[Archive] ROM Hacking Newsletter 2008 | Issue 1 - 18

Rom Hacking Newsletter

Opening words

Welcome to Issue 10 of RHN! 10 issues already! Can you believe it? Where has the time gone? As you might have seen, RHN is now an official part of the PokeCommunity which is why its been stickied in the Hacks Showcase now.

We've finally got a beginner's corner segment thanks to the newest member of our team; Martin™! Make sure to read it even if you don't consider yourself a beginner, it might have some useful stuff that you didn't know about. HOTW has a full review because theres been so much progress on it, I highly recommend playing it. And I think thats about it, have fun reading!

Article by Thrace​

Staying Current with the Rom Hacking Scene

Hack of the Year 2008
Hack of the Year for 2008 has officially begun, to see the format for this year simple visit the stickied thread in the Hacks Showcase or click here. Round 1 starts in just 3 short days so start polishing off your hacks for your hacks chance to hold the coveted title of Hack of the Year.

Just to clarify, the first round is not only a nominations round, its also the voting round for the Fan Favourite award. So don't neglect to vote for your favourite hack just becuase someone else as already nominated it.

Hack Rating System
RHN will follows a standardised rating system similar to that of IGN, ratings and their meanings are described below.


Spotlight on the Hack of the Week

Pokémon Keyra [Link]
Hack Author: eing15
Reviewed By: Thrace
Rating: 7.2

I wasn't looking forward to playing this game when I downloaded it, I tend to avoid hacks in a different language. I've always considered the storyline to be central for a hack and it wasn't any different with this one. I was unsure about giving this a full review until it had an English translation but it seems doubtful there will ever be one and theres far too much progress on this hack to ignore it.

Graphically this hack is typical of most Spanish hacks; huge range of assorted tiles that generally look very nice together. The mapping however is just plain bad. Theres no getting over it, even with all the pretty new tiles the mapping is simply very poor. Some of the tiles have been inserted very poorly as well, and bad palettes just make it worse. On the upside, the author has not compromised on tiles. Every tile looks exactly like you'd expect it too. Theres even an industrial town with brown water and sewers, its obvious that theres been a lot of attention to detail.

On the scripting side of things, everything has been good, I failed to find any problems in the scripting though of course I can't comment on the quality of the text. Scripting is overall very consistent, although theres been nothing that blew me away it was still very engaging. Many of the scripts have been arranged in a clever manner, with most events forcing you to "go back before you can go forward". I have very few complaints with this hack when it comes to scripting. It is overall very entertaining.

It probably seems like I've picked on the problems more than looking at the good things about this hack. I find it difficult to give it a low rating because although I didn't really follow it, it was fun to play... maybe I just haven't played any hacks for a while? Either way, I'm definitely going to recommend this, its not one that you can't afford to play but you won't regret giving it a go.

Article by Thrace​

The Rom Hacking Scene in Perspective

We've all seen it, or said it in some form or another. "Hackers are just doing it for the fame," or "These knew hacks aren't as original as the old ones." But is it really the hackers faults? Many things factor into why "hacks aren't as good as they used to be."

First of all, there are many hacks. This makes writing an original story quite difficult. There are only a handful of legendary Pokémon; there are only a handful of ways to mix up the story. I like Nintendo's standard formula for creating a story. I know my favorite hacks stick to this formula, but sometimes it's best to get the creative juices flowing by doing something outside the box.

Another problem is a lack of "umph" caused by, in my opinion, hacking made easy by an over-abundance of tools. Now, I'm not saying that tools are bad. On the contrary, tools help people delve into the world of hacking. The problem is these people usually don't go past using such tools. People, like CoolBoyMan, that have been around since the beginning had to do EVERYTHING on their own. This has made them excellent at doing what they do, and they really know the ins and outs of the ROM.

My theory (call it what you will) is that this generation of hackers (myself included) doesn't know how to step drastically out of the box. We've been taught with tools and don't know the inner workings of the ROM. I think this is why breaking into Diamond and Pearl is taking so long. We've got a group of dedicated individuals that know what their doing, but other then that, most of us don't know the components of a Diamond ROM. When hackers started hacking FireRed, there were no tools and we had to learned how Gameboy Advanced ROMs work, as we do now with DS ROMs. The difference is that since our generation of hackers don't know the ROMs work, we can't contribute to the furthering of DP Hacking. We know that a tool does what it does and leave it at that. We have a different mentality when it comes to hacking, which I think puts the Hacking Community past it's heyday. Can we return? I cannot answer.

Before I get flamed, I am most certainly playing devil's advocate. I know relatively little about the Hacking Community before the ShinyGold Era. I'm just trying to get people thinking in ways they may not have thought before.

Article by Kawaii, Inc.​

Common Problems/Questions

If you are new to XSE and your previous script editor was ScriptEd, you sure have experienced number of errors when compiling a giveitem, givepokemon, trainerbattle, or recently msgbox script. The mentioned constructs (commands with a set of parameters) have changed a bit since ScriptEd era.

To keep track of parameters you need to insert, write out the command name, put your cursor somewhere in the middle of it and press F1. A small window will pop out with the command name and its function. And the number of parameters of course. Each of them is defined in the description.

This is the easiest solution until the prepared major XSE update is released, which will include in-line command help along with amount of parameters displayed.

Until then, here are four mentioned commands with parameters described like in the command help:

Article by Martin™​

A Cool New Trick

This weeks tip will be a small one but could potentially be very useful to some.

Ever notice that in Fuchsia City the Pokemon in the top left compartment is different depending on the Fossil you chose way back in Mt. Moon? No? Yeah, neither did I until a short while ago. In case you were wondering it has the fossil Pokemon that you didn't choose. But its possible to change it to any OW you want and this week I'm going to show you how.

The way it works is through a level script. Put the following in a type 3 level script:

setvar 0x4010 0x[OW Number]

Click to expand...

And set the OW number of the Person you want to have its OW changed to 240. And thats it! Pretty simple, huh?



An in-depth chat with...


Some House Keeping

HotY nominations are really close, I mentioned it in Hacking News but I'd just like to mention it again. November 5 is when it starts. Yeah thats basically it, the Opening and Closing were rather short this issue...