I had the opportunity to sit down wroth Todd Hays and discuss his company bringing back the iconic GameShark brand. For those that weren’t gaming in the 90s the GameShark was a device you could use with a variety of platforms to get the edge on the game. You could use it to get infinite lives, start on any stage, things like that.
The following interview has been paraphrased and approved by Todd and his team.
Ryan:
So Todd, I’ve been a fan of the game shark brand for a long time. When I first heard you guys were bringing the GameShark back, I was like, no, no way; It’s been too long but here we are. I understand that you’ve got this complete cheat code compendium coming. Is that the first thing that’s on the horizon?
Todd:
Yeah, that’s the first thing that’s on the horizon. We were fans of EGM’s Kickstarter, where they raised $1.8 million, and they did nothing more than develop a video game history book. A history book brought to you by EGM magazine, which we thought was cool, but we thought this could be so much cooler. Matt and I have been reading all the comments [the EGM history book campaign]. The problem with it is they started the campaign a year ago, raised all this money and they haven’t filled any orders. People are getting pissed off because they’re starting to think that maybe this is a scam or some bullsh** like that.
So what Matt and I have been doing, we’ve been very, very sensitive to the fact that we’re going to commit. Basically, the first way to support us in the Kickstarter is we’re going to basically say, hey, help us relaunch the brand. Buy a T-shirt or whatever else we may offer. The second product is The Complete Cheat Code Compendium Book. The book is a collectible book that has between 200 to 240 pages. These pages are going to be filled with QR codes for digital walkthroughs for a hundred of the toughest games ever made. It will also included codes for GameShark, Action Replay, and Game Genie. Anything legal or illegal, and anything that we can find on any and all of those old games. In addition to the initial book, there’s going to be, for I think another $20, I think we’re going to do the book plus a digital add-on that’s going to give you all of that same information for another 400 games; we’re going to go up to 500 games.
Provided we can sell enough of The Complete Cheat Code Compendium books, we can then look at launching the new take on the GameShark which is called the RetroShark. The RetroShark is a PC GameShark that works on all the old retro games. And it basically works through all the emulation systems. What we’ve done is we’re not using AI…well, we’re using a little tiny bit of AI. We use AI to locate where you are in the game, identify which game you’re in, and then be able to quickly point you to a series of AI agents that we’ve written per each one of these games that will give you several solutions for solving the problem that it appears that you’re about ready to face; that kind of thing.
Okay. So it’s going to, it’s going to compile all the Game Genie, all the GameShark, all the Code Breaker, all the Action Replay codes that ever existed into a single product. We’re going to train them into an AI agent. So you can say something like “Hey Retro Shark, I’m in trouble. Help, help me out. Then it’ll say, yes. I see you’re playing Goldeneye. I suggest infinite ammo with all guns unlocked. Then you say, yes, okay, give me that. And then it says, okay, your wish is my command. It gives it to you so that you can play with those old GameShark codes. Since there’s so many people that don’t know how to navigate and find GameShark codes through the emulation environment, we’re just kind of doing it all for you to make it easy and fun and all that.
Ryan:
So you’re going to have this AI companion essentially, and it’s going to analyze the games as you play and give you tips and things of that nature. Is there a limit to its integration? Like, are there emulators that it won’t support?
Todd:
Are there things that it won’t be able to? Yeah, there might be some obscure ones. We’ve done the analysis. Almost all of the games that matter are done through emulation on really the top four emulation. So we’re going to be completely integrated with at least the top four. And then over time, you know, we’ll just keep coding, and we’ll keep making it work. So I don’t foresee it being a real problem.
Ryan:
I assume this is going to be…actually, is this going to be a companion application that runs alongside the emulators, or is it going to be an extension of the emulators that it supports?
Todd:
It’ll be an extension of the emulators that it supports initially. Eventually it will also have the ability to connect through HDMI or whatever video signal you’re using. It may not be as amazing if it’s not through the emulation environment, because we’ll only be able to analyze the video stream. Depending upon how popular that game is, if it’s a really…you know, obscure Japanese title or something, it will do our best. I don’t want to say idiot proof, but I would like it to work as seamlessly as the emulators.
Ryan:
Would the Retro Shark support things like the 2600+, the 7800+, the Mod Retro Chromatic, the upcoming Mod Retro M64? Are those platforms going to be able to be supported?
Todd:
Yes, as long as the connectivity remains through some type of a, you know, television or some type of screen. One thing I want to make sure you…everybody knows is that we’ve taken a lot of negative press because of AI in general. A sh** ton of negative press and, and I’ve got two points I’d love to make.
First point is that we’re not going to allow this to work in tournament mode, right? We can tell whether you’re playing in a tournament or not. So we’ll be able to self-police because nobody wins if this device, you know, is used to flat out cheat…cheating isn’t cool. However, in a coaching environment where, where you’re allowed to practice whatever you want on your own. So you don’t have to jump on YouTube and you don’t have to search for 45 minutes and try to find the precise area of weakness that you’re falling into, you know, let the AI shark go find that for you. Use AI to be your search engine and bring it back to you in one-fifteenth of a second so that you know what’s going to happen next.
Ryan:
So it’s safe to say, I think, that what you guys are going for is a single-player-centric experience…is what I’m understanding this to be, which is awesome. So it won’t, if I’m correct, if you guys are going to supporting the current gen stuff with this AI shark, I’m assuming it’s intelligent enough to say, hey, you’re playing an online game. I’m going to go ahead and stop assisting. Is that correct?
Todd:
Exactly. Our product will not function or assist should it detect that you’re playing an online competitive game.
There’s another book called The Game Shark. It’s the behind-the-scenes thing. It’s a book that I wrote. There’s no walkthroughs or anything in there. It’s just all these really fun behind-the-scenes stories about Interact and me starting the company as a kid and all kinds of fun stuff. This book will be given to anyone that wants to support us by backing the Kickstarter; so they have something in their hands immediately.
In conclusion, I want to thank Todd for sitting down with me along with Matt helping to make this interview possible. As a fan of the GameShark and InterAct as a brand, I really want to see these products succeed.
If you’re a fan of the GameShark and want to get in on the ground floor to support this project, you can checkout the following link: get.retroshark.gg
Huge thanks again to Todd, Matt, and the rest of the team for taking the time to talk with us and for wanting to bring back such an iconic accessory back and into the modern era of gaming.
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.