Episode 122a - Rom Hacking and Retro Gaming
Iron Sysadmin Podcast - En podkast av @IronSysadmin - Fredager
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Welcome to Episode 122a Main Topic yes it is i the boy - who am i even -son of unclemarc -stevens type kid -longtime mathematics enjoyer -"pro" gamer a quick personal history -first talk about how i got into older games -wii virtual console, snes emulator in 3rd grade (messing around with lunar magic, despite not knowing how to use it) -got into gba in grade 6 -got into fe in grade 8, fell out a bit, got back into it in junior year -got into hacking in freshman year of college retro gaming -old games are cool, but good luck finding the carts and consoles -if you're not japanese there goes a lot of games -solve these problems with emulation- play classic games, translate foreign games, etc. -pretty much every system you can think of has emulators developed -of note here is also the ability to play hacks what the hell is a romhack -take a game that you enjoy, and use your numerous powers to turn it into something new -graphics, sounds, level design, mechanics- the whole nine yards -why do you hack? for fun, to learn about old stuff, to show off to people -it's like making a game, but you kinda have to be purely passion driven (no profit for you) what do ya need, anyway -a rom, obviously (yeah sure i totally dumped one myself) -patience and perseverance -whatever hacking tools exist for the game you wish to tackle -god there's so many of them -game specific tools (ex. lunar magic, febuilder) -assemblers/disassemblers -debugging emulators (ex. no$gba) -graphical tools (ex. usenti, paint if you hate yourself) -sound stuff (usually working with midis, either custom made, downloaded, or ripped from other games) decomp vs. binary -binary hacking is more straightforward to setup (usually) -decompilations/buildfiles allow much more freedom -buildfiles also give you powerful version control -if you screw up, bug fixing is far more merciful -binary has you burning edits into your rom- scary! i just told you buildfiles are rad but anyway use binary hacking -that all being said, binary hacking tools are probably the best way to start -the simplicity allows you to acquaint yourself with the nitty gritty -gonna be honest, i started with very little knowledge on the specifics -never thought i'd casually pick up hexadecimal you don't even have to do it all yourself -lots of hacking communities have tons of resources -graphical/musical assets for the artistically unable -engine hacks so you don't have to reinvent the wheel adding cool shit -documentation on the inner workings of a game but sometimes you gotta -gba assembly haunts my dreams -thankfully, other options exist -pokemon decomps use C, CHAX is a somewhat recent thing in fe -with the gui methods, you can do a ton of stuff without ever touching asm -just gotta be clever and maybe rub an elbow or two screw it, fe hacking scene history -nightmare (good old csv editing), various general use gba tools -apparently hackers used to map in ms paint -feditor is a nightmare hellscape -despite this, we still had hacks -shoutout to the last promise, made by a highschooler with the equivalent of rusty sponges the golden age begins -event assembler- insert data with a powerful and versatile tool -buildfiles insert most of their data through EA -in march 2017, skillsystem dropped- a revolution in the hacking scene to turn fe8 into a game as feature rich as modern entries -emblem magic- an all in one gui hacking tool dropped in august 2017 -then febuilder dropped in september 2017 and kinda overshadowed it -an aside on pokemon romhacking making you download like 80 things -builder is a gift from a god known as 7743- easy to use UI with a ton of features and some underrated debugging power -skillsys got ported to builder early on, and it has a ton of ui to complement it -ever since, we've had tons more hacks Links https://romhacking.net Watch us live on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of every month! Subscribe and hit the bell! https://www.youtube.com/IronSysadminPodcast OR https://twitch.tv/IronSysadminPodcast Discord Community: https://discord.gg/wmxvQ4c2H6 Find us on Twitter, and Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/ironsysadmin https://www.twitter.com/ironsysadmin Subscribe wherever you find podcasts! And don't forget about our patreon! https://patreon.com/ironsysadmin Intro and Outro music credit: Tri Tachyon, Digital MK 2http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Tri-Tachyon/