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  • Author Author: Catwell
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Genius cheats on F2P games with Lego robot

Catwell

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It’s true, Uli Kilian is a genius. Earning a Guinness World Record in 2011 for solving 100 Rubik’s cubes during the London Marathon, the man is hailed worldwide for his wit. His newest project, however, is what he calls rudimentary – a Lego robot that plays free-to-play games for him while he sleeps.  It all began when Kilian was playing Jurassic Park Builder, an F2P iPad game that requires the gamer to tap the dinosaurs on the screen every few minutes to earn in-game currency. For gamers who don’t want to waste precious time better-spent-doing-anything-else-really, they can dish out real-world dollars to advance in the game to higher levels. Kilian, instead, decided to take a different route.

 

He decided the required tapping could easily be automated, as the screen needs to be tapped every few minutes. The Rubik’s cube genius thus built a Lego robot to do his F2P game bidding during the night while he got his beauty sleep.

 

The robot was build using an older iPad, mounted on top of a Technics wheel. The entire unit is powered by an Arduino board, connected to a nearby laptop with a Windows OS. Atop the board sits a Lego robot, which nods back and forth, tapping the iPad screen every so often with an Arduino ground pin wrapped in tin foil, simulating human touch.

 

Put simply, while Kilian sleeps, a motor slides the iPad screen back and forth, positioning it so when the Lego robot taps the screen, it taps the desired area. In the game, Killian has a row of 11 dinosaurs, which each generate game money every five minutes. By the time the 3D artist wakes up in the morning, the Lego has collected hundreds of thousands of coins for him. Good boy. Kilian said he heard about the Arduino board only two weeks before he built his Lego robot and assures everyone that its the type of simple design that anyone can do (anyone that’s smart enough to solve a Rubik’s cube maybe).

 

Regardless, it’s a genius form of cheating and although it’s just a tad bit dishonest, who really wants to waste weeks of their life collecting coins for FarmVille or any other F2P game? Not Kilian and certainly not us. Cheat on gamers, cheat on.



C

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  • in reply to DAB

    There's almost an entire economy behind stuff like this.

     

    For example in the game Star Wars Galaxies people had their computer systems running automated, scripted bots doing actions that completed quests in the game to achieve in-game currency.

     

    They then sold that currency for real-world cash to other people or larger dealers who sold it in bulk.

     

    If coins can be traded on the ipad game, then this could easily replicate.

     

    That aside, a lot of games such as this on the ipad use coins in this manner to limit progression in the game, working on the psychological point of frustration that unlocking it is just an easy purchase away (go on, just press this button and you can progress! reward!).

     

    Automating it, removes that artificial blockage and allows you to play the game, potentially.

  • I guess if your only reason to play the game is to accumulate points while you sleep, I fail to see any reason to play it at all.

     

    I remember a few years ago I saw a video where people would hire others to play their character to build up their points.

     

    I suspect these are the same people who claim they never have enough time to do their work.

     

    Just a thought,

    DAB