Mystery dungeon hack possibility??

[BLACK0UT]

This is my first thread, but a rather important one.



Ever since the good old days of Red Rescue Team, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series has opened up a new perspective on the world of pokemon. I've seen numerous hacks of the regular Pokemon games, and it got me wondering as to when a MD hack will be made. It could be anything from editing stats, dungeons, bosses, sprites, maps, game mechanics, etc... I know the story lines within these games are amazing, so maybe editing those would be tough, unless you start from scratch. I am also aware that the knowledge of Rom Hacking in DS generation games is very limited at this point in time, possibly limiting hacking to only Red Rescue Team. Nevertheless, i would be psyched if one ever came out, and im curious as to what the Community thinks about this. I am by no means capable of creating a hack, but who ever is capable would -in my opinion- bring a lot of enrichment to the Rom Hacking world and joy to the community.

So what do y'all think???

[miksy91]

The real problem with hacking those games is that most people here rely on tools when hacking. No map editor, text editor, script editor etc. has been made for those games. What's more, figuring out the coding of a non-hacked game from scratch is not an easy task to be done. What I'm trying to say here is that it's difficult even for an advanced rom hacker to start editing a game that's not documented in any way.

Editing stats of enemies (if they're not calculated by their level) and sprites can be done easily without any proper knowledge but the rest you mentioned, editing dungeons, bosses, game mechanics, ..., requires way more researching than you may realize.

Besides, I believe the fact that making hacks RSE and FRLG require nothing more than the usage of game-specific tools, also pushes the beginning hackers (but even more advanced ones) to stick with an usual type of a pokemon game.
And now, for some unordinary way to finish this little speech:

Let's assume that writing bytes 0A 2B in rom address 0x123456 in Red Rescue Team would affect a certain event in a way we wanted but we didn't understand how to do so, how are we supposed to figure out even to modify address 0x123456 in the first place...

[Ash493]

Originally Posted by miksy91

Let's assume that writing bytes 0A 2B in rom address 0x123456 in Red Rescue Team would affect a certain event in a way we wanted but we didn't understand how to do so, how are we supposed to figure out even to modify address 0x123456 in the first place...

And we should safely assume that the mentioned adress would have more jumps than one and would affect more than one event and I believe that is the case in MDs games because in contrast to the main games the maps are not consistent and they change everytime...
So hacking MDs is pretty much impossible imo...

[Nerketur]

Originally Posted by BLACK0UT

I am by no means capable of creating a hack, but who ever is capable would -in my opinion- bring a lot of enrichment to the Rom Hacking world and joy to the community.

So what do y'all think???

I think it's an awesome idea too! This is why I've been doing research on said games.

Originally Posted by miksy91

The real problem with hacking those games is that most people here rely on tools when hacking. No map editor, text editor, script editor etc. has been made for those games. What's more, figuring out the coding of a non-hacked game from scratch is not an easy task to be done. What I'm trying to say here is that it's difficult even for an advanced rom hacker to start editing a game that's not documented in any way.

As much as I'd agree here, it's not entirely true. Yes, it IS difficult to "hack" a undocumented game. However, there ARE a few editors out for PMD" Red Rescue Team, all of them made by Sebbe. Partner editor, and even an all-in-one editor, though few people actually have that one. That said, as of yet, there is only one script editor currently out for PMD: Explorers of Time, made by me, except you still have to be an advanced hacker to use it, as it only lets you view and not save as of yet.

Originally Posted by miksy91

Besides, I believe the fact that making hacks RSE and FRLG require nothing more than the usage of game-specific tools, also pushes the beginning hackers (but even more advanced ones) to stick with an usual type of a pokemon game.

I strongly agree with this one. I'd also like to add that I believe once my Script editor is fully complete, it will be MUCH easier to hack PMD, because (at least for Time/Darkness/Sky) just about EVERYTHING (except dungeons) is controlled via scripting. (This INCLUDES title-screen, opening, intro, and cutscenes.)

Originally Posted by Ash493

And we should safely assume that the mentioned adress would have more jumps than one and would affect more than one event and I believe that is the case in MDs games because in contrast to the main games the maps are not consistent and they change everytime...
So hacking MDs is pretty much impossible imo...

While hacking the dungeons themselves may be impossible, the scripting controls almost everything else. (Battles are "loaded" in the script, as numerical values, same with dungeons, so they aren't really in scripts Basically script says "Load battle 6", or "Load dungeon 32") So, I believe that editing graphics and tiles, as well as script will be possible, which can still create an entirely new game.

So, in closing, I'm currently in the process of creating a tool for scripting and researching all the PMD titles (Though my main focus is on PMD: EoT/EoD/EoS) Though my tool will only cover scripting, my research thread will eventually contain all the info I know about the game, whether it be scripting, music format, graphics, etc.