Introduction Topic

[RobertLasher]

Hi everyone, my name's Lasher and currently 17. I joined after reading through some of the documents and I thought well... why not join in? My skills in hacking are low, but I'm still studying up on it. The #1 game I wanna hack is Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, but I'll still look into other games as well.

Oh yeah, and I love Heavy Metal.

[RedComet]

Oh yeah, and I love Heavy Metal.

I approve of this message.

[Vegetaman]

Oh yeah, and I love Heavy Metal.

I approve of this message.

Seconded. 

[Colossus]

Hey everybody. I'm 22 y-o student from London, I've been gaming since the NES era and right now am rediscovering a lot of wonderful import gems that have never made it in the West.
Looking forward to contribute to the community.

[KaBooM!]

   Ahh, here we go, folks...the obligatory introductory post, the one where I introduce myself to the general ROMhacking community present here at the forums and everyone breathes a big, giant, collective yawn!       Oh, well, guess it's better than having large heavy stones thrown at me, me being the "newbie" here and all. Without further ado, please allow me to introduce myself...

   I am a ROMhacker going by the codename "KaBooM!" who prefers the security afforded to those who remain somewhat covert and mysterious.    My actual name, age, gender, race, area of residence, social status, religious convictions, political affiliations, financial situation, and sexual orientations/preferences are and shall hopefully remain the subject of curious enigma. Despite my aversions of disclosure there are a few things about myself which I am willing to share...

   First off, I am an Earthling of the "human" species, who lives somewhere on the planet Earth...and I shall be residing here until the day our good friends from the stars of the Pleiades realize I was sent to the wrong planet by mistake, and subsequently return to take me back. (If the little green men with big black eyes from Zeta Reticuli 2 come around asking for me, tell them I've left the planet already. We Pleiadians don't roll with those cats for good reason!)

   Second, I have been gifted with a needlessly complex mind as well as an exceptionally proficient grasp of not only the English language but also of several different forms of what can be considered "creative ventures", all of which I use as my weapons in the ongoing battle against conformity. It's a war zone out there, and words and art are the tools of my trade. (Little blue bombs notwithstanding!) 

   Thirdly, I have never been, nor am I currently, nor do I believe that I will ever be, a representative of any company and/or organization which produces licensed commercial video games for platforms of any type or kind. If I were I think it's safe to say I certainly wouldn't view ROMhacking as an art form in itself. My propensity for non-conformity does not often find me in business attire like all the other goons and goonettes for hire, so we can all breathe easy not only knowing that I'm just an ordinary Jane/Joe like yourselves, but that I also will never be personally responsible for some of the shovelware that some of the big media companies like to cram down out throats.    (Granted, there are a few exceptions. Damned few...)

   Fourthly, I have a love of ROMhacking as it is one of many hobbies I undertake which not only exercises my mind  but also satisfies my curiosity and fascination with reverse-engineering the work of others as well as my need to be creative and inspiring for the common good. In that regard, I have joined the ROMhacking community with the intention of sharing my notes, observations, insights, and also the ROMhacking creations produced by myself through my affiliate, "KaBooM! Games" with others, again for the common good of all.

   Fifthly, I refer to myself by the codename "KaBooM!" for several reasons, some of which I do not care to divulge as doing so would directly interfere with my propensity for obscure anonymity.    This does not indicate that I necessarily pose any type of perceived threat...in fact, by most standards I consider myself quite harmless...as long as you are not a video game ROM!    As for the reasons for my codename I don't mind sharing, well...not only does it serve as a tribute to one of the greatest Atari 2600 games of all time but also as a nice, quick, short, easy codename which can easily be inserted into the credits of any ROMhack which I create, and it looks different and grabs attention to boot. That, and it's so much fun to type with it's weird alternate capitalizations and punctuation. And it goes great with marinara sauce. 

   And finally, I must truthfully admit that I look nothing like my avatar would suggest, at least until the day that the radioactive weapons which threaten mankind come raining down upon our heads and the survivors are turned into deformed mutants. It is my sincerest hope that this will never happen, because quite frankly, it would suck like a supercharged vacuum cleaner. Not only because civilization as we know it would cease to exist, not only because it would it be hard getting any sleep considering I'd be living next to people who constantly glow in the dark, but also because having a big, heavy, blue bomb for a head that's getting ready to explode any second is not a good condition to greet your new neighbors in.    It doesn't exactly set their mind at ease, and it's terrible for one's complexion.

   Now, I have been interested in the gentle art of ROMhacking since not too long after the turn of the century, and have been quite the "lurker"    in one form or another within it's inner circles and have thus dedicated many hours of my free time into research, hard work, and offering help to others regarding such.  However, I haven't really become a part of the general ROMhacking community in any manner which produced a final product of some sort on my end. After silently observing the amount of people who's obsession with this particular hobby ended up swallowed up by the dreaded "real life" syndrome which we all experience, and vowing not to repeat these mistakes, I made a firm decision in 2007 that I would not become a part of any ROMhacking forum until I was primed and ready to produce something substantial for the community as a whole...

   And now, that day has finally come. 

   As I type this, I am currently sitting on a 100% complete project which I can barely wait to share with all of you. 100% complete, that is, except for typing up the rest of the accompanying manual and the final level of quality control testing on the project itself. This should not be taken as an official announcement of such, as I am not yet at liberty to say exactly what this "project" is and/or what it entails, or even what the official release date is at this time as that *might* give something away.    I also cannot promise that this "project" will turn the world on it's ear and create world peace in our lifetime, considering it will be my first "released" project.    However, this much I can share with you all...I personally feel that I've taken an old standard and done something truly "unique" with it, something no ROMhacker has attempted to do with this type of project before, and something I sincerely hope that you will all appreciate. A release date and announcement shall be forthcoming within the next couple of months...but for now, I shall leave you all to speculate with your question marks.     

   In the meantime, it is my sincere hope that I can become a productive member of this community, offering my help and insights wherever and whenever I can. So once again, pleasant greetings to all who linger here, and I shall see you all on the boards. 

   Oh, and one more thing.  I use way too many smileys, and am a little too "colorful" for my own good.  But you've probably figured that out by now. 

[Garoth Moulinoski]

   Oh, and one more thing.  I use way too many smileys, and am a little too "colorful" for my own good.  But you've probably figured that out by now. 

Yes... O_O

[CalvinHart]

heya guys nice to see ya 

[Dracula X]

Hi! I'm Dracula X! Nice to meet everyone. Some of you might know me from other forums from Sonic Retro and The Guardian Legend forum as Grimgrin. The current game that I'm hacking is The Guardian Legend.

[DarknessSavior]

Hi! I'm Dracula X! Nice to meet everyone. Some of you might know me from other forums from Sonic Retro and The Guardian Legend forum as Grimgrin. The current game that I'm hacking is The Guardian Legend.

Welcome to RHDN. Glad to see other people hacking TGL.

~DS

[Dracula X]

Thanks!

[1983parrothead]

Who am I?

My username here is 1983parrothead, but I'm sometimes called "parrothead1983" or simply "Parrothead".  My username is based on my only brother I had in my family, who was born in 1983 and became a Jimmy Buffet fan around the late '90s, shortly before he accidentally passed away crashing our father's BMW against a fixed object (which are some bricks that decorate a driveway) in 1999.

You might remember seeing me in some other forums like Starmen.Net, Kirby's Rainbow Resort, MUGEN Fighters Guild, MUGEN Infantry, RetroJunk, SmashBoards, Sega-16 and NinDB, as well as a contributor at Wikipedia, Know Your Meme and YouTube.  Some people dislike me like MezaseMaster and Xe-A-Thoul from RetroJunk think that I am an "elitist bastard", but I'm not trying to be like that. Some people like FryGuy64 from NinDB like me because I am serious and I'm like someone who hunts for pieces of lost history and brings from a hand-full to a semi truckload of them.  When I told FryGuy64 about the people I mentioned above who spread hatred over me, he said:

Some people get angry about things and think everyone should share those opinions, and many people are easily-led. Sad fact of life.

He also said:

I guess what they mean is that you find something interesting, do all the research yourself, and then post it, rather than leaving your comments open-ended for discussion. You come across as knowing what you're talking about, but at the same time not giving anybody else the chance to contribute.

In other words, you talk like a website rather than a forum poster

I'll be honest, Parrothead - it may bother some people, but I find the information you provide to be infinitely helpful (as it means I don't have to go researching what you say) and it's always well-researched and informative.

I am mostly a fan of the company Nintendo.  I'm not sure if this is also okay to tell this, but I am a mid-functioning Aspie.  I'm like Temple Grandin, except Asperger's syndrome is weaker than what she has, autism.

History/Interests

When I was very young, I used to jump in the bandwagons of several popular stuff, but shortly after them, I became bored of the most popular things about them and focused on the lesser-known, but good ones.  I was even bothered by some of my favorite stuff that weren't very popular not being brought back.  Every time I see some popular stuff in stores like Wal*Mart, and if I don't feel like looking at them, I begin to dislike them more.  Although, there are some popular things I shouldn't miss out on, some fans of them might be very harsh to me, while they can cause my parents to fuss at me.  Whenever I see some lesser-known, but good stuff being brought back in a good way after they haven't been used in a long period of time, I feel happy about them.

In simplified words, some popular stuff are good, but I prefer lesser-known, but good stuff more.  If I see anything becoming extinct and forgotten by nearly everyone, it makes me think of the overrated Sephiroth doing his evil laugh.

One of my favorite things is cross-overs. When I read about the N64 Super Smash Bros. in a Nintendo Power issue, I saw Ness from MOTHER 2/SNES EarthBound, and I was like "I remember seeing him in a GamePro magazine, but I thought his origin was just another video game."  I joined Starmen.Net forums to learn about the MOTHER/EarthBound series, but then I slowly began to encounter some people that laughed and spoke harshly at me.

I began to lose some of my interest in the MOTHER/EarthBound franchise and later left and went to JoshCube's Smash Brothers Online forum (now offline) to contribute some ideas mainly about protagonists of Nintendo's lesser-known video games.  I later encountered a friend their name Johans' Nidorino, a Pokemon fan from Guatemala who was so nice to me, he liked me a lot, because he said that I am very serious, and we share some interests with each other.  Shortly before JoshCube prevented all members from using the forum, I moved to SmashBoards to share my ideas there.   I also joined the Nintendo Database forum and shared my research about Nintendo's history with the website's founder, FryGuy64.

After a certain amount of time playing the N64 SSB and SSBM very well, I went to a local game store titled Black Box (now out of business) and I saw a SSBM pro gamer there who often likes doing the infamous glitches many know, like "wavedashing", "dancing" and the "No items (because they are like cheating), Fox only (cause he's both, fast and hard to control), Final Destination (because it's the flattest stage with no platforms)."  I never could win a battle, but I made him lose a couple of lives.  This caused me to change from a pro gamer to a "Research Gamer", but recently, one of my friends Johans told me that I still "kick ass", as in playing the way Nintendo wants us to play like.  When I looked up some games on Wikipedia, some of their articles were poorly written, while most people focused on the most popular video games.  My parents forced me to decrease my playtime with them and wanted me to increase my productivity with more important stuff.  I thought this hobby would also help me learn new words in order to improve my social skills.

When Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released, it didn't turn out as good as I thought it would, but I got over it some, while I also started gaining some interest in the fighting game engine, M.U.G.E.N.  I first saw it at RetroJunk several years ago before the annoying MezaseMaster and Xe-A-Thoul registered there, and I was shocked about it, because it allows you to even create cross-overs that most likely wouldn't happen due to certain reasons like copyright nightmares.

Currently, I still enjoy M.U.G.E.N (I mostly use its "Watch" mode), while I'm still working on some articles on Wikipedia about lesser-known video games by well-known companies.  I also write articles about some Japanese Internet memes at Know Your Meme with the help from some members, and help gameads.gamepressure.com find some video game commercials.

Other Interests

Besides video games and M.U.G.E.N, I'm also interested in chickens, because I was raised in a chicken ranch with my mother and I saw some with different, unusual looks.  Me and my brother enjoyed raising them.  Today, I live with my father, and I accidentally got him interested in them, because of their good looks and their healthy, colored eggs.  Like Temple Grandin, who understands how cows act, I can understand what chickens say and do.  I also like turkeys, because my brother is like one.  Fast (because he ran cross-country), smart (turkeys are smart, especially wild ones), and funny (because he gobbled and made some of his classmates laugh.  He even made a crying girl laugh). Along with that, some people gave me a wild and a domestic turkey as pets, without me requesting them.  I also like riding on an Electra Townie bicycle.

Why am I here?

To check out some translation projects and sometimes share my research with some of you.

What are my favorite video games?

Most of my favorites were developed and/or published by Nintendo.  This list is incomplete, because there is just so many to choose from:

* The Legendary Starfy series
* Tomato Adventure
* Card Hero series
* StarTropics series
* Punch-Out!! arcades and SNES Super Punch-Out!!
* Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (lit. "For the Frog the Bell Tolls")
* Balloon Kid/Balloon Fight GB
* Joy Mech Fight
* Any cross-over

They also may or may not be my favorites, because I haven't been playing them much, due to being a Research Gamer, who often researches about them more than playing them.

Hope this helps you understand who I am.

[Iron_wofle]

I'm Iron_wofle, but you can call me Waffles. I like mecha, good games, playing drums and warhammer 40k. I'm currently studying computer engineering, hoping to be a programmer/developer in a few years. The closest thing to hacking I've ever done is some basic palette swapping. I'd like to learn more, but I just don't have the time. I'm trying to learn japanese (with limited success, but hey, you won't learn a new language overnight..), and I'm fairly good with languages. Not that I can speak anything other than Norwegian and English, mainly because I'm lazy and haven't bothered learning any :p

I've been lurking around RHDN for a while, mainly because of the SRW J translation project. Figured I should get to know the place and the people here a bit more.

[sleepy]

Hi,

I'm sleepy. I like programming lowlevel code (c,c++,assembly) as well as c#. I like old NES games and write utils for them.
I've ran across this site several times in the past and finally created an account to upload some stuff to return the favor of all the ones i've dl'd.
nice to meet you all.

[KaioShin]

I've ran across this site several times in the past and finally created an account to upload some stuff to return the favor of all the ones i've dl'd.

[Indestructible]

Hello, I am Indestructible. I have been hacking SM64/Super Mario 64 for a long time now, and I wanted to hack something else... and then I heard about this site and how helpful it was and stuff, so I came to a desision about joining this site. And it is everything I chuld have dreamed of  . I have no education of advanced hacking, but I am planning to learn about c++ and other sort of languages, but I first of all wanna go trough the " Getting Started " page. I am not saying I am a bad hacker.... just need some training  Well, I am thirteen years old and my birthday the eight november. I am from Norway which means I am Norwegian RIGHT? sooo..... if you don't understand my english that good then it is okay... just let me know on a reply  Okay I think that is enough... bye.

[By]

Hello, people.

I am, unfortunately, a complete newbie in all respects.  I've learned a lot about computer science and math and other related things just by reading, but I haven't done much of anything practical.  I've decided that I need some actual practice, which is why I'm here.  I have a weirdly obsessive desire to know how things work at a base level, so asm hacking appeals to me.

As for what I'd like to do, I have a couple ideas for mods, and it would be nice if I could translate Nanashi no Game (though DS hacks aren't okay here, I understand) and Serial Experiments Lain (though some other group is already doing that).

So yeah, that's basically to show that despite being a newbie I can write in grammatically correct sentences.

And I came  here for a reason.  Is there anywhere that I can ask quick, probably RTFM-worthy questions that don't deserve a thread?

[DarknessSavior]

Hello, people.

I am, unfortunately, a complete newbie in all respects.  I've learned a lot about computer science and math and other related things just by reading, but I haven't done much of anything practical.  I've decided that I need some actual practice, which is why I'm here.  I have a weirdly obsessive desire to know how things work at a base level, so asm hacking appeals to me.

As for what I'd like to do, I have a couple ideas for mods, and it would be nice if I could translate Nanashi no Game (though DS hacks aren't okay here, I understand) and Serial Experiments Lain (though some other group is already doing that).

So yeah, that's basically to show that despite being a newbie I can write in grammatically correct sentences.

And I came  here for a reason.  Is there anywhere that I can ask quick, probably RTFM-worthy questions that don't deserve a thread?

Welcome. From the looks of things, you're off to a decent start.

As far as your RTFM-worthy questions, first, check the FAQ. If the answer isn't there, go post at the Newbie Board. We don't really have a good thread for stuff like that, but making your own is harmless.

~DS

[spralwers]

Hey,

I'm Spralwers. I got into ROM hacking about 5-6 years ago and messed around primarily with Fire Emblem 3 and Super Mario RPG. I fooled around with the text and adjusted statistics, but that's as far as I got before I couldn't find the drive to keep going. I unfortunately didn't get into anything more complicated, like trying to fit more text space and expanding the ROM.

Skip to the present. I'm going to be a junior in electrical engineering, and ive had quality experience with java (i took a course on data structures) and MIPS. My programming skills will only get much better through the rest of my career in college, in both assembly and high level.

Since ROM hacking is actually quite relevant (although it's more computer engineering/computer science), to my major, I decided to give the art a more in depth look. I also have a pretty natural curiosity for how things work (I've also taken tons of physics classes), and I play video games fairly often, so this art has me way more interested now.

My goal for the future is to create a power rangers game on the SNES that doesn't suck. I don't think any good power rangers game will come out within the next 5-10 years, yet the series has unmeasurable potential for an awesome game. I can just see every future game being a half assed 3-D adventure. What this series needs is a 2-D sidescroller where the rangers aren't just pallette swaps =\ It also needs to be developed by someone who doesn't face time constraints and/or someone who won't get lazy and half-ass it. I have too many ideas to make an awesome game on a badass platform for free. It's gotta happen.

While there's plenty of information on ROM hacking, how much is there floating around for homebrewing? Unfortunately, I'm running 64-bit Windows 7. This means that Byuu's assembly tools (like xkas that are DOS) just don't run, and those tools looked absolutely essential for homebrewing. Any other recommmendations?

[DarknessSavior]

Unfortunately, I'm running 64-bit Windows 7. This means that Byuu's assembly tools (like xkas that are DOS) just don't run, and those tools looked absolutely essential for homebrewing. Any other recommmendations?

I too run Windows 7 64-bit. You can use batch files to run any command-prompt or DOS programs.

~DS

[spralwers]

So how exactly do you open those? When I double click them, the command prompt opens up, says "press and key to continue" then when I do, it shuts off. I tried opening both the .exe and the .bat files with DOSbox as well, but I got error messages saying they couldn't be run in DOS mode. I'm talking about xkas and spcas.