question of rom editing

Hey Drakon i was wandering if you could teach me how to edit roms and the sort. i know its probably a big thing to try and learn and you probably dont have a lot of time but it would be a nice thing to know and especially to learn from you.

I refuse to answer anything until you learn how to properly spell "wondering"

You could at least give some information where to read about ROM editing? And what language do you need to learn... ? Is it with Lua?

What do you expect from Drakon, Conker? To sit beside you and step-by-step teach you how to edit the ROM? I think nobody did that to Drakon when he started...

ProD1gy84 wrote:

You could at least give some information where to read about ROM editing? And what language do you need to learn... ? Is it with Lua?

What do you expect from Drakon, Conker? To sit beside you and step-by-step teach you how to edit the ROM? I think nobody did that to Drakon when he started...

You're right but seriously I don't mind giving out tips in my free time. It's true that I didn't have someone sit down and guide me through it but I did use google to find a lot of helpful info that other people had generously wrote and stuck on the web for people like me to find. I also used a lot of software to help accomplish what I did. If I hadn't found that program some dude wrote to re-interleave two files I wouldn't have even been able to begin romhacking because the rom data was literally split in an interleaved pattern across two files for some unknown reason. Without all this these helpful tools and bits of information floating around the internet I would have NEVER managed my romhack. So here's my first tip....go to www.google.com and search awayyyyyy!

However really dumb spelling drives me nuts so I'm waiting for that to get fixed first.

The sad thing is when I started romhacking I posted questions asking for help on the romhacking.net forum and basically nobody was able to help out. Most romhackers just use existing rom-hacking tools that were created by smart people. That's why there's a million and one mario world hacks thanks to the idiot proof lunar magic romhacking tool now anyone can become a l33t r0m h@><0r!!1one

...next thing you know people who use mugen will start calling themselves game hackers...

well, if you want to change text in nes games, conker, thingy is your friend. you use an emulator tile watcher or editor, run your game, and find the hex location of each letter in the tile editor.

then you have to make a table file for thingy.

such as

A=1C
B=1D
C=1E.

its really not that difficult once you get going.

also you can edit savegame files in hex workshop for more experience, better weapons, all kinds of things.

those two tools help out a lot. also read some info on google on how to effectively use a hex editor. that should get you started.

Romhacking.net is a great resource, read all the docs especially the ones for the Snes even if you aren't interested in the Snes as it seems to have the most love in the hacking circles so has the most documents. The forum is a good resource of information and help but they really like you to have at least a little knowledge first, it can seem pretty cold and elitist but if you lurk / hang out there for a while you'll soon see the amount of 'How do uz h4cks?' posts they get.

RyanfaeScotland wrote:

Romhacking.net is a great resource, read all the docs especially the ones for the Snes even if you aren't interested in the Snes as it seems to have the most love in the hacking circles so has the most documents. The forum is a good resource of information and help but they really like you to have at least a little knowledge first, it can seem pretty cold and elitist but if you lurk / hang out there for a while you'll soon see the amount of 'How do uz h4cks?' posts they get.

I found all the best help on that forum was done over private message never openly on the forum.  I didn't get good help there until I did a lot of romhacking myself and had the work 90+% done already.  I just needed somebody to help with some bugs and out of the woodworks came spikeman.  There's a lot of talented romhackers out there but it's true they won't help just anybody, you have to show that you've learned and done enough to earn their time.  People out there will usually only help someone who's learned all the knowledge and done most of the work already.  Even myself I only share modding details with people who've done enough work that I won't have to spend hours and hours explaining it.

It's true romhacking is no simple thing unless you use something like lunar magic.  People who can only use utilities (like lunar magic) to change things in games aren't romhackers, romhackers are the people who write these utilities in the first place.

Drakon wrote:

People who can only use utilities (like lunar magic) to change things in games aren't romhackers, romhackers are the people who write these utilities in the first place.

So true.