Password Match Tetris 99

[Aide Broeckel]

Onlinefeatures refers to any aspects of a video game that require an internet connection to function. Games in the Kirby series tend to be largely (if not completely) offline and local experiences, even in eras that follow mass commercialization of the internet, but many more recent titles feature some form of online interactivity. The following lists online features by game in chronological order (note that this list does not include local area network (LAN), local Wi-Fi (such as StreetPass), links to external services such as Miiverse or the Nintendo eShop, or other such features that do not impact gameplay):

The eight games in Kirby's Toy Box were made available for limited stretches of time via Nintendo's Satellaview service. An internet connection was required to access these games, though the games themselves featured no additional online functionality.

In Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, players can enlist the help of "Wandering Adventurers", CPU-controlled characters. With an internet connection, one could download adventurers based on other players' Kirbys, bearing their specific equipment, level, and name; without one, generic adventurers native to the game are produced instead.

Gem Apples were also only able to be purchased with an internet connection, using the Nintendo eShop. Due to the closure of the eShop on Nintendo 3DS on March 27th, 2023, it is no longer officially possible to buy Gem Apples or grow the Gem Apple Tree.

In addition, an online connection was needed in order to use the Shrine of Passwords (to verify that the password being recited was still valid). With the termination of Nintendo's servers for the Nintendo 3DS on April 8th, 2024, it is no longer officially possible to summon online Wandering Adventurers or recite passwords.

Kirby Battle Royale was the first Kirby game to feature true online multiplayer. By selecting the Online Battle option from the main menu, the player was first given a choice between three randomly-selected Battle Modes and then allowed to select their character. From here, they were placed in a training room to wait until three other players could connect to their lobby. If this was successful, the match would begin with a random Battle Mode from the pool the players chose. Depending on how well the player performed in a battle, they would gain rank points which contributed to a rank level system, which in turn would match them with players of similar rank. Each time the player gained a rank level, Battle Coins were awarded, which could be spent in the Collection List. Each rank level required more points to reach than the preceding one.

Kirby Battle Royale was also the first game in the Kirby series to receive post-launch content updates. Three such updates were released for the game, which mainly fixed gameplay issues and added the Mirror and Sleep abilities to the roster. More detail can be found on the Update history section of the Kirby Battle Royale page.

With the termination of Nintendo's servers for the Nintendo 3DS on April 8th, 2024, it is no longer officially possible to play Online Battles. However, the post-launch updates can still be downloaded.

Kirby Star Allies does not feature any direct online functionality. However, it did benefit from several updates which added significant amounts of additional content to the game as well as fixing bugs and other issues. A more complete list of updates can be found on this page.

Unlike its Nintendo 3DS predecessor, Super Kirby Clash features online multiplayer, with a separate quest board (referred to as "Party Quests") devoted to it (though these can still be played solo). When selecting one of these quests, the player can choose to either create their own lobby or join an existing one. From there, the lobby has roughly 90 seconds to be filled with other players before a game can start (with any unfilled slots being controlled by the CPU). Both in the lobby and during gameplay, stickers can be used to communicate with other players. However, as soon as the enemy is defeated, players are disconnected from each-other.

Kirby Fighters 2 features online multiplayer in the form of an Online Mode. Using this, players can connect to the internet to play 2v2 battles with random people under normal rules and a random stage or connect with friends to play with more specific rule sets.

While Kirby and the Forgotten Land is primarily a local play experience, a few online functionalities are in the game. When talking to Wise Waddle Dee in Waddle Dee Town, for instance, he can inform the player which Copy Ability is most favored by players around the world, or how many Waddle Dees have been rescued cumulatively. Online leaderboards for the various Sub-Games and the Colosseum are also available. Additionally, much like the Kirby Clash games, an Internet connection is required to enter certain Present Codes at Waddle Dee-liveries, to ensure that they are still valid. However, unlike those games, certain Present Codes are built into the game itself and can be used even without an Internet connection.

Kirby's Dream Buffet has a fully-fledged online mode, which allows the player to connect with up to three others to play against. There are two main options in Online Mode, those being "Random Match" and "Password Match". In the former, only Gourmet Grand Prix can be played, but in the latter, Free Rolling can also be selected. After selecting a mode, Kirby is placed on a special table used as a lobby for online matches, and can play around with Waddle Dee Dummies while he waits for others to join. When playing Online Mode, Kirby's emotes also come with short little messages.

In the Random Match Mode, a ranking system is used which is distinct from the Gourmet Rank, called "Skill Lv." This rank starts at 15,000 points, and increases or decreases based on how the player places in games, with diminishing returns the higher the rank becomes, along with greater risk of losing points if placing low. When approaching a skill lv. of 20,000 or higher, even placing second will cause a loss of points. Skill Lv. is not tied to any other feature in the game, and is solely used to help the game match the player with others of comparable skill.

In Password Match, the player specifies a password at the very start. If that password matches one used by another player, they can join the same game together. Otherwise, the player will be placed in their own lobby, and others can join if they use the same password. The lobby gives players up to two minutes to join, as opposed to only one in random matches. Skill Lv. is not a factor in Password Matches.

All online games come with a 1.80x multiplier for Gourmet Points earned at the results screen. If a game does not fill up with four human opponents, the remainder will be filled by CPUs using a name randomly assigned from an internal list (more details on that here). Human players and CPU players can be distinguished by the fact that human players have red names, while CPU players have white ones. If a player disconnects during a game, they will be replaced with a CPU using the same name. Disconnecting multiple times in quick succession will result in the player being restricted from random matches for a time.

Pretty soon we moved to using hashing functions to obscure the plaintext passwords. When a user provided their password it would be hashed and the hash value stored. When a user logged on, the password they entered would be hashed and the generated hash compared to the stored hash, if they match the user is authenticated. This was an improvement. Most of the hashing functions are secure - impossible to reverse to get the password from the hash - but there is another problem.

Adapt your program to allow the user to specify whether to brute force or use a word list, allowing them to specify the path to the word list. See how quickly you can crack this hash: 2bdb742fc3d075ec6b73ea414f27819a

You can take this challenge further by optimising your solution to use multiple threads to compute (or look up) the hashes in parallel. You can go even further down that road by looking at how GPUs are used to accelerate password cracking.

If you think your solution is an example other developers can learn from please share it, put it on GitHub, GitLab or elsewhere. Then let me know - ping me a message on the Discord Server or in the Coding Challenges Sub Reddit, via Twitter or LinkedIn or just post about it there and tag me.

I know I've seen this on here before (or maybe not), but when does Royal "generally" assign the cabin numbers for GTY (guarantee) cabins? This is our first time doing a GTY cabin, which was originally booked in 2019 so I cannot remember what I was told or find the information. Really just curious since my in-laws have a GTY cabin as well and will need sure they have a good feel for things before we set sail. Thanks.

Royal can assign GTY cabins to optimize muster station capacity so they can open a cabin for booking that would otherwise need to stay closed. Each lifeboat has a specific number of seats and the cabins that use that lifeboat can't exceed its capacity on an aggregate basis. If a set of cabins have families of four that may fill a particular lifeboat "early" or maybe leave an odd number of seats so by mixing and matching GTY bookings it's like a tetris game where they can optimize muster stations.

The drawback to a guarantee which is hopefully offset by the savings, is that one will often be assigned a less desirable location for a given category. This is due to the desirable locations being previously selected by guests not receiving guarantee discount.

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