Operating Systems Are Only for Winners
Fall To Boot is a UEFI mini-game that runs at startup. If you don't navigate the tunnel successfully, your PC shuts down.
When it comes to weekend hacking projects, some are winners, and some never should have happened at all. Alejandro Armas’ latest project, called Fall To Boot, sits comfortably within this latter category. Fall To Boot is a mini-game that runs in a UEFI environment as your computer boots, and if you don’t win the game, your computer shuts right back down. Operating systems are only for winners!
The game consists of simple, text-based graphics that represent a descent through a narrow passage between two walls. The walls are procedurally generated, so the challenge will be new for each boot. If the player successfully navigates through the tunnel and lands on the yellow “BOOT!” text, the operating system loads normally. But if the player crashes, it’s game over and the computer shuts down.
The consequences are severe, and the game is only moderately fun, so Fall To Boot is definitely not for everyone. However, it is impressive that the entire game was packed into a UEFI application. If you are interested in playing some other bootloader games that are less evil, Armas has a few more that you can check out on GitHub.
R&D, creativity, and building the next big thing you never knew you wanted are my specialties.