As part of my efforts to create a network dumper for the game itself, I've written a generic game patching engine called the BrainSlug channel. I'm pleased to announce that the first version is ready, though it's still VERY primitive. The channel is capable of inserting modules written in C into any game that either wrap around or replace the game's methods, allowing us to add new functionality. My next task will be to use this ability to dump the network traffic to the SD card, but that will take quite a while, and in the meantime other people can be using the channel.

For a first test I've written a module that halves the games screen size and utilises the extra space to render a console window with the game's debugging output. The module also enables network debugging messages in games which have them. Hopefully this will help gain a bit more insight into what the game is thinking as it does the connections. So far I've tested it with a wide range of games and it seems to work across the board, although some games like Wii Sports don't actually have debugging messages (or have them disabled) and others like Brawl have too many!In the latest update I've made the console output also go to the SD card as GAMEID.log.

You can download a pre-packaged version of the channel with the console module (plus a USB gecko debugging module) here: chadsoft.co.uk/downloads/bslug-console-1.zip
Just extract it to the root of your SD card and launch via the Homebrew Channel. No special exploits are used or required, all patching occurs on the PPC core. It should work on Wii U, though at the moment it relies on the RESET button if things go wrong, which Wii U doesn't have for some reason.

The channel is open source and you can download it's cide at GitHub here: github.com/Chadderz121/brainslug-wii
The GitHub repository contains vast README files which explain how to develop new modules as well as the code for the console module and a template module for those interested.

and just to show off, here are some screen shots:




Edit: Update information on release v0.1.2.
The new release adds a libfat, libsd, libfat-sd and console-sd module. This outputs the same log messages as console-gx but writes them to GAMEID.log. In general the combination of libfat, libsd and libfat-sd allow modules to access the SD, which is useful in all sorts of ways.

I've just realised the zip and the repository had the debug="on" flag in bslug/symbols/ipc.xml. This means the channel will print out the address of the IOS methods then require you to press reset to start the game. I've updated the download and repostiory to prevent this. Redownload or edit the xml directly if you've already got it.


Ah, I'm suprised two modules can't replace the same symbol, I would've expected it to chain. What did happen? At any rate you could remove the gekko module temporarily.

Thanks for the heads up about mxml, I'd forgotten that prerequiste is not in libogc by default these days. Hopefully that's just for compiling the channel which people shouldn't generally need, as compiling the modules is far more interesting.


Toad King is right, I will have logging to the SD card, but it may take another week to finish realistically. I'm hoping slowed down video captures will provide necessary information in the meantime. If it's too fast you could add a delay to the logging code. You can also indidividually disable the various categories of DWC logging methods.


Yes, hopefully someone with more time than me can wire my code into one of the USB loaders (and perhaps just a nicer disc loader) to make a much more powerful channel. The specifications for the modules are implicit in the code, I can make them explicit in a file if necessary.


Yeah, my hope is that people can use this to do lots of other cool things. Normally developing extensions to games is horrific work, the CTGP-R menus took me 2 months. As of CTGP-R 1.03 we developed a system similar to BrainSlug (though far less general) but I realised it could be used by lots of people, hence this release.

I've just made a few minor changes. I've fixed the bug with multiple modules replacing the same symbol, that now works fine so you can use the https module and the gekko module at the same time now. I've added some symbols to the modules header: bslug_game_start and bslug_game_end which should make it easier to write patches like the https module. I've updated the main download with this new version. @Toad King I notice you added the bslug_include directory to the inc_dirs of the https module; this should be unecessary just `make install' in the root of the repository to add the headers to devkitpro/bslug, which will be searched automatically.

I've just made a new release v0.1.2. The new release adds a libfat, libsd, libfat-sd and console-sd module. This outputs the same log messages as console-gx but writes them to GAMEID.log. In general the combination of libfat, libsd and libfat-sd allow modules to access the SD, which is useful in all sorts of ways. I can now move on to making a network dumper to the SD.

Looks like you're missing libmxml. I mention it on the third line of the `Building' file. You won't need libmxml to build and develop modules, but you need it for compiling the channel.