Yesterday, an indie developer revealed that their game, A Dark Room, featured a Ruby interpreter and code editor within the game's files as an easter egg. Though the intentions were to inspire users to want to learn to code on their Nintendo Switch systems, and it was "tested thoroughly" to ensure that it couldn't be used as an exploit, offering such a capability was likely against Nintendo's developer ToS. The game was promptly pulled from all regional stores within a few hours of the announcement. A Dark Room initially released on the Nintendo Switch earlier this month, on April 12th. It remains to be seen if Nintendo will allow the game back on the eShop if the code functionality is removed, or if the game is permanently unavailable due to this.

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Discussion Thread

 

[caitsith2]

I did get the game when I first heard the news of the easter egg, before it was pulled. the game itself is good. I would be happy if they only have to remove the easter egg feature in order to be able to get the game back onto the eshop.

 

[raxadian]

Well, it did violate Nintendo rules. And remember what happened with the Gamecube? A Sega game included something they shouldn't and basically left a backdoor to hack the Gamecube.

 

[medoli900]

... But PetitComputer/Smile BASIC exist?
I'm confused. If Nintendo accept a literal coding interface on the DSi/3DS, why not on the Switch?
The only conclusion I can make is that Nintendo tested the interpreter and found an exploit.

 

[Captain_N]

Now you see why physical is better. It the game was on a cart then it cant be pulled..... Well i suppose it could be banned from booting.......

 

[fst312]

I’m sure enough people downloaded it but the question is, did enough unhack switch users download it, especially the ipatched switch’s. Maybe the ipatched switch’s would have really benefited from this.

 

[M7L7NK7]

 

[Pipistrele]

As much as I like to rant about Nintendo, I think this one is fully on Amir Rajan - not only he insisted on intentionally violating Nintendo's rules, but he also went full cocky and started immediately spreading info around like some kind of achievement. Say what you want, but I think it's highly unprofessional of him - at best, he put both his colleagues and current publisher at jeopardy without their consent; at worst, he just made everything worse for all the future indie developers by potentially forcing Nintendo to be more strict with their testing process.

 

[diggeloid]

How stupid do you have to be to do something like this? I wouldn't be surprised if this dev got permanently blacklisted by Nintendo from releasing future titles on their platform. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

 

[Vhestal]

This goes to show how weak and permissive Nintendo's Q&A department is.

 

[Creatable]

The Ruby interpreter allows http_get and there is an exploit in the interpreter, as indicated by Scires, meaning all you'd really have to do is eval a http_get to an exploit rather than having to type the entire thing out. Though each app is sandboxed so I wouldn't expect much, maybe just programs for regular users who are homebrew enthusiasts but don't want to get banned.

The fact that he seriously thought kids would get interested in a very hacky Ruby interpreter is kinda hilarious to me, because if a kid were to know about it, it would require that kid to understand Ruby and to decide to code in Ruby on their Switch rather than say... on their phone or tablet

"the first spark"
The fact that he thinks he's the start of some kind of coding revolution or something just shows how cocky he is.

 

[GerbilSoft]

I seem to remember more than one user who thought about doing something like this when the Nintendo Developers Portal was opened up to make it easier to register. It shouldn't be a surprise that it'll backfire once you're caught, either by Nintendo, a third-party developer, or by bragging about it yourself.

 

[Creatable]

I seem to remember more than one user who thought about doing something like this when the Nintendo Developers Portal was opened up to make it easier to register. It shouldn't be a surprise that it'll backfire once you're caught, either by Nintendo, a third-party developer, or by bragging about it yourself.

Most people who came up with that idea wanted to do it with something that could be an "accident" by basically intentionally including a bug that leads to code execution and pretending it was a mistake. This guy made a Ruby interpreter and just left it in his game and told everyone, that's not exactly the same thing

 

[Deleted User]

am i to silly for this or does this doesnt have a text output