If I could turn back time...

I'd probably say stick to your idea and never give up. I inevitably gave up rom hacking because I didn't have the time. That's what highschool and now college is doing to me. Now I spend all my time lurking PC occasionally to see if there is something new. God damn it I need to get back into romhacking.

I wouldn't go back and do anything. The tools I used when I started were the hard ones back when Scizz and others like Zel were on the scene. I hated the old scripting methods and elitemap. Many other tools as well. Eventually it was made easier with the newer tools we see updated today.

So I think I learned at a reasonable rate. I'm now very good at scripting thanks to past mistakes.

Jesus, it would be to be better with my memory usage. Do you know how much crap was wasted in Jupiter because of crappy mapping.

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I would tell my past self to actually make your first hack not immature with random maps,swears, and people talking like they're texting all the time. :)

I would slap my self several times and say something like "DAMN YOU'RE SO GOOD".
I actually liked failing a couple of hacks, cause when I look back on some of them now they were pretty ridiculous and not to mention some of the features that I wanted were beyond my knowledge. I'm going to look at this post tomorrow or so and say the same thing but w/e. Well the bolder reason is because I got better as I gave up on the hopeless stuff. Oh, I'd also backup my hack thus saving me months of wasted time ;)

I'd tell myself to keep a few back-up copies and to not replace all of the back-ups -.-
The consequences... were depressing...

I'd tell myself to stop procrastinating and get down to hacking. At the end everything seems to be easier when u just stop thinking and dive into it. You figure things out on the way and u get that awesome feeling when u do manage to figure something out urself for example scripting. I spent too much time trying to find some1 to help me script and teach me how to script instead i shud of just tried an error it wasn't hard at all. Shout out to diegoisawesome he was the key that unlocked my scripting brain. but yeah stop wasting time and just get into it.

I would teach my confused self how to do scripting. So then I wouldn't be so confused with what to do all the time!

I would tell my past self to have more patience, that I/he wasn't gonna get everything in a weekend, that I/he shouldn't give up at the first mistake.

Sadly to this date I still haven't learned that lesson.

i'd salp myself in the face then say "stop all this bleep and learn scripting!"

I would tell myself to not get discouraged and the hard work would all pay off.

Tips:
-Make a basic outline of the game's story
-Get a small testing group. Could be online people or people from school. It'll also help to make a FreeWebs website or even your own domain to organize your stuff better.
-Learn how to count in hex. You don't have to know how to translate, just know how to do very basic addition and subtraction with hex numbers.
ex. 10 - 1 = F
-Discover Diegoisawesome's XSE Tutorial and Seth's XSE Tutorial. Seth has a list of used flags that I refer to a lot. Diegoisawesome basically describes every single command. You don't need to memorize everything before making your game, just know how to start a script, compile a script, etc. Knowing how to use flags is great too.
-NEVER USE PERSON ID'S IN THE 2000'S RANGE. ONLY USE THEM IN THE 1000'S AND 4000'S RANGE. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO IMAGINE THEY'RE IN HEX, JUST USE THEM LIKE NORMAL NUMBERS BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO USE A THOUSAND FLAGS IN ONE GAME. (Sprites will reappear if you use flags in 2000's range if you setflag 0x[person id] after while)
-Know your limits when music hacking. For example, some tracks can't have music that's too long or have too many instruments.

I could use that future self of mine rght now....but for now, I would tell myaelf where to get programs. It took me hours upon hours to find the right ones and I'm still not done....

Definitely scripting I still have trouble with it :(

pokemon hack, please don't bump threads that haven't been active for over a month.

R.I.P in peace, my thread.