Episode 122a - Rom Hacking and Retro Gaming

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/