How Do I Safely Dissect Source Code of an RPG Maker: VX Ace Game to Check if It's a Virus

[Rudostan]

One game is rumoured to be a virus and that's why it got taken down from Game Jolt. I would like to check this out myself. Does having the file merely downloaded on computer safe? Is it only dangerous if I launch the game? What are common places for putting hostile scripts?

 

[Shaz]

You can download a game and there is only a risk of getting a virus when you run it.

Nobody here is going to tell you how to "dissect" code of someone else's game - that's hacking and you can't get help to do it here.

I don't know if it's as much of an issue now, but I know a LOT of VX Ace games (and XP, and probably VX as well) used to get flagged as having a virus years ago. It was almost always a false positive.

 

[gstv87]

highly depends on how the game is compiled.
if it's the full packed game, you can't open it from the outside, but if it's the non-compiled build, you can put those files over a new project file and open them with the editor, even if you don't have the original editor file.
it won't work 100%, but you should be able to read the scripts file and look at the code.

additionally you can download a standalone Ruby interpreter and read the files from there, if you know the code.

 

[BCj]

Almost all VX Ace games get flagged as a potential virus these days, at least for me. Highly annoying.