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Main - Hacking Discussion - What made you interested in hacking roms? (1)

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Kenmasters
Posted on 08-25-24 02:54 AM, in Link | ID: 464
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For me, it was Zsnes, someone showed me how to use the cheat search engine to make basic codes like infinite lives, and health. It just happened I found a cheap gameshark for my Playstation 1, that had a small button on the side that let you do the exact same thing, search the ram for memory values and instantly change them!

Many Demo disks were hacked and I had much fun!

Slidelljohn
Posted on 08-25-24 03:25 AM, in Link | ID: 465

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I use to look up game genie codes for the 7th saga to use on the original console and one day I stumbled across emulators for the pc and also found out about rom hacking. If I wasn't looking for game genie codes I might not have found emulators ande rom hacking.



____________________
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The Evil Vampony
Posted on 08-25-24 03:52 AM, in Link | ID: 469

Shyguy

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10 year old me loved two things: computers and Sonic the Hedgehog. Go figure I'd figure out what an emulator is, and find a bunch of cool, interesting, or strange Sonic ROM hacks. Never got past just playing ROM hacks until recently though, and I must say, making Gameshark cheat codes is a really good starting place.

____________________
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.

supersonicjc
Posted on 08-25-24 05:53 AM, in Link | ID: 471

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is making gameshark/ pro action replay codes a gateway for hacking roms??? i just redid my entire nes list of codes and did some searching in game to make codes for myself that arent posted online at any of the sites i usually lurk in, my most unique one and im not sure as to why it was programmed the way it was but i did nes yo noid... got a infinite time code but the timer uses 2 lines of code with one line being offset by 1 full number to not make a glitched display...

voliol
Posted on 08-25-24 10:05 AM, in Link | ID: 480

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Sometime in the mid to late aughts, my brother downloaded a set of 100 (!) GBA ROMs from Pirate Bay for us to play. This itself was some sort of introduction, since we played them on an emulator, but the real clincher was one of those ROMs being Pokémon Chaos Black.
Chaos Black is a terrible, terrible hack, not only by modern standards but also because of how unstable it is. We couldn't get to Brock even because it would reliably crash before that. But perhaps because of it the originality and amateurness of the game was highlighted - people could make something like this! Modify the existing games to something new and cool! That said, I believe it took a couple of years more and the introduction of Quartz and Snakewood through the general Pokémon community before I gave it a try, but Chaos Black still deserves its position of "first ROM hack encounter".

Or maybe it was that "Ducktales" cartridge for GameBoy we had, which in hindsight must have been a bootleg, because that's not Ducktales. Had no idea back then though.

____________________
Developer of the Universal Pokémon Randomizer FVX, dabbling Dragon Quest VI hacker

SMB2J-2Q
Posted on 08-25-24 10:30 AM, in (rev. 4 of 08-25-24 10:35 AM by SMB2J-2Q) Link | ID: 482

Red Goomba

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For me, it was the numerous bugfixes in Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES that inspired me to try to apply the same fixes to the original NES release of SMB. Such bugfixes included:
* Life Max Out -- no more unintended Game Over as the lives counter stops at exactly 128 lives.
* Mario's bounce rate against enemies was improved, which meant smoother stomping on Koopas against staircases for improved lives max-out.
* In World 4-3, the last pulley platform no longer pulls up by itself if you had earlier broke off the second group of platforms.
* In World 8-3, Hammer Brothers could now be destroyed by green Koopa shells perfectly.
* No more Minus World
* No more getting stuck past the goal pipe in any water level. In the original NES release it was possible to get the player stuck behind the goal pipe due to the 1-tile gap above it and then having to die via time-up; this was fixed in VsSMB, SMB2J (SMBLL), ANNSMB and SMBDX as well as the second PAL version of the NES SMB.

~Ben

Kenmasters
Posted on 08-25-24 03:11 PM, in Link | ID: 487
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Posted by supersonicjc
is making gameshark/ pro action replay codes a gateway for hacking roms??? i just redid my entire nes list of codes and did some searching in game to make codes for myself that arent posted online at any of the sites i usually lurk in, my most unique one and im not sure as to why it was programmed the way it was but i did nes yo noid... got a infinite time code but the timer uses 2 lines of code with one line being offset by 1 full number to not make a glitched display...


It might be! I remember the basics of using a cheat engine simply did not give me the results I wanted, so someone explained you need to use extra tools on the PC, and using an advanced and more capable emulator if I wanted better cheats.

Some examples of that:
In Final Fight 2 for the Snes, when playing Co-op you get more enemies and the game became more harder. I wanted this effect to also apply for single player, but no way I could use Zsnes cheat engine to get it, so a friend showed me methods to do it. (Methods I long forgot!)

In GTA Vice City, someone used hundreds of gameshark codes at once... to make an airplane fly! Normally that game only has a helicopter, but here was an example what was possible if you went overboard with gameshark to limits it never was meant for!

MacUser
Posted on 08-25-24 04:01 PM, in Link | ID: 488

Shyguy

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I had a Windows XP laptop that i got free with a dial up internet service and it was able to emulate games up to the 16-bit era. I had seen rom hacks in youtube videos up to that point, but had no idea how to get them or use them. Whenever i downloaded a zip file of Super Mario Bros. roms, it would have a bunch of roms in them as well as very questionable hacks. Sometimes it would be thousands of roms due to the popularity of some NES games getting more attention than others. I would actually painstakingly delete rom after rom to get rid of the nastier ones just because I only wanted a handful of Mario games. Same went for Zelda, Punchout, ect. Sonic meanwhile didn't get as much attention from hackers back then and only had a handful of games that were easy to get. Nestopia, Kega Fusion, and ZSNES were my favorite emulators to use despite their small problems here n there. As long as they worked, that was enough for me. My laptop couldn't handle any N64 games so Zelda'a Birthday was out of the question. It could however play Sega CD and 32X. There was Sonic Bots on Mobius which was a mod of DOOM for the 32X. Then there was the Sonic in Knuckles Chaotix hack. I really liked the Streets of Rage 2 character hacks. Used to download all of those from the old RHDN site. Diglett, Dio, Robocop and Ed-209, those were some of my favorites. So yeah emulation led to my rom hacks.

____________________
8-bit is enough.

Morrigan Aensland-Hill
Posted on 08-25-24 06:35 PM, in Link | ID: 494

Goomba

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The reason why I'm highly interested in hacking ROMs is because I was watching a lot of YT videos depicting GoldenEye with customised levels played by the famous Newtype of FPS games: Graslu00. I expressed total fondness for fan-made GE/PD mods and it inspired me to start up the Project64 emulator and play the mods and as time passed, I wanted to edit the game generically with the use of Subby Wubby's Setup Editor.

Months have passed since then, so I joined the dev team of a GE project known as "Tomorrow Never Dies 64" where I created a model of my head for use in it. A very outstanding success it was. During my spare time, I added fighting games like Street Fighter and Darkstalkers on my to-do-list of hacks along with tactical RPGs like SRW and Fire Emblem.

As a huge fan of James Bond, I also included Agent Under Fire and TWINE 64 on my list.

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My beauty can overcome brains and brawn!

Rexius55
Posted on 08-25-24 06:43 PM, in Link | ID: 495

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11 year old me was fed up with how limited Mario Maker 1 was and got into Super Mario World hacking. After that, I went from community to community just messing with different games, and I really got into ROM hacking when I began messing with Castlevania games and that community a few years ago.

____________________
I do requests (reverse-engineering, programming, music, spritework, writing, etc.). I'm always learnin'.

Status: Hands are full.

I post wherever is on my Linktree. If you see my stuff anywhere else, it wasn't me.

Ravenfreak
Posted on 09-02-24 12:11 AM, in Link | ID: 613
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I came across Sonic Megamix randomly one day. From there I discovered Sonic Retro, and the rest was history. This was in 2008, but I didn't really get into hacking Sonic until 2009 and even then I was a noob. I got better especially when I started diving into hacking the 8-bit games in 2011.

Green Jerry
Posted on 09-02-24 11:55 AM, in Link | ID: 621
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Back in 2015, I found a download for a demo of a Japanese Super Mario World hack called Super Kitiku Mario (commonly nicknamed Brutal Mario). Soon after that, I downloaded Lunar Magic and made an account on SMW Central, and started working on my very first hack, that was just remakes of levels from other Mario games. That hack was eventually abandoned some time later mainly because of negative feedback and people at SMWC wanting brand new levels instead of remakes, and I was very toxic back then when I replied to the people that gave me feedback.

Oz74
Posted on 09-02-24 12:17 PM, in Link | ID: 622

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Since: 08-16-24
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If it makes you happy, even if there's adversity, a stigma around it, there is no harm in still doing it and sharing it. Tbh I always wanted to play classics remade in vanilla-gfx/sound SMW, adjusted for the physics because the NES ones become really easy with how maneuverable Mario is with 1:1 tile placement... some of the most crisp handling in a platformer you'll ever see.

What got me into ROM hacking was just how magical it was to see translations of sequels to my favorite games, and then I ended up discovering RHDN and a massive database of other translations, custom level hacks, and tools to do it. For a long time, I was more of a player than a producer, and I really want to finish a few hacks of my own with the free time I have coming up.


RT-55J
Posted on 09-03-24 03:06 AM, in Link | ID: 658

Micro-Goomba

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I originally got into romhacking probably because the old classicgaming.net had fansites that led me to places like Rage Games, Challenge Hacks, Zophar's Domain, etc., which eventually led me to acmlm's board which was one of my online homes for several years before it imploded.

I mostly just messed around with level editors by my lonesome and made nothing of consequence for several years. I eventually did some early reverse engineering work on MM1 for Game Boy, and then a few years later did some much more extensive RE work on Metroid 2. At this point feel pretty confident with my ASM, game design, and project management skills, but I still feel some trepidation hacking games without pre-existing editors.


imamelia
Posted on 09-05-24 02:40 PM, in Link | ID: 704

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The first Internet forum that I ever registered on was GameSpot, and I asked at one point if there was a way to make custom video game levels. Somebody directed me to Lunar Magic, which led me to finding out about Super Demo World, SMW Central, and whatnot, and I basically fell in love with the idea of making my own Mario levels. I'd always enjoyed games with built-in level editors even before that; I remember having made over 500 levels in Cubis, over 700 in Dynomite, and several custom scenarios in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. (Two of those are still viable to this day, though sadly, the Dynomite level editor seems to have vanished into oblivion.) I've dabbled in hacking other games as well, mostly Yoshi's Island and New Super Mario Bros. (DS), but it seems like most other editors tend to be primitive, obtuse, not compatible with my computer, or too limiting for the kinds of hacks that I'd want to make.

Shiva
Posted on 10-15-24 09:33 PM, in Link | ID: 1119

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Back way before Mario Maker 1 released, in the early 2010's I learned that people were making NSMBW custom levels from youtube videos showcasing those short hacks like Newer Summer Sun and I thought it was really neat. I don't really know if Wii era hacking is considered "romhacking" but NSMBW and Mario Kart Wii were the games that introduced me to game modding, as well as playing custom tracks for the older mario kart games like double dash and mario kart DS. it was really exciting when double dash custom tracks took off relatively recently.

later and unrelated to mario, I learned of GBA Fire Emblem fangames and stuff like The Last Promise is incredibly cool, I have tried to make my own little fire emblem mods, but I usually get super sidetracked and never finish anything... as well as fangames I also learned about fire emblem randomizer mods which is a really fun way to play a game in a totally different way

Hiryuu
Posted on 10-17-24 11:08 PM, in (rev. 4 of 10-17-24 11:24 PM by Hiryuu) Link | ID: 1126
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To see if I could do it and the answer, so far, has always been 'no, kinda'.

I've always been interested...nah, fascinated would be the better term. Fascinated. Always been fascinated of the concept of ROM Hacking in general ever since finding out that you could, in fact, emulate Contra on a 100Mhz PC using Nesticle back in 1998. Finding that ROM hacking was a thing for anything between stupid graphic editing of Mario with toilet humor to one of the first ROM translations in existence from fans (Final Fantasy V) set a whole lot of things in motion for me as someone in high school, at the time.

I later tracked down communities (Zophar's Domain, ZSNES and SNES9X forums, Acmlm's ROM Hack Domain, just to name a few) to see just how such things went and what I found, quite frankly, were people that knew a hell of a lot more than I did about anything. Considering I grew up in a small town community for a large portion of my life leading up until then, this was a dream for me, especially being able to share in such niche interests with a plethora of information at my disposal. It really was the highlight for me around the birth of Web 2.0 and I never really quit the interests since.

Though I've never taken the time to really ROM hack fully, myself, I have at least done my community dillegence. Feedback, moderating and administrating and just doing some hobbyist things such as music creation or level design. Neither of latter I find especially qualifying as things like Mario Paint and Mario Maker exist at the basic level, but I have spent a large amount of time with editors for a random variety of things. I just never had the capacity for coding things at a more base level and never was granted the competency to go a little bit more beyond that.

Instead, I ended up going the hardware route with computer technology in general rather than the software route. I can probably whip together some of the best rigs that money can buy with my bare hands but if you ever wanted me to code a Mario hack from scratch with assembly I would probably curl up into a ball on the floor and cry.

I will call a victory for being able to hold a conversation with those skilled enough to do such a thing, however. I have met some impressively intelligent people in my time over the last quarter century pursuing that interest, however niche it might be. Really goes to show that you can find people in just about every interest out there if you try, especially with the Internet being as open as it is anymore.


AutumnShinespark
Posted on 10-19-24 02:52 AM, in Link | ID: 1143

Bronto Burt

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Hmm... because I wanted to fix a spelling error!

____________________
If you need me, I'll be overanalyzing how games work. Y'know, instead of playing them.

Galeforce
Posted on 10-19-24 07:06 AM, in (rev. 2 of 10-19-24 07:10 AM by Galeforce) Link | ID: 1153

Paragoomba

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To be honest... I don't even know where to begin here.

I don't remember how I managed to find it, but I remember running into Kaizo Mario World through Proton Jon. Back when he actually made content and didn't sell out entirely to Twitch streams I refuse to attend. (But I'll rant about that some other time.)

He introduced me to Kaizo Mario World, and I was fascinated at the idea that you could make modifications of Super Mario World, and it also made me wonder what else can be modified exactly like this. This was back in YouTube 2006, so I imagine romhacking was still in its infancy, so this was truly a new world for me to explore.

I started with experimenting. I experimented a lot. I've made a few Kaizo Mario World styled levels, which I had since scratched in favor of actual levels, as I was very disgusted with my "work". Said work was moreso just cheap tricks, cheap deaths, and an almost tile-by-tile recreation of Xanaboy 1's Yoshi's Island 4 except it was actually doable because I thought in my infinite wisdom that making fun of someone else's poor work was "funny". I did a lot of questionable stuff during this time of experimentation and it shouldn't be a surprise why I scrapped all of it.

In the time since, I've made a Super Mario World hack. It's admittedly not a great hack, and would for sure get slammed in SMWCentral, but I am proud of all that I've done with it despite its many flaws, and I've done what I could with what I had at the time. I've also since dabbled with Fire Emblem romhacking and a small taste of FFVI romhacking, albeit not enough to make dedicated romhacks with those.

Nowadays, I've stopped romhacking entirely, and have resigned myself to being a romhack enjoyer though. I've been looking for standard romhacks (non-kaizo) with a Normal --> Slightly Hard difficulty, and playing those type of romhacks have been taking up a majority of my time, but damned if it isn't a fun hobby to have.

PalaceSwitcher
Posted on 10-27-24 12:38 AM, in (rev. 2 of 10-27-24 12:39 AM by PalaceSwitcher) Link | ID: 1248
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When I was 8 years old and obsessed with Super Mario World, I discovered videos of the "laser suit" and "Super Secret Area" on YouTube and thought they were legitimately hidden in the game. I quickly learned that those were just hacks made with Lunar Magic, and once I determined that Lunar Magic was just software, and not something that would magically patch my game after I downloaded it to my tablet (Yes, I was actually that dumb), I tried making my own hacks.

I never really got far with hacking them since I sucked at designing levels, but I was still fascinated by the inner workings of the game. That fascination with how old games worked and how I could change them would stick with me and led me to where I am now.
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Main - Hacking Discussion - What made you interested in hacking roms? (1)

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