Hillyan News

Hillyan News

taking over the Beyond Good and Evil in-game website

2023-08-11

I've a huge fan of the game Beyond Good and Evil. It's an action-adventure game from 2003. I remember I got it from a $5 bargain bin, much like how I got Fallout.

When it came out, there was an in-game website. You'd hear a radio broadcast in the game saying to go to the website hillyannews.com. If you went to it in an actual browser, it'd be a website as if it was a news site for peope in the game. I thought this was really neat for the early internet.

Also with the game, when you went to the save screen, each save slot had an "internet code". On the site, you could find a "hacking" mini game, and also the "Darkroom" where you can enter the internet code from the save screen. This would give you stats about your game and a kind of ranking with other players that entered their code. But most importanty, it gave you a code to unlock a locker in a place in the game where your character could get one of the last collectibles.

I've been interested in how these codes work, similar to my other projects. I found that someone already fully reversed the internet code, which is a relief because I had no interest doing something like that again. But I do like making small web apps to crack codes like that.

I wanted to see if the original site was still up. It wasn't going to the original site last I looked, it redirected to a different Ubisoft site, the publisher of the game. But to my surprise it wasn't even redirecting. I thought no way they could have let the domain lapse right?

Looking up hillyannews.com with my domain registrar, I found it was available to purchase. Before I could beileve they let the domain lapse, the domain was already in my cart and I was already entering my credit card information to buy.

I am now the owner of hillyannews.com, the original in-game website for Beyond Good and Evil.

But what to put on the site? I didn't want to recreate the past site, copyright issues but also I wouldn't want to dig through the archives to make sure I got everything, and who knows if such an old site could still look good in browsers.

I decided to change the site, and make another small web app on the site like my QCRACK project. I also wanted to keep the website as if it was part of the game, so I made it to look like it was seized by the citizens of the game.

So go to the site you hear about in the game, load your internet code (or upload save files which also has the information) and get the last collectible in the game and see your other stats.

See you around Hillys.