Game devs wake up and choose violence, randomly crank values in their code to 1,000 just to see what happens: "I could definitely make this a game mode"

News
By published

The devs behind Cult of the Lamb, Balatro, and more are taking part

Cult of the Lamb
(Image credit: Massive Monster)

Game developers are sharing the delightful chaos that ensues when you take a random line of code in a video game and crank it up to 1,000.

In the pure spirit of fun, Tyler Glaiel, known for The End is Nigh, Bombernauts, The Basement Collection, and the upcoming Mewgenics, recently urged developers to "take a short break" and take part in an experiment that's already yielding an array of wildly entertaining behind-the-scenes videos of games being utterly broken just for the fun of it.

"If you're currently working on a video game, take a short break, pick a number in your code or data files, multiply it by 1000, and post the results," Glaiel said, kicking off the trend with a clip from Mewgenics in which a cat character's attack animation is turned into piñata of blood and guts.

Other game developers were quick to follow suit with their own, uh, experiments. LocalThunk, the solo developer behind the smash hit roguelike deckbuilder Balatro, shared what happens when the Hanging Chad Joker is modified to trigger a card 2,000 additional times instead of just twice as usual. The fact that this absolutely mad scenario can actually run without breaking the game's UI or animations is actually pretty incredible.

Aaron San Filippo, the outspoken director of Whisker Squadron: Survivor, shared a clip of the roguelite's player character firing off 1,000 homing missiles all at once, utterly decimating everything on screen. Inversely, the developer behind a game "about a delivery man with the worst luck" shared a clip in which this particular delivery man has much, much worse luck than usual, adding, "I could definitely turn this into a game mdoe."

Meanwhile, the creator of the "light horror experience" La Peradilla yeeted a steel barrel into the actual sun.

Now watch this disgruntled grandma make a home run out of her handyman in this hilarious clip from Kirt Olson, head of World's Worst Handyman studio Baby Lumberjack.

Harrison Gibbins, head of programming at Cult of the Lamb studio Massive Monster, shared a crappy scene that'd be good for your crops and just about nothing else.

I also giggled at this clip from Abyss X Zero developer Fernanda Dias showing that the results of this experiment in randomization aren't necessarily chaotic - sometimes they're just slow and tedious.

Finally, in what is perhaps the most viscerally satisfying clip, watch the devs behind the fighting game Combo Devils supercharge hit power to send one of the characters bouncing back-and-forth between two walls dozens of times before finally losing inertia and crashing to the ground in glorious defeat.

I'm a big fan of this now-viral trend for two reasons: It gets more eyes on indie games and it provides a ton of dumb fun entertainment that'll presumably continue as more and more devs share their results.

Had enough fun? Head over to our list of upcoming indie games to see what's on the horizon.

Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick
Staff Writer

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.