To this stupid website, I'm saying goodbye! Post editor and formatting kinda sucks (totally my fault for picking probably the worst blog site I could, but I digress).
This little critter of a site, cohost, seems neat so I'm gonna try it out for a while. It's still RSS compatible, so don't worry fans. Well see you there, I'll be posting a lot porbably....
Hi blog goers!
These past few weeks I've been messing around with level editors for various old games, and really enjoying myself! Making games from scratch has been really tiring with all of my other obligations right now, so flexing my level design muscles has been nice.
And now I'm feeling nostalgic about my early days rom hacking, so now's as good a time as ever to write about it
WHAT IS ROM HACKING??
Most people are more familiar with the term "mod" nowadays, and I guess you could use it to describe rom hacks. Rom hacking stems from the very early days of console video games being available on computers. Passionate and bored people alike would poke into a game's rom (a file containing all of a game's data ripped from a cartridge), and edit it the only way they could; changing individual bytes of the file. Eventually, some games were reverse engineered and tools were created to make editing a whole lot easier.
Many communities, big or small, popped up around hacking certain games, and some are still around to this day (new ones appear sometimes too). I knew about rom hacking from my earliest days online, watching ProtonJon play Kaizo Mario and other silly hacks.
Probably when I was around 12 or 13 I actually tried doing some stuff myself! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of this stuff saved, but I'll describe the games I worked with and the stuff I did best I can.
Sonic The Hedgehog
I was a Sonic freak as a youngin', so it's no surprise I looked into Sonic stuff first. Sonic Retro has a wiki with a bunch of rom hacks for download on it, and I spent hours trying stuff out. Some hacks were better than others, but a lot of the best had really cool custom programming in the form of new objects and characters.
Eventually I got curious enough to download some tools and try things out myself. It definitely wasn't the best way to get into making games...
Especially at that age, I was completely lacking in any technical know how. Coding anything new was completely beyond me, and making new levels was a no go. Levels in the first Sonic games are composed of large reusable chunks of terrain, with enemies and stuff placed on top. I was utterly intimidated by this (and frustrated by its limitations) so I gave up quickly.
So what did that leave me? Color palettes and graphics. Old video game graphics are generally drawn using a set of predefined colors, so by changing some sliders around I could make things look completely different! On top of that, there were tools that allowed for (kinda tedious) graphic editing. I did a couple hacks that just changed Sonic's sprites in stupid ways.
I remember I edited all of Sonic's frames of animation to make his eyes half closed like he was bored. I probably had some more ambitious projects, but I gave up on them due to frustration with my lack of skill.
I eventually moved on, but there's a lot of neat stuff going on still. Some are still making fascinating stuff for the Genesis games (programmed in 68k assembly mind you), while others have taken up the recent Sonic Mania for its ease of editing. Check out this year's Sonic Hacking Contest!
Oh, and fun tidbit I wanted to mention. There's a sprite rotation algorithm used by many that can be found in the popular pixel art program Aseprite. That algorithm was originally made for making rotated Sonic sprites! Check out the Sonic Retro wiki page:
Super Mario World
Now here's the big one!! Super Mario World is probably the most accessible game to hack of all. Lunar Magic is the game's sole level editor created by FuSoYa. Originally released in 2000, it has been semi-frequently updated in the 23 years since and has allowed for hundreds of hacks to be created by users all over the world. You can edit the game's levels, overworld, and text all from one well put together tool.
On top of that, the community over at Super Mario World Central has tons of tools and custom stuff to add into the game. From patches to change or add behavior, custom graphics and music, and more. They even hold frequent level design contests.
SMW hacking is also known for the "kaizo" scene. Kaizo is a colloquial term for a certain breed of really hard level design. You can read all about it on the surprisingly good Wikipedia article.
I got into SMW hacking around 2017 and didn't make anything substantial. I did a lot of messing around with patches and graphics but never really made any levels. Basically I treated it as more of an art project than an exercise in game design. I spent a lot of time making the perfect base rom with all the extra stuff I wanted and all the tweaks, and then I gave up at level design. Oh well.
I will definitely be coming back to SMW though. The community is great, and there's so much to work with beyond what the original game has to offer (which is already a lot). The level editor is probably the best there is for a game of its age too. Also, there are lots of great hacks to play yourself. Check some out if you're ever bored, it doesn't take too much processing power to run a SNES emulator.
DOOM
Doom wads aren't really rom hacking, but it's very similar in spirit. The game's file system was designed with modifications in mind, so you can run the original game with an extra file containing maps or graphics (called a wad) and experience that new content.
30 (!!! THAT'S A BIG NUMBER !!!) years later and there are plenty of easy to use tools and a thriving community surrounding this game. Awesome level packs get released all the time, and there's decades of great stuff to explore.
There's also a niche on YouTube of classic Doom videos. From informative diatribes, to impressive gameplay there's a lot to see. I've been following decino for a long time, and he just put out a video shouting our other Doom video makers to check out, so that makes things easier for me!
Making Doom maps isn't too hard either. I tried it out recently and had some fun, my first time designing a 3D level. Doom's unique level format makes it easy to set up cool traps and craft interesting terrain, and make it look fairly nice too. I'd like to make a Doom level pack sometime, although map making is very time consuming! Patience will be necessary...
Super Mario Bros. 3
I'm closing this post out with my most recent exploration. I opened up SMW Central to find they were hosting a Mario 3 level design contest. I decided to join, and finished my entry the other day. Mario 3 has a fairly new editor, and despite some annoying quirks it's pretty easy to put together a neat level. Mario 3 is pretty different from Mario World, both have fairly different limitations.
But anyways, I think my level turned out pretty fun. It's more of a traditional level but it has some cool parts. Check out everyone's entries here you lazy bum!
🐒See you next post!🐒
