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SNES Code Injection – Flappy Bird in SMW

The art of hacking has always amazed me. One of my favorite projects in this vein is SethBling pulling off the first human made SNES code injection. By chaining together software vulnerabilities in Super Mario World, SethBling injected the entire Flappy Bird source code into unused portions of SNES system memory. The result is that he successfully managed to play an entirely different game inside of Super Mario World on an off-the-shelf SNES system.

I admire this project for the tenacity and insanity of it. It’s a really impressive feat, and it goes to show that even commercial video game systems are hackable. SethBling had help from SNES hackers p4plus2 and MrCheeze who wrote the assembly code for Flappy Bird and found many of the vulnerabilities in the game. The three of them I’m sure have been inspired by the SNES hacking community, and likely many of the other most famous video game exploits such as the backwards-jump glitch in Super Mario 64 that allowed hackers to complete the game early.

I’m looking forward to see what other exploits they come up with, and hopefully when I get a chance to pick up a new hobby, I’ll be able to join in.

The full exploit:

Here’s the final part of the exploit: