debug stuff still lying around. I don't generally expect it nowadays.
@@emptyset1312That's what he said in the video
A lot of times a few decades ago, either they simply forgot to remove such modes, or left them hard to access so that it'd be easy to debug for a revision later in life.
However, with recent games implementing online connectivity or in game purchases, leaving game processes exposed can either trivialize the game or even be dangerous to other players.
Sakurai: My explanation may be somewhat lacking
Also Sakurai: *explains everything in a very structured and detailed manner*
Some debug modes end up revealing interesting things about the internal workings of a game. For example, the GBA Fire Emblem debug modes were how I learned that individual enemies have AI behaviors set, including things like "open doors/chests" (likely for Thieves) and "move towards [various NPCs]" (enemies in protection missions). There was also one specifically labelled "don't attack Nino", which was how I discovered some of the Black Fang bosses won't fight her. (Strangely this AI flag still exists in Sacred Stones, where there's no Nino) You can also set the HP threshold at which individual enemies retreat to heal.
I learned most of that too, but using a program called FEGBABuilder, that can be used to edit the ROM and create your own Rom hacks. The secrets I learned from that game still impresses me to this day, like secret or unused dialogues, how some items work, unused animations and sprites, etc.
Do you remember what Black Fang bosses won't attack Nino? If I had to guess it would be Lloyd and Linus but I'm curious if there were others.
@@xalrons4831 It's just Lloyd. Linus is not as receptive as he has a very angry battle convo with Nino instead of a Talk.
god i love this comment thread
@@Flametix Thank you, I barely ever use Nino so I never see her battle conversations with any of the bosses.
1:47 I'm starting to see how Sakurai got good at using two controllers during the Smash Ultimate presentations...
There's a key aspect of debug mode that is glossed over: getting to a specific part of the game to test a feature without having to play to that point. If you're a dev, you should always leave backdoors to get to any part faster than the player.
That feature can be both a blessing and a curse. Like if there's a campaign mode, and you use the debug menu to jump to certain chapters, you may encounter a bug that could have been caused by the using the debug menu. So most of the time, testers would have to speed run to that point in the story to make sure it occurs naturally.
@@LightsJusticeZ Alternatively, you could just treat debug-mode reports was real bugs, essentially treating debug mode as a first class citizen. After all, your testers could be considered "users" of your software too, even if they're not _end_ users. That kind of thinking ultimately enabled Nier: Automata's chapter select feature to "just work" without much risk of things falling apart.
What's more worrisome is bugs that only occur _outside_ of debug mode. Good luck reproducing those monstrosities.
@@LightsJusticeZ What I've experienced is that testing the same parts for a thousand of times can get *really* tiresome. Testing the full game then becomes a monotonous 'Speedrunner' mentality and that can also result into glossing over other details just by playing the game in the optimal way.
@@LightsJusticeZ I don't think that is much of a curse really. Designing your game in such a robust way that you could jump between levels without too many issues is probably good even if we ignore the debug mode teleporting. For example if you later need to remove a level or change the order of levels. So I think most of the bugs that you could encounter because of using the debug mode like that should probably often have been dealt with either way.
You will still need to test your game in the intended way many times through its development to make sure it flows well, that the difficulty increases at a reasonable pace and so on.
The debug feature of turning fighters around would be really fun to have in the photo mode of the finished game as well.
Final Smashes too.
In Unreal Engine, the stripping of Debug mode is done pretty much automatically. Within the code, you can use "directives" to specify a set of lines used only for development builds. When compiling the game, you specify what kind of build it is (Development and Shipping being the two main ones), and the compiler will understand the directives and strip all these lines from the built version, as if they weren't written in the first place. So there's no worries of accidentally forgetting to strip away debug features.
Unity has a very similar feature, if not the "exact same" feature (in quotes, as the code behind it almost certainly differs).
With it, you can set up code that only happens in the editor or when playing the game through the editor or other states, then that code is ignored otherwise (so not fully stripped out, but it won't have any effect for public releases other than a very small increase in storage use).
Actually, your mention of different builds jogged my memory that Unity does have different build options that include debug builds, so that probably functions very similar to what you have described.
No idea as to what game engine came up with the idea first (or if it was even either of these), but it's obviously quite the handy feature.
More generally, some programming languages also feature pre-processor directives. If you use those with identifiers, depending on what configuration you want to use, some parts of your code will be stripped when building the program.
#if DEBUG
SomeCodeHere();
#endif
unreal engine also has the CheatManager.
which is cleaner and more maintaiable than filling your code with ifdefs.
as a side note for unreal. theres also the CheatManager which is quite convenient too.
This is pretty standard for a lot of programming languages. You see it used in non-game software development as well!
I wish more games today would just leave them in. I remember loving the debug mode in tony hawk 3, you could fly the camera anywhere you wanted, I spent way too much time just flying around enjoying the view.
My first experience with debug mode in a game was back in Sonic 2. Those were good times abusing the hell out of rings and fighting the Death Egg Robot with a fair chance!
Love Debug Modes and Menus. I was always immediately fascinated by any game that had one as a kid and even sought them out. Sonic's Debug Mode in particular was really fun, setting up all kinds of things and learning how they worked. Sometimes they just have fun elements too, like EarthBound's Debug Menu using Kirby as a cursor.
Debug mode was a blast to discover in older games.
As an indie developer, This channel is a great tool to learn some development tips
I really enjoy these!
Debug mode is important in any game, Sonic didn't even take it out of the final game
If it's functions are kinda basic it can be an great addition for players to also play with, as long there is not stuff the devs really want to hide from others of course
I love when debug modes are left in games. Both for convenience (getting stuck in areas and needing to Noclip and stuff like that) also just the fun of messing around and seeing what happens. Though, as he hinted at, it is likely they can be very glitchy but that is generally just accepted.
1:29 Luigi Missile
It's hard to replenish ammo for those.
Oh damn, I didn't even notice that the first time since I was focused on Samus. My brain just filled Luigi in as the green Super Missile...
Aah, so that's how you gained these screenshots! thanks for sharing this Mr Sakurai!
I love when games are released with debug mode intact, even if that's unintentional. It's so fascinating to experience the tools that the devs used, and it provides a window into understanding how a game actually works. Super cool stuff
Facilitating playtesting is a blessing, for sure
I miss the days when lots of games kept their debug mode in the final game!! The SNES days in particular had tons of these!
The debug mode features in Pikmin 1 on GCN are really a treat, showing useful route, collision, and AI info. Developers, please continue leaving debug features behind hidden flags in memory. :P
They left an entire Windows version of the game on the disc lmao
@@Krexxal yes
up up down down left right left right B+A
Thanks for the reminder to flesh out the debug features...I added some to my current project but I think I could go deeper with it now that most of the workflow pipelines are set up.
1:45 very famously, MegaMan 3 still has these enabled.
I love debug modes, they can do whatever you want, really and they're so great to make games easier.
One thing to remember about using debug mode as a player is that you are getting developer power - which means that if you do not know exactly what you are doing, you can risk breaking your save. Always fiddle around in debug mode as a player with backups made first. You can learn a lot of neat stuff this way, so if you are inquisitive and tech savvy, have fun.
Great information about Debug Mode!😄👍 I’ve always been wondering about the Debug thing whenever I see it during End Credits of games.
I haven’t played much of Smash but I love how that photo mode lets you single step through each frame. Most
RPG photo modes are just there to let you pose your characters in front of something in the background.
Like - I wish FF 7 Remake let the player pause the battle and slowly advance time so you can see the animations
Debug Modes are as Mr. Sakurai explains, they are very useful for game development, testing features and even having fun taking cool, silly or funny screenshots.
I love debug modes so much. I miss when they were in every final game, just about.
I remember, back in the early days of the internet (the late SNES era), I stumbled upon somebody's list of SNES Game Genie codes for Super Mario Kart. One of them seemed to activate a "debug mode" of sorts which mapped most controller buttons to shoot/use a specific item. You could still accelerate and steer (and access the pause menu), but it was wild.
I had a tool for displaying type matchups in a game of mine (think pokemon types), as well as attack data and such. I found it so useful I added it to the game proper in the info/wiki section (after a visual cleanup, of course).
Some games have an easy to access (partial) debug mode for players to mess around in if they wish. But some older games had also lots of cheats which where created for testing or debug purposes
I like to think that the cheat codes in older games were used as debug features as well. And are left in because it allows for content to discover.
You can sort of see the debug images in the Congratulations and Challenges.
That certainly explains all those Smash pics he posted. Always figured he was using something like this, but admittedly, there was a part of me that wondered if he didn't somehow manage to line everything up in game.
A couple notes on how I’ve used Debug Mode:
1 - Instantly skip titles and boot the game directly to the level I’m working on (sometimes down to the specific checkpoint within that level).
2 - Disable music (or set music volume to zero) since you get pretty tired of hearing it during testing.
3 - Instantly setting enemies to 1 HP to make sure the “end of battle” menus work as intended.
4 - Enable extra UI / HUD elements that list out information which is otherwise invisible to the player.
Just wanna let you know Masahiro-san, I’ve been listening to the full Kid Icarus Uprising soundtrack. Wanna congratulate the team for such an awesome game, and the composer/composers and orchestra for such a great soundtrack.
I never realized how important it'd be for a solodev, so that you don't have to do things like "setting Fox's forward tilt to 100%" for testing
Hoo boy, I can tell that alot of Sonic fans are having a field day with the topic of this video's discussion...
Also, the imagery of Link casually spinning around while frozen in place is way too funny to me.
I remember abusing from the Sonic mania's debug mode and absolutely loving it ^^
I have such fun memories with the debug mode in the SEGA Genesis Sonic classics! ︎💙
Ah debug mode. A Sonic Mania fan’s best friend.
If you plug in a second controller while playing Mega Man 3, you can access a super jump, which also allows you to jump out of pits. You can also do some funky stuff with the animations.
Debugging is so important!
Some are much more extensive than others, too. For example, as revealed in the Persona 5 beta builds, a complex Windows-like GUI controllable via KB/M lies within the game, and there are full-featured editors within, like for cutscenes and VFX. It's possible that a good chunk of content development was done on the PS3 rather than on a PC.
You make learning fun and easy. Kudos to you!
I imagine this is the main reason cheat codes were so prominent in the early days of gaming. I imagine you developers back then didn't have a way to test a game on their own machine easily, so you'd implement a level select and hide it behind a button combo so that you could quickly test a new change.
Always best to fix video games before launch to never rely on patches in current events.
“Standard practice for games to ship with their debug modes completely stripped out”
Meanwhile, VALVe games:
sv_cheats 1
impulse 101
I'm honestly shocked nobody mentioned Skyrim (and bethesda games as a whole) who are notorious for their free to use debug console.
1:32 it’s so cursed to see Link move like that 😂
An earlier example of a debug making it into a finished game would be Famicom/NES game Gradius. The konami code in the game gave you full powers. The programmer found the game too hard and put that in the game so he could have a chance in later levels. Never took it out thankfully
I wish there was a debug mode in Smash, or something similar to it so that I could make pictures like Sakurai's Pic of the Day.
I remember debug mode on old Sonic games
The Sonic the Hedgehog series is famous for leaving its Debug Modes in the classic games
I've been struggling with this topic, but your video cleared it up for me. Thanks a ton!
Debug modes are almost extinct nowadays! Bring back debug mode!
1:32 Had to do a double take on that image! Wow!
Leaving debug modes in final versions might not be the best idea... for example they can be used to create inappropriate images (GTA Vice City and its Hot Coffee incident, or Idolmasters Shiny Festa on PSP all about coaching little girls to be idols and the debug mode allows for any pose for the 3D models and it led to... disastrous media coverage for the game), they can cause glitches that cause games to fail cert (very easy with full control to use it as a backdoor to crack the console security after all) or used in footages that lead to player impressions that the game is buggy, some of them expose cut or placeholder content that's too unstable... Some greedy publishers will think they're a win button that invalidates their easy mode dlcs and monetization.
That's not to say developers shouldn't add them back as legitimate features: stuff like invincibility, level skips, instant unlocks, infinite ammo... were added back as legitimate cheats and passwords, and they had safeguards added back. Sometimes even crash handlers were kept in and coupled with helpful features (reset to earlier point with save flags fixed to avoid the unwinnable scenario), sound tests and screen tests are included as legit features, test rooms to play around with abilities were dressed up and included in many fighters and kirby games, the map viewer is included as a free camera option (just with some restrictions) and some games even offer their debug content in the open behind obscure undisclosed requirements, some even inspire legit features like the debug mode for mega man 3 that saves the player from bottomless pits that became so frequent in platforms or the flying ability in Super Mario Galaxy or the P-wing in SMB3 or the item duplicator in castlevania sotn or the dungeon escape/no encounter/fast walking items in so many rpgs...
Memory edits and flag edits are too risky to leave in other than gdb link and external interfaces linked to the game (afaik that was a thing even as early as SNES) and unrestricted monster/item/equipment manipulation is just asking for a missingno situation. Some debug modes have scene lists or numbers that are really interesting especially when they're handpicked and save/flag configurations already set for them. Collision/stat viewers are really useful for fighters too but may ruin some of the magic (like zelda totk that removed the item from botw that showed numerical stats because some of the programming magic behind the scenes would be ruined since some special enemies have deceptive appearance compared to their actual hp)... debug modes also expose flaws in the game, like useless stats the player wouldn't notice otherwise (like luck and evasion being useless in some rpgs)...
All of this will probably be untranslated so it would give the impression of an unpolished game except when done right.
nice! thanks sakurai! great information!
The only debug mode I have played around in game was in Sonic Origins
Great video!
I'm surprised he didn't show debug modes from any commercial releases, like Sonic the Hedgehog 3
as many others have said...Sonic 2! As a kid, I think I found a debug-esque mode in NES rambo by inputting "0" in the password screen. I thought i was some kinda genius haha/
I'm very surprised Nintendo let you show that off
I love this channel!
You get used to debug modes if you play PC games. Bethesda and Valve are particularly famous for letting the player tap the tile (~) key and turn the game into their very own sandbox.
Welp there it is then and as you can already guess by the comments here some devs even made it as a feature for some games isn't that nice of them?😌
But I still won't underestimate the fact that it is a time saver on the more professional side as well.
Beyond useful.
On a related note, what exactly is a devkit? I'm not in game development (yet), so all I've seen of them are these slightly-odd-looking versions of game consoles that most likely are at least used for game testing. Is that it, or is there more to it?
0:12 *troll face quest flashbacks*
I'm surprised he didn't use examples/footage from games that purposely leave in debug modes players have access to, like the Genesis Sonics
I think those cheat codes in old games were just debug code that the devs left in to get around their games faster.
Some cheat codes, yeah, like the Konami Code, but some seem more like jokes from the devs for gamers to find.
love debug mode
There are games those allow players to interact with the Debug Mode in order to develop their own mods, such as The Binding of Isaac
Dang you can turn the fighters in ultimate's!
Great!
for RPG maker, I simply can set the spawn to a certain map and add a automatic event that gives you the level you should be around in regular gameplay. and there's testfights in the enemy menu for quick checks.
💖
Cool
So debug mode is like a photo mode LOL
maybe 1 day I'll make my own game It might be hard though 😯😯🎆✨️🎇🌟
Noice🎉
Nics
I wonder why he couldn't show much footage even though we've known about this mode for years and the game is entirely complete. It wouldn't be giving out any trade secrets to show it.
A dress that swings around is a fun physics idea, while still being like a video game.
Why couldn't he show much actual footage? 🤔
Some of the technology used is under strict confidentiality.
So, is this what he's doing for a living now?
SMASH 64 DIDN'T HAD A DEBUG MODE?????
pp poo poo