How well do you know your ROM?
The two of us are barely on speaking terms XD When it comes to how ROMs work, I could tell you very, very little; other than stuff I picked up in tutorials or by examining the offsets displayed by tools. Unlike colcolstyles above me, I'm a very
right brained individual and anything involving numbers; logic; strange, convoluted codes (which are what hex and ASM are to me ^^' ) and the ins and out of programming tasks gives me a headache. I've researched it, read dozens of tutorials, and tried to play around with the ROM; but I'm a dunce and it doesn't make any more sense to me now than it did when I first started XD Yes, I'm a ROM editor, and like Vrai, I honestly don't care that that's all I am. I'm in the hobby to engage in and explore my artistic and creative side; not to struggle through futile attempts to make sense of pushing and popping and stacking and struggling with hex strings =D
How fast did you learn?
Molasses is faster. =D I've actually been into ROM modding since 2004, when
Quartz was still in beta; and the EliteMap tool suite was THE way to go. I couldn't figure out how to use the earliest scripting programs such as Rubicon (I think that's what it was called); my idea of "mapping" was just to add streets to Ruby's maps; and I made some fugly Fakemon (which were poorly inserted into the game via Pokepic). I dropped out of the online ROM scene for several years - briefly re-entering in 2006 to download some new tools (notably AdvanceText; the best friend to all noobs) and to pick up a tiny bit of Pokescript knowledge - and continued work on my game mod for a few more years, using only this very outdated knowledge and with no awareness of what new developments had been taking place. It wasn't until 2009, when I fully re-entered the ROM scene, did I see how far it had come - and how far behind my project had fallen, and how pathetic it was compared to the amazing work some folks produced. So even if we count my growth as a modder only from early 2009 when I rejoined the online scene and became aware of things such as tile inserting and new (and much easier to understand, for me) script editors; it took six months or so before things finally started "clicking" for me (especially scripting!). And my learning is still a process - even if we disregard "real" hacking; there are still a lot of modding techniques I can get better at. There are still new script functions for me to learn; much more mapping practice I need...it seems to be a never ending journey of improvement, and that's just the way I like it!
Are you a fan of alteration?
My hack stars a Pichu who lives in a post-apocalyptic world (where characters can and
do die), who travels upon a playable world map to enter dungeons where he must avoid traps and solve mazes and puzzles. I think it's pretty safe to say I'm a fan of alteration ;) Though I have no issue playing Nintendo-clone hacks if the game is a well made one that's fun and enjoyable, I
much prefer hacks that are a little strange and a little quirky. I have no issues with Fakemon - even ugly Fakemon like the
Quartz gang can have an odd sort of charm. I love interesting, compelling plots; and fun new gameplay features simply add to keeping the Pokemon experience fresh :)
Fancying an insider?
My first hack had two Easter Eggs. One was a hidden cave that a series of smaller Easter Eggs dropped hints about - put the hints together and they would tell you how to get to the cave. I forgot what the cave was supposed to have in it, exactly, however ^^' The second Easter Egg was "the Ghost of Absecon" - the locals' name for a strange howling and crying sound that came from the Champion's mysterious Lab south of town. If you could find an item called the Champion Key, you could enter a hidden room in the Mystery Lab; and if you could solve the puzzles, find the "Ghost," and befriend it by feeding it a certain item, you'd have the opportunity to catch it. They were never fully scripted out (only partially); though if I ever decide to return to this project, I'll relish the chance to fully flesh them out using my new skills :)
As for my current hack - I haven't planned any Easter Eggs in the traditional sense; but a couple plot twists could be interperated that way due to the fact that they
Which pretty much leads to the same thing - insider info is FUN to include in your game; and when I play the hacks of others, I love to search it out :)