Tool: Pokemon TCG Card Editor

Junkyard Guard · Feb 3, 2019

Hi there! My name is Junkyard Guard and I am finally re-releasing my tool to edit the cards in the Pokémon Trading Card Game for the Gameboy color! Please note that this is for the FIRST Pokémon Trading Card Game. Not the second one with Team GR that was never released in the US.

I hit a small snag the first time I released it and I pulled it from this forum, but I have fixed everything and it is all ready to go!

So basically, what this program does is edit the cards in the Gameboy color rom of Pokémon Trading Card Game! You can edit the Level, HP, both attacks, the retreat cost, weakness, resistance and even the rarity of the card! This is my first ever ROM-hacking tool but honestly, I think it came along pretty well. It's very user-friendly and does everything it's supposed to.

Below are some screenshots of an edit I made to Bulbasaur. Keep in mind that this particular Bulbasaur card normally only has one move.

Spoiler:

Please take a look at my program and if you like it, give me a thanks and some nice words! If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Change log:

Spoiler:

GrandpaBlaine · Feb 4, 2019

That's pretty awesome! 1 thanks from me for sure.
Out of curiosity, is it possible to add new effects (like adding Buzzap Electrode or Ditto with PokePower Transform)?

And is it compatible with TCG 2?

Junkyard Guard · Feb 6, 2019

GrandpaBlaine said:
That's pretty awesome! 1 thanks from me for sure.
Out of curiosity, is it possible to add new effects (like adding Buzzap Electrode or Ditto with PokePower Transform)?

It is NOT possible (with my program) to add new effects and honestly, I'm not sure how I would add this. I may be able to figure it out with a bit more research, but that would require a lot of time, so don't keep your fingers crossed.

GrandpaBlaine said:
And is it compatible with TCG 2?

It is NOT compatible with TCG 2. I'm not sure if I'll add this either. This game in general does not have a large fan-base, and the second one is even less popular. I don't know though, the coding is already there. I would just have to do a bit of research on TCG 2, so we'll see!

TrainerX493 · Feb 21, 2019

I've been messing around with it for a little bit now, and it works great. Does exactly what it says with ease.
It's neat to see some of the things the game handles stuff. Mostly that #1, setting a card with no energy cost works fine, and #2, you can transfer abilities without problems, as long as they are in the first slot. (also setting a ability with none/+/X makes them disappear in battle, same with setting a move as a ability)

I do have a couple things to point out/suggest. First of all it does throw an error trying to set 10 or more of the same energy (setting 9 of each energy works though. 63 energy cards to attack from a deck of 60 seems reasonable :p). Second, I wanted to point out that the txt file doesn't tell you what the C/A and P/A buttons do, and your screen shots doesn't have them. It took me a bit but I did figure out that they where copy all and paste all. Next, there are a few cards in existence that have 5 retreat cost, so if anyone wants to add newer cards or something of the like, having 5 total as an option would be nice. And actually letting you do 9 or more would be a way to have a card that purposely not meant to retreat would be interesting too (I don't know how much would be too much to show on screen though, 5 might be enough). Finally, is it possible to edit Mystery Fossil/Poke Doll this way with this program, as well as changing the Pokemon base type?

And I would love to see this made for tcg2, with the extra sprite color options, more moves pre-programed in, etc. I don't know if will help, but Romhacking (their wiki more specifically) has notes and such for tcg2 that is already documented which could help.

Junkyard Guard · Feb 25, 2019

TrainerX493 said:
I've been messing around with it for a little bit now, and it works great. Does exactly what it says with ease.
It's neat to see some of the things the game handles stuff. Mostly that #1, setting a card with no energy cost works fine, and #2, you can transfer abilities without problems, as long as they are in the first slot. (also setting a ability with none/+/X makes them disappear in battle, same with setting a move as a ability)

I do have a couple things to point out/suggest. First of all it does throw an error trying to set 10 or more of the same energy (setting 9 of each energy works though. 63 energy cards to attack from a deck of 60 seems reasonable :p). Second, I wanted to point out that the txt file doesn't tell you what the C/A and P/A buttons do, and your screen shots doesn't have them. It took me a bit but I did figure out that they where copy all and paste all. Next, there are a few cards in existence that have 5 retreat cost, so if anyone wants to add newer cards or something of the like, having 5 total as an option would be nice. And actually letting you do 9 or more would be a way to have a card that purposely not meant to retreat would be interesting too (I don't know how much would be too much to show on screen though, 5 might be enough). Finally, is it possible to edit Mystery Fossil/Poke Doll this way with this program, as well as changing the Pokemon base type?

And I would love to see this made for tcg2, with the extra sprite color options, more moves pre-programed in, etc. I don't know if will help, but Romhacking (their wiki more specifically) has notes and such for tcg2 that is already documented which could help.

First off, I want to say thank you so much for downloading and finding these errors! I'll have you know that I fixed the energy error. You can now put up to 15 of the same energy on one move with no problems from my program! I'm really not sure how the game will handle that, but oh well! The problem was that it wasn't correctly converting the numbers to and from hex so it was throwing an error when it tried to put a 3 digit number in a 2 digit byte.
Also, I've changed the retreat cost up. You can now have a retreat cost of up to 6! I have also updated the readme file to fully explain all of the copy and paste buttons! Sorry for the confusion!

As far as the Mysterious Fossil and PokeDoll, I'm not sure. I honestly forgot all about them when I was making this program. I could "possibly" add them into the program for editing, but I'm not sure how the game codes them. Just a little bit of research would need to be done.

For adding compatibility with TCG2, I would need to do A LOT of research and probably rewrite a lot of code. I'm not saying I won't do it, because I might some day when I'm less busy, but it would definitely take a lot of time.

Once again, thank you for your time and interest in my project! Please feel free to report any more errors you might possibly find!

EDIT: I just remembered that I accidentally forgot to add the error checks back into the program. Now if it encounters an error, it will crash, rather than saying "An error has occurred!" I think it's only for Grass Pokemon though. Not a big deal, just something to note. I'll upload an updated version with these error checks back into place later.

ablahblah987 · Apr 13, 2019

I would love to see someone make a hack of Pokemon TCG. Could this somehow be used to make the game harder?

Junkyard Guard · Apr 24, 2019

ablahblah987 said:
I would love to see someone make a hack of Pokemon TCG. Could this somehow be used to make the game harder?

Sure! I don't see why not... You can literally change every card in the game that's a Pokemon, so I'm sure there could be plenty that you could do to cards to change the difficulty.

Halfwheat · Apr 25, 2019

This is awesome, OP! I really appreciate all your hard work.

Kabocha❤ · May 13, 2019

This is really awesome, I love it! But do you think you could include a text editor as well? It's kind of limiting to only be able to pick from existing move names and you can't really add any new mons without changing the names of any of the existing ones. Those things aside, I think this is amazing and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort into making something like this for such an underrated game. Speaking of which, wasn't there a disassembly of it being worked on at some point? You might want to go check it out in case you haven't.

Junkyard Guard · Jul 2, 2019

Kabocha❤ said:
This is really awesome, I love it! But do you think you could include a text editor as well? It's kind of limiting to only be able to pick from existing move names and you can't really add any new mons without changing the names of any of the existing ones. Those things aside, I think this is amazing and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort into making something like this for such an underrated game. Speaking of which, wasn't there a disassembly of it being worked on at some point? You might want to go check it out in case you haven't.

I'm honestly not sure! I haven't seen much on Pokemon TCG rom hacking, which is why I had to do everything myself.
Editing text would be quite an easy addition, but honestly, you can edit text in a hex editor with no problems. Just open the rom up in any hex editor and you can search for whatever text you want to edit!

lotic02 · Feb 8, 2020

Wanted to say that I love messing around with this, thanks for making it. I'm trying to rebalance the game and I had two questions:

1. Is it possible to move static Powers around? As they are now, even if you remove Toxic Gas from a Muk and stick it on Gengar, for example, Gengar won't shut off Pokemon Powers but Muk will. While this can make some interesting cards with 3 total powers and attacks, it also means that Pokemon with a static power can never not have that power.

2. Is it possible to "double up" on an attack effect? Could I copy the effect of Fetch in twice and draw two cards? Something like:

5C4D; 5C4D

I'm assuming if it's possible, it needs some sort of separator.

Junkyard Guard · Apr 29, 2020

lotic02 said:
Wanted to say that I love messing around with this, thanks for making it. I'm trying to rebalance the game and I had two questions:

1. Is it possible to move static Powers around? As they are now, even if you remove Toxic Gas from a Muk and stick it on Gengar, for example, Gengar won't shut off Pokemon Powers but Muk will. While this can make some interesting cards with 3 total powers and attacks, it also means that Pokemon with a static power can never not have that power.

2. Is it possible to "double up" on an attack effect? Could I copy the effect of Fetch in twice and draw two cards? Something like:

I'm assuming if it's possible, it needs some sort of separator.

Hey there! Sorry for such a late reply! I haven't been on here in a while because I completely rebuilt my computer.

1. Unfortunately, only some Pokémon Powers are interchangable. I think it's because certain Powers are hard-coded to only work on certain Pokémon. For example, Snorlax's 'Thick Skin' only works on Snorlax but Legendary Articuno's 'Quickfreeze' will work on whoever you put it on. You'll just have to mess around and see which ones work.

2. And no, you can't put 2 effects on the same attack. The game has it coded weird where one value (Display Effect) points to the text that is on the card and the other value (Actual Effect) points to what the effect actually does when it is called during a duel. So, even if you did put 5C4D;5C4D on Kangaskhan, it wouldn't let you draw 2 cards. The effect would still work where you draw one card, but the attack wont have any effect text.
Here's an example:

lotic02 · May 5, 2020

Junkyard Guard said:
Hey there! Sorry for such a late reply! I haven't been on here in a while because I completely rebuilt my computer.

1. Unfortunately, only some Pokémon Powers are interchangable. I think it's because certain Powers are hard-coded to only work on certain Pokémon. For example, Snorlax's 'Thick Skin' only works on Snorlax but Legendary Articuno's 'Quickfreeze' will work on whoever you put it on. You'll just have to mess around and see which ones work.

2. And no, you can't put 2 effects on the same attack. The game has it coded weird where one value (Display Effect) points to the text that is on the card and the other value (Actual Effect) points to what the effect actually does when it is called during a duel. So, even if you did put 5C4D;5C4D on Kangaskhan, it wouldn't let you draw 2 cards. The effect would still work where you draw one card, but the attack wont have any effect text.
Here's an example:

Hey, that's alright! This is the first time I've checked the forum since I posted it, I think. Thanks for answering those. I wasn't sure if I wasn't using the right separator for the 2nd question or what. Oh well.

I took a break from working with the tool but I'm back on it now. Came up with some more questions:
1. From my limited testing, attack effects that use [+] will use the number in the Attack Damage box, but attack effects that use an [x] don't. Is this correct? It seems inconsistent, but I'm guessing it might just be how those attacks are hard-coded.

2. Would it be possible to get the Trainers in as well, and put Trainer effects on Pokemon attacks and vice versa? Or are they done differently?

Anyways, I appreciate your work on this. It has become a pleasant distraction to play with. I'd like to throw my support as another person that would love to see this for TCG2, if it is ever possible.

Kensaki · Jun 30, 2020

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G ! 😄

Nice job, friend! I was waiting a tool like this one for years! Please make another one to TCG2 if possible!!! Is a much better game with combo options and extra moves...Gonna be my dream being realized!😍

About your tool, in the box beside of Attack Damage, you can add the symbol " - " used in Machoke's Karate Chop. Isn't important (cos I can simply write on keyboard and it works), but useful when you're inventing new moves (That's what I'm doing hehe)😅

I want to know if is possible add weakness and resistance to Colorless too. I'm building my own "balanced game" and this gonna be very useful if exists! (Gengar and Dragonite, I'm looking at you both right now...)😆

You should add the possibility to Pokemons have more than one weakness and/or resistance!

But do you think you could include a text editor as well?

This gonna be very interesting in the display effect especially. I as a complete beginner, suffered one to do text editing in Hex without "killing" my ROM and I admit that I gave up and left it as it was...😢

2. Is it possible to "double up" on an attack effect? Could I copy the effect of Fetch in twice and draw two cards?

If we can add the effect of some Trainers in Pokemon attacks, this can be easily solved with "Bill" drawing two cards. 😉

From the point of view of game balance, it would be really cool to be able to see effects of items like Bill, Pokeball, Revive and others, being side effects of attacks!😃

Test_BR · Jul 22, 2020

Hello! First of all, thanks for the editor! Now, I have a question. As soon as I open a Rom, click on a type, and select a Pkm, an error occurs. I'm not sure why.
For info: I have a European version.

Junkyard Guard · Jul 23, 2020

lotic02 said:
1. From my limited testing, attack effects that use [+] will use the number in the Attack Damage box, but attack effects that use an [x] don't. Is this correct? It seems inconsistent, but I'm guessing it might just be how those attacks are hard-coded.

2. Would it be possible to get the Trainers in as well, and put Trainer effects on Pokemon attacks and vice versa? Or are they done differently?

Anyways, I appreciate your work on this. It has become a pleasant distraction to play with. I'd like to throw my support as another person that would love to see this for TCG2, if it is ever possible.

1. That is correct. The 'x' is just a visual thing. The multiple hits on a single attack come from the effect itself.

2. Not sure how the trainers are coded. I haven't worked on the program in quite some time, but if I do, that will be the first thing I do.

Thank you for downloading and using my program. I really appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you found it useful. TCG2, in my opinion, is not as good as the first one. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the original, so a program for that game is unlikely.

Kensaki said:
About your tool, in the box beside of Attack Damage, you can add the symbol " - " used in Machoke's Karate Chop. Isn't important (cos I can simply write on keyboard and it works), but useful when you're inventing new moves (That's what I'm doing hehe)😅

I want to know if is possible add weakness and resistance to Colorless too. I'm building my own "balanced game" and this gonna be very useful if exists! (Gengar and Dragonite, I'm looking at you both right now...)😆

You should add the possibility to Pokemons have more than one weakness and/or resistance!

If we can add the effect of some Trainers in Pokemon attacks, this can be easily solved with "Bill" drawing two cards. 😉

From the point of view of game balance, it would be really cool to be able to see effects of items like Bill, Pokeball, Revive and others, being side effects of attacks!😃

Oops! I guess I forgot all about the '-' sign. I can add that in the next release.
Yes, you can add weakness and resistance to colorless.
I don't think it's possible to add more than one weakness or resistance. I'd have to look again to double-check, but I'm pretty sure it's just 1 byte of data for each.
Yes, the next thing I look into will be the Trainers. Not sure if it can be done, but I will check on it when I get time.

Test_BR said:
Hello! First of all, thanks for the editor! Now, I have a question. As soon as I open a Rom, click on a type, and select a Pkm, an error occurs. I'm not sure why.
For info: I have a European version.

It is probably for the US version only. I've never tested it on any other version of the game. Sorry about that. If I get around to working on this program again, I'm going to research Trainers first, then I may look into having it work with different versions of the game.

Test_BR · Jul 24, 2020

It's fine! I managed to get a US copy and it worked!

Some observations and ideas:
- The AI seems unable to use Energy Spike effectively, which is a move from Electrode GB that allows you to search for a basic energy in your deck and put it on one of your Pokémon. Sometimes, the AI will use the move but I've never seen them searching for a basic energy. Not sure if something can be done about that, but I'd just like to mention it in case some people want to have some form of acceleration to make battles faster and more challenging.
- If you apply moves like Agility to another Pkm, make sure to use these: [Display Effect: 0A09, Actual Effect: D849], otherwise your Pkm won't be protected from an attack.
- You can add damage to a move that normally doesn't. For instance, I took Electabuzz's Light Screen and taught it Butterfree. It does 30 damage and halves opposing moves (rounded down to the nearest 10).
- Make sure to put your moves in the right order. For instance, Dewgong has Bodychek (70 damage for 2 Water Energy) as its first move and Ice Beam (40 damage for 1 Water Energy and 1 Colourless Energy) as its second move. If your own Pkm could be knocked out by a weak attack, the AI will rather chose Bodychek than Ice Beam. I can only assume the AI is coded in a way that makes it want to always use the first attack if the Pkm has low enough HP to be knocked out.
- Poison messes up the AI as it will almost always retreat their Pkm if it will be knocked out soon enough.
- I made sure to raise the HP of most Pkm so that it won't be easy to OHKO them during the first turn. You can take a look at the ex era from the third generation where the maximum HP is 120. So, it'd fit in this environment.
- For players, I'd suggest to change the energy requirements of most moves in order to make multi-coloured decks a more viable option.
- Since Basic Pkm are kings and queens, I'd advise to reduce the energy costs of stage 2 Pkm and make them a bit stronger if needed to make them more viable.
- introduce more "unaffected by weakness and resistance" moves to types that need it, for instance Fighting. I took the effect of Sonic Boom and applied it to many Rock Pkm so that they won't be overwhelmed by opposing's resistance.
- change the weakness within a type as well. Butterfree and Scyther could be weak to Lightning since they're flying Pkm as well! Or make Magneton weak to Fire due to its steel type that while it didn't exist at that time, can certainly be a nice nod to it!

- that said, I was wondering it it's possible to reduce resistance. Instead of -30, make them -20 if someone wants to? Because I feel like you're less likely to abuse it. Scyther, for instance, can solo Fighting decks just because it's so easy to withstand hits and OHKO them in turn.
- by the way, it'd be cool if it's possible to change weaknesses as well if someone wants to. Instead of 2x, people could have the option to make it 10+ or 20+!
- some Trainer cards are pretty busted, so it'd be cool to see a Coin Flip on cards like Energy Removal. If possible, we could take Poké Ball as an example as it's a card that requires you to flip a coin. While I'm at it, Poké Ball could be made so that you no longer have to flip a coin, but you have to discard 1-2 cards. Again, Energy Retrieval and the super version could be used as a reference.
- these are just some examples and suggestions that could make the game more intriguing.
- I do not expect people to work on such an editor, to be clear! After all, it takes time and ressources.

JirachiKid · Jul 24, 2020

I came across this editor and I just happen to be modding PTCG, so I figured this would help me a lot. However, it doesn't seem to work properly. The program runs and I can open a ROM, but all I get are blanks and zeroes. Not even the Pokémon pictures show up. I am using a US version. Does the Windows version have anything to do with it (I'm using 10)?

Nevermind, I'm a doofus. I had to pick a Pokémon from the dropdown list first. I somehow didn't see that.

Junkyard Guard · Jul 26, 2020

Test_BR said:
It's fine! I managed to get a US copy and it worked!

Some observations and ideas:
- The AI seems unable to use Energy Spike effectively, which is a move from Electrode GB that allows you to search for a basic energy in your deck and put it on one of your Pokémon. Sometimes, the AI will use the move but I've never seen them searching for a basic energy. Not sure if something can be done about that, but I'd just like to mention it in case some people want to have some form of acceleration to make battles faster and more challenging.
- If you apply moves like Agility to another Pkm, make sure to use these: [Display Effect: 0A09, Actual Effect: D849], otherwise your Pkm won't be protected from an attack.
- You can add damage to a move that normally doesn't. For instance, I took Electabuzz's Light Screen and taught it Butterfree. It does 30 damage and halves opposing moves (rounded down to the nearest 10).
- Make sure to put your moves in the right order. For instance, Dewgong has Bodychek (70 damage for 2 Water Energy) as its first move and Ice Beam (40 damage for 1 Water Energy and 1 Colourless Energy) as its second move. If your own Pkm could be knocked out by a weak attack, the AI will rather chose Bodychek than Ice Beam. I can only assume the AI is coded in a way that makes it want to always use the first attack if the Pkm has low enough HP to be knocked out.
- Poison messes up the AI as it will almost always retreat their Pkm if it will be knocked out soon enough.
- I made sure to raise the HP of most Pkm so that it won't be easy to OHKO them during the first turn. You can take a look at the ex era from the third generation where the maximum HP is 120. So, it'd fit in this environment.
- For players, I'd suggest to change the energy requirements of most moves in order to make multi-coloured decks a more viable option.
- Since Basic Pkm are kings and queens, I'd advise to reduce the energy costs of stage 2 Pkm and make them a bit stronger if needed to make them more viable.
- introduce more "unaffected by weakness and resistance" moves to types that need it, for instance Fighting. I took the effect of Sonic Boom and applied it to many Rock Pkm so that they won't be overwhelmed by opposing's resistance.
- change the weakness within a type as well. Butterfree and Scyther could be weak to Lightning since they're flying Pkm as well! Or make Magneton weak to Fire due to its steel type that while it didn't exist at that time, can certainly be a nice nod to it!

- that said, I was wondering it it's possible to reduce resistance. Instead of -30, make them -20 if someone wants to? Because I feel like you're less likely to abuse it. Scyther, for instance, can solo Fighting decks just because it's so easy to withstand hits and OHKO them in turn.
- by the way, it'd be cool if it's possible to change weaknesses as well if someone wants to. Instead of 2x, people could have the option to make it 10+ or 20+!
- some Trainer cards are pretty busted, so it'd be cool to see a Coin Flip on cards like Energy Removal. If possible, we could take Poké Ball as an example as it's a card that requires you to flip a coin. While I'm at it, Poké Ball could be made so that you no longer have to flip a coin, but you have to discard 1-2 cards. Again, Energy Retrieval and the super version could be used as a reference.
- these are just some examples and suggestions that could make the game more intriguing.
- I do not expect people to work on such an editor, to be clear! After all, it takes time and ressources.

Wow, I appreciate the extensive research. Seems the AI to this game is very one-dimensional, but this is all very good information for whoever wants to read it. Also, I'm almost certain that the resistance can be edited to -20 instead of -30, however, I feel like it'd be almost impossible to find the right area to work in. Not sure about weaknesses though. I feel like that's pretty straight-forward, but maybe!
Editing specific effects like you're talking about with the trainers is on a completely different level from what my program does. It would be cool to see, but I'm not sure that it's possible.
Thank you so much for downloading and testing my program though! It means a whole lot!

JirachiKid said:
I came across this editor and I just happen to be modding PTCG, so I figured this would help me a lot. However, it doesn't seem to work properly. The program runs and I can open a ROM, but all I get are blanks and zeroes. Not even the Pokémon pictures show up. I am using a US version. Does the Windows version have anything to do with it (I'm using 10)?

Nevermind, I'm a doofus. I had to pick a Pokémon from the dropdown list first. I somehow didn't see that.

Haha, hey that's okay. It doesn't exactly pop out, so I can understand the confusion. Thank you so much for downloading it and playing with it!

mgriffin · Jul 26, 2020

FWIW this is probably the resistance modifier, and this is probably the weakness modifier (shift left by 1 is a multiply by 2).

Tool: Pokemon TCG Card Editor

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Junkyard Guard

Attachments

GrandpaBlaine

Junkyard Guard

TrainerX493

Junkyard Guard

ablahblah987

Junkyard Guard

Halfwheat

Kabocha❤

Feeling sleepy...

Junkyard Guard

lotic02

Junkyard Guard

lotic02

Kensaki

Test_BR

Junkyard Guard

Test_BR

JirachiKid

Junkyard Guard

mgriffin