ROM Hacking vs. Game Development

Hiya y'all~

As the title suggests, what's the difference between the Pokemon hacks in Game Development vs the Pokemon hacks in ROM Hacking? Why is there a segregation? I'm referencing the Game Development section under Creative Discussions here on PC, of course.

I haven't spent a lot of time in Game Development, but from what I remember, that section isn't for Rom Hacking and is designed for, well, actual game development. (RPG Maker comes to mind but I cant remember if that has its own board)

*Edit* Rom Hacking is for people that hack the existing games, Game Development is for those who make them from new.

Put simply, Rom Hacking and Game Development are completely, 100% unrelated. Traditionally, Game Development consists (or consisted) of Pokemon games made using RPG Maker XP. In other words, it's simply using an engine that's customized to mirror Pokemon, but as far as brass tacks are concerned, it is a bare-bones RPG engine that was turned into Pokemon. But in the broader sense, this isn't necessarily the case. Game Development is for what its name implies: making games. They don't necessarily have to be Pokemon and they don't have to be RPG Maker.

In other words, Game Development is the creation of games rather than the modification of them. Inherently, GD encompasses a much, much broader realm than Rom Hacking. Rom Hacking is pretty self-explanatory, as well: it's the hacking of roms. Which is to say, games (as far as PC's concerned, generally Pokemon) are dissected and modified in some way or another. That's Rom Hacking.

So why are they segregated? Well, because they're not really all that similar, in idea or in execution. One's the modification of an existing game while the other is quite literally anything else as far as game development's concerned. They both have very different rules, ways about going about just about anything, and limitations- it would really be rather chaotic or cluttered if they were in the same forum.

machomuu said:

Put simply, Rom Hacking and Game Development are completely, 100% unrelated. Traditionally, Game Development consists (or consisted) of Pokemon games made using RPG Maker XP. In other words, it's simply using an engine that's customized to mirror Pokemon, but as far as brass tacks are concerned, it is a bare-bones RPG engine that was turned into Pokemon. But in the broader sense, this isn't necessarily the case. Game Development is for what its name implies: making games. They don't necessarily have to be Pokemon and they don't have to be RPG Maker.

In other words, Game Development is the creation of games rather than the modification of them. Inherently, GD encompasses a much, much broader realm than Rom Hacking. Rom Hacking is pretty self-explanatory, as well: it's the hacking of roms. Which is to say, games (as far as PC's concerned, generally Pokemon) are dissected and modified in some way or another. That's Rom Hacking.

So why are they segregated? Well, because they're not really all that similar, in idea or in execution. One's the modification of an existing game while the other is quite literally anything else as far as game development's concerned. They both have very different rules, ways about going about just about anything, and limitations- it would really be rather chaotic or cluttered if they were in the same forum.

Click to expand...

You've really got most of it down, but I disagree with you on the 100% different thing. If you really think about, the two sections are not all that different. ROM hacking is more like a specialized form of game development, where we turn an existing game (usually Pokémon here) into an "engine" of sorts to make a new one. They both have the same end goal: game creation.

But it's definitely a good thing they're separate. Game development needs it's own space to breathe.

Lost Heart said:

You've really got most of it down, but I disagree with you on the 100% different thing. If you really think about, the two sections are not all that different. ROM hacking is more like a specialized form of game development, where we turn an existing game (usually Pokémon here) into an "engine" of sorts to make a new one. They both have the same end goal: game creation.

But it's definitely a good thing they're separate. Game development needs it's own space to breathe.

Click to expand...

Well I didn't say it was 100% different, just that they're not really all that similar. I do often like to refer to Pokemon as we see them as engines that could be used to create practically anything as well, but all in all, should it be looked at from that perspective, Rom Hacking looks at a few specific engines while GD looks at others- a shared space would really shed light on exactly why we have two forums for them.

Conceptually, sure, they're similar, but delving into what you're capable of doing in one versus the other as well as how things are done shows that technically they're far more different than they are similar, and though there are concepts you can understand from one by dabbling in the other, learning how to execute such thing'll be a matter of learning from square one.

machomuu said:

Well I didn't say it was 100% different, just that they're not really all that similar. I do often like to refer to Pokemon as we see them as engines that could be used to create practically anything as well, but all in all, should it be looked at from that perspective, Rom Hacking looks at a few specific engines while GD looks at others- a shared space would really shed light on exactly why we have two forums for them.

Conceptually, sure, they're similar, but delving into what you're capable of doing in one versus the other as well as how things are done shows that technically they're far more different than they are similar, and though there are concepts you can understand from one by dabbling in the other, learning how to execute such thing'll be a matter of learning from square one.

Click to expand...

You certainly have a point. It's hard to say how exactly know the assembly language for the GBA will help you with non-GBA focused game development, but at the same time there are probably more cross-over skills than you realize. First off we have the cosmetic, skills focused on making game art, mapping, etc. Then there are the skills that you develop for game organization, such as planning of the game world, (game) memory management, storyline management, etc. And then finally we have the technical skills, which is where, as you said, the real breakdown between the two areas begins.

machomuu said:

Put simply, Rom Hacking and Game Development are completely, 100% unrelated.

Click to expand...

machomuu said:

Well I didn't say it was 100% different,

Click to expand...

:^)


Anyway, as far as differences go, there are a few big ones but not really a whole lot in the scheme of things. First off, "Game Development" consists of people using various crutch applications such as RPGMaker and Game Maker to compile x86 machine code that runs their game; ROM hacking works with ARM7TDMI machine code in reverse of what game dev does, meaning we're not compiling anything and rely on RE to edit our ROMs.

Games made with applications obviously present a lot of features not possible with the GBA hardware, most notably 24-bit colour, larger screen resolutions, more expansive I/O capabilities, et al. On the other hand, tools like RPGMaker and such are really elementary and a lot of professional developers discount them from the realm of true software development, mainly because it takes away a lot of the actual development to making the game and instead presents a bunch of predefined tools and resources for people to make the game without having to worry about code.

I think the attraction to Game Dev is rooted in legality, ease of execution, and higher hardware capabilities, but honestly I'd prefer working with the GBA because it's a challenge to me - I'm slightly more concerned about a developmental challenge than making the game and all of its design aspects and whatnot.

Basically, major league video games are written in real programming languages and have all of their designs planned and worked out separately, whereas when using a game "dev" program you have the two blended together where it's a lot easier to spontaneously come up with shit on-the-fly and at most be dealing with some scripting language to do functional tasks.

ROM hacking in a nutshell is reverse-engineering and modifying those major league video games on a specialty platform, and making edits or entirely new products out of them.

Nick said:

... meaning we're not compiling anything and rely on RE to edit our ROMs. ...

Click to expand...

I compile things sometimes.

But I disagree. It's not reverse engineering if you're just hex editing, scripting, etc., like the vast majority of the community. While sometimes ROM hacking is more RE related, most of the time people just use the RE work of others as a crutch to build their own stories around the game - without that RE work they would be pretty much helpless, making it akin to the traditional RMXP user in Game Dev or whatever. The very fact that you don't need ASM to build a full ROM hack shows how much of a crutch that work is.

Nick said:

:^)

Click to expand...

Ah, that. Well, I'd still stand by that much, if only because I don't feel that them being different and them being unrelated are synonymous. I would say they are definitely unrelated, though they bear certain similarities and concepts.

machomuu said:

Ah, that. Well, I'd still stand by that much, if only because I don't feel that them being different and them being unrelated are synonymous. I would say they are definitely unrelated, though they bear certain similarities and concepts.

Click to expand...

Still, I disagree with your idea that game development encompasses much more than ROM hacking, not only because this "game development" is largely comprised of people using RPG makers (not true development), but also because there's a lot more than video games being ROM hacked where we are. Some of my colleagues are key people in REing the 3DS, and people like Touched don't ever fool with making games themselves and instead make up their time exclusively of reverse engineering. See, ROM hacking is a lot more than making games, and while you could argue making RPGs in an editor is too, where is the contemporary evidence proving such a claim?

Touched said:

I compile things sometimes.

But I disagree. It's not reverse engineering if you're just hex editing, scripting, etc., like the vast majority of the community. While sometimes ROM hacking is more RE related, most of the time people just use the RE work of others as a crutch to build their own stories around the game - without that RE work they would be pretty much helpless, making it akin to the traditional RMXP user in Game Dev or whatever. The very fact that you don't need ASM to build a full ROM hack shows how much of a crutch that work is.

Click to expand...

True as that may be, my statement nonetheless holds true in that we rely on RE to get our work done, though we may not be doing the RE ourselves.

Nick said:

Still, I disagree with your idea that game development encompasses much more than ROM hacking, not only because this "game development" is largely comprised of people using RPG makers (not true development), but also because there's a lot more than video games being ROM hacked where we are. Some of my colleagues are key people in REing the 3DS, and people like Touched don't ever fool with making games themselves and instead make up their time exclusively of reverse engineering. See, ROM hacking is a lot more than making games, and while you could argue making RPGs in an editor is too, where is the contemporary evidence proving such a claim?

Click to expand...

From the Game Development Forum? I have no evidence. But in terms of Game Development as a term and in general, that which I'm describing there, I do think that it's inherently broader than Rom Hacking, because apart from just developing games there's developing engines, programming the like and support programs, AI, etc. And I'm not saying that Rom Hacking's nothing to shake a stick at or that it's even inferior in any way save for one-the-surface limitations, but I'd definitely say that it's not as broad. As far as evidence...well, reverse-engineering engines is done in GD as well. As is mapping, scripting and its equivalents, music composition and insertion, sprite/model development, so on and so forth. All that is Rom Hacking can be applied to GD in some way.

As far as PC's concerned? I couldn't support that statement since here there's just a lot more going on and we, as a community, are a very focused on creating a more game development engine out of generations 2 and 3 and making a more viable, open one out of 4, 5, and 6. While neither community really focuses on the not-Pokemon, Rom Hacking seems to be to progression as Game Development is to ease-of-use. Put simply, if we were to make a chart of Rom Hacking and GD's progress vs. ease-of-use, GD'd be a straight, horizontal while RH would be diagonal, showing a balance of the two. It seems like we're (as a community) always working up towards something to allow new things to be done and existing things to be done more easily. With GD, though, since it almost exclusively uses RPG Maker and, for the most part, doesn't encompass a large, large part of Game Design, the inherent idea that GD is broader doesn't really apply since here it's mostly static-yet-customizable engine and the resources and scripts are apart of that customization, but are more ease-of-use than progression. So here, on PC, I'd say it's the opposite.

machomuu said:

From the Game Development Forum? I have no evidence. But in terms of Game Development as a term and in general, that which I'm describing there, I do think that it's inherently broader than Rom Hacking, because apart from just developing games there's developing engines, programming the like and support programs, AI, etc.

Click to expand...

We're developing engines too, and are working on support programs and even AIs. Jambo51 is making a custom ROM base, Shiny Quagsire and I are working on a new map editor and script editor (respectively), and there's talk amongst some of our ASM workers of custom battle AIs.

machomuu said:

And I'm not saying that Rom Hacking's nothing to shake a stick at or that it's even inferior in any way save for one-the-surface limitations, but I'd definitely say that it's not as broad. As far as evidence...well, reverse-engineering engines is done in GD as well.

Click to expand...

No, it's not. Game dev is forward development, where you have source code that gets compiled, and the whole premise of RE is that you're working backwards and editing the output of that compilation. lol

machomuu said:

As is mapping, scripting and its equivalents, music composition and insertion, sprite/model development, so on and so forth. All that is Rom Hacking can be applied to GD in some way.

Click to expand...

Wrong. All of that surface-level editing is not possible without assembly magic, which "game dev" has no place for. Game developers do not write x86 (or x86-64) machine code, ever. Saying even the biggest of real dev companies do is kind of a stretch too. It's also worth noting that all of the "edits" you're citing as game making would be impossible in ROM hacking without assembly magic and and understanding of Nintendo's work - game dev is doable with a C compiler (TCC weighs < 1MiB) and a text editor. Sure, you could say all of ROM hacking is possible with a hex editor, but what are you going to do when you don't know what anything in the ROM means?

machomuu said:

As far as PC's concerned? I couldn't support that statement since here there's just a lot more going on and we, as a community, are a very focused on creating a more game development engine out of generations 2 and 3 and making a more viable, open one out of 4, 5, and 6. While neither community really focuses on the not-Pokemon, Rom Hacking seems to be to progression as Game Development is to ease-of-use. Put simply, if we were to make a chart of Rom Hacking and GD's progress vs. ease-of-use, GD'd be a straight, horizontal while RH would be diagonal, showing a balance of the two. It seems like we're (as a community) always working up towards something to allow new things to be done and existing things to be done more easily. With GD, though, since it almost exclusively uses RPG Maker and, for the most part, doesn't encompass a large, large part of Game Design, the inherent idea that GD is broader doesn't really apply since here it's mostly static-yet-customizable engine and the resources and scripts are apart of that customization, but are more ease-of-use than progression. So here, on PC, I'd say it's the opposite.

Click to expand...

I really don't care for the "community" here so I'm going to ignore most of that, but I will say one thing. ROM hacking in our context is clearly broader than game development in our context. You cannot lump together every real game made along with your RPG maker works and not also lump together every computer driver ever made, ever operating system kernel, and every bootloader written with ROM hacking, because those are the kind of things we work with "in general." Editing low level memory (RAM, ROM) is far broader than making entertainment software.

Huh.

Well I'll at least give on Game Development being much broader. Less broad, that'd be a stretch, given there's still a hell of a lot involved and I'd be hard-pressed to say that Rom Hacking or the like is simply inherently wider in expanse, that's a huge step that I'd need more information and time to give on.

Nick said:

I really don't care for the "community" here so I'm going to ignore most of that, but I will say one thing. ROM hacking in our context is clearly broader than game development in our context.

Click to expand...

This much I'll definitely agree with 100%. Not sure exactly what you ignored, but that's pretty much the sentiment I was trying to get across there. Here it's basically RPG Maker = Game Development, despite GD being something that should encompass much, much more. But GD here, as a forum, is designed around that one thing. You might not get much attention, but at least in RH you can post any sort of hack and it'll have its place.

machomuu said:

Huh.

Well I'll at least give on Game Development being much broader. Less broad, that'd be a stretch, given there's still a hell of a lot involved and I'd be hard-pressed to say that Rom Hacking or the like is simply inherently wider in expanse, that's a huge step that I'd need more information and time to give on.


This much I'll definitely agree with 100%. Not sure exactly what you ignored, but that's pretty much the sentiment I was trying to get across there. Here it's basically RPG Maker = Game Development, despite GD being something that should encompass much, much more. But GD here, as a forum, is designed around that one thing. You might not get much attention, but at least in RH you can post any sort of hack and it'll have its place.

Click to expand...

I wasn't really getting at the communities being bigger/smaller, though I guess that's true if you think about it. I'm talking about how broad the activity is in the context of the material, not the people, and I think that's how we ended up talking past each other. As far as the software itself goes, RH does include a lot more than GB(A/C) games, or even video games at all, so that's how it's broader to me than game development of any kind. Within our reaches, though, I honestly think they're near-1:1 – and this is just talking about the RPG Maker works, just the ROM hacks we all make and the RE that enables them, nothing more. I'd say RH is slightly broader just for the sake of the reverse-engineering that goes on and how crucial that is to our knowledge.

Also, it may be worth considering that ROM hacking can present a learning experience if you're one who focuses more on RE than making the games. It can be quite scholarly, though I wouldn't know how scholarly GD would be in our context.

Team Fail said:

Keep in mind, however, that Jambo's engine is also open-source and whatnot. Since it's being written from scratch, and absolutely anyone can compile it, you can technically call that game development, because you can easily make your modifications and just build your ROM.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it has a place in both RH and GD because it is forward engineering, but also because it's working with GBA hardware and presents itself as something to be edited by others. That is a bit iffy.

Team Fail said:

I'll give you this, partially. Saying that game developers do not write x86/x64 code is completely false. There are plenty of games for these platforms, that are exclusive, and they're done in x86 or x64.

Click to expand...

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 was made in x86 assembly! And that is game development. But I meant that statement in the context of what goes on in the GD forum, sorry if I wasn't clear about that.

Team Fail said:

As for requiring assembly for Rom Hacking, that's really stretching the truth. Granted you may have to know what you're doing, sometimes you don't. Such as the case with simple translations. If you don't have to account for font widths and whatnot, or having to edit the charsets to accommodate a different language (such as early Final Fantasy games that didn't have an English charset), you literally just have to plug in new text and call it a day. Nothing much there. You may have to research into it if it uses a proprietary encoding, such as the Pokémon GBA generation does, but not all Rom Hacks do require assembly modifications. I will give you points for mentioning that you do have to know how some of it works though, because that is definitely something that has to be known for any of this to work.

Click to expand...

You're right about it not being necessary to make edits, however it's more or less impossible for any of those edits to have ever happened if someone didn't learn the ins-and-outs of the ROM, whether it's the maker of the "hack" or someone else. You see?

Team Fail said:

When machomuu refers to the different aspects that he lists, I think he's most likely referring to the creation process of those assets and not their actual use in their respective engines. Making sprites, music, maps, etc etc is roughly the same process in both. They can both be done with identical editors

Click to expand...

The creation processes of the two do share a lot of similarities, but it is important to remember the thing that sets them apart, and that is the means for those "ends" of creating a game. One works with IDEs and editors to compile a game, the other works with editors to modify something already compiled.

Team Fail said:

I don't know where operating systems came into play with this, but as for the low-level memory editing you're talking about, I can't see how it'd make the hacking aspect more broad because you're still bound by the limitations of the game in which you're reverse-engineering. If you made your own code, you don't have to worry about any of that because you can just change a line of code or two and make that necessary modification.

Besides, not every game has to be made in RPG maker. You could crack open Visual Studio, or Notepad++ with your favorite compiler, or Mono, or even Netbeans, and start writing a game from scratch. Heck, there's even devkitpro extensions for Visual Studio so you can write a GBA/NDS/Wii game right in VS and debug it right there!

Click to expand...

In practice though, most games here are made in a "maker" of some sort. I love software development but for the life of me I cannot equate working with those makers to writing real source code and debugging it yourself. It takes a lot more work to do the latter, so I guess there's also the aspect of validity amongst dev groups. I know plenty a dev (I'm sure you know who I mean) who don't consider RPG Maker and the like as real development, and while I personally wouldn't go that far I don't think it's equal to the stuff written in the fashion you explained.