GameShark Labs · Built by players
The cheat-code canon, kept by the people who never put the controller down.
Game Genie codes copied by hand into the back of a Trapper Keeper. The Konami Code burned into your thumbs. The glitch your cousin swore was real — and turned out to be. That whole universe of player ingenuity never had a real home. We’re building it one: a living canon of cheat-code culture, kept by people who actually finished the games.
01 · What we’re preserving
Every other retro-game archive sorts by genre, or by whatever the crowd upvoted that week. None of them treat player ingenuity — cheat codes, controller exploits, glitches, easter eggs, design oversights, schoolyard lore — as a single culture worth keeping. We do. We call it the Enhancer Canon: the definitive record of every clever, ridiculous, game-breaking thing players ever pulled off, Atari through the PS2.
No code is too obscure. No rumor is too weird to run down. If a nine-year-old in 1998 swore it worked, it earns a real entry — verified, sourced, and kept for good.
02 · Three things we’re making
One canon, three ways to hold it — a vault, a device, and a book, each built by players who finished the games.
The vault
SharkVault
The living archive — every game, every code, every exploit, curated by hand one editorial pass at a time. You're standing in it.
The device
RetroShark
The codes, back on the metal — original hardware, modern firmware, none of the emulation asterisks. Enter a code, watch it fire on a real console.
The book
The Compendium
The canon in print — a coffee-table hardcover with original backdrop art for every game. The one you'll actually leave on the table.
03 · The Founders
None of this would exist without the people who funded it. More than 1,165 Kickstarter backersput real money behind a cheat-code book before a single page shipped — and they became our Founders.
Every Founder gets a permanent number — Founder #1 through the last backer, in the exact order you pledged. It’s yours forever: on your profile, on the Founders Wall, and stamped on anything you share.
And to settle the question everyone asks: no AI wrote your strategy guide, and no algorithm decides what counts. Real players who finished these games make those calls. You just happen to be one of them now.
Become a Founder04 · Who’s building it
A small crew of players, engineers, and lifers who finished the games and never got over them.
Todd Hays
Founder
Owns the GameShark Labs brand strategy, hardware roadmap, and partnerships.
Alexander “AJ” Wold
Chief Development Officer
Global cybersecurity executive. 17 years leading AI-driven offensive/defensive security and large-scale enterprise platforms.
Drew Gowan
Head of AI, Cyber, Engineering
Owns SharkVault, the content pipeline, infrastructure, and customer-facing engineering.
Evan Kuvshinoff
Director of Engineering
- MR
Matt Regan
Director of Marketing
- HK
Hae-Jeung Kang
Head of Strategic Partnerships & Growth
05 · Get in
- The Road to GTA VI — the membership, and the fastest way into the beta.
- Sample the Compendium — a free look at the book, no signup.
- The Backdrop Gallery — original art, one painting per game (members only, for now).
- Already a Founder? Sign in with your backer email.