Research: Pokemon RBGY Town Map document

The town map in RBGY is stored using RLE(Run Lenth Encoding) compression,

So for example you want to lay down 4 land tiles you would with out RLE compression: 06 06 06 06, which RLE compression you write the Hexadecimal number of the Tile down then the number of times you would like to lay it down on the screen, e.g. 64.

I recomend repointing your maps data for saftey purposes as you may run out of room and not realise that you are writing over important data.

The maps pointer is at:
710D1


Kanto's Map is between:
71100-711AA

0 - Blank Tile (DONT USE!)
1 - Alternate Land Route Across
2 - Alternate Land Route Up
3 - Alternate Land mark
4 - Water
5 - Town
6 - Land
7 - White Title/Path
8 - North East Lands end
9 - North West Lands End
A - South West Lands End
B - South East Lands End
C - Land mark
D - One Sea Route Dot
E - Sea Dot Across
F - Sea Dot Up

I recomend doing your map in GSC first which uses no compression with its town map, then use it as a guide to create your RBGY version, iv found it is easiest to do it line by line, then when you have typed in each line indicate that you have somehow so you know where you are, like I did with Crion for my Red hack 'Pokemon Violet':

Line One - 48 91 61 81 44 A1 64 - Yes
Line Two - 41 91 61 81 42 91 61 51 62 45 64 - Yes
Line Three - 41 61 C1 61 41 91 62 71 61 51 81 44 A1 63 - Yes
Line Four - 41 A1 71 B1 41 61 73 61 71 B1 45 63 - Yes
Line Five - 42 C1 41 91 61 51 63 71 B1 45 A1 62 - Yes
Line Six - 42 71 91 75 61 51 61 81 45 62 - Yes
Line Seven - 42 71 61 71 61 51 61 71 61 71 62 45 A1 61 - Yes
Line Eight - 91 81 71 61 71 B1 F1 A1 71 61 C1 61 B1 47 - Yes
Line Nine - 72 51 72 41 F1 41 71 63 (49:Last tile 1st tile on L.10) - Yes
Line Ten - A1 61 B1 41 F1 91 71 51 71 C1 81 41 91 61 81 (47:Last 4 tiles 1st on line 11) - Yes
Line Eleven - 91 61 71 62 71 66 B1 42 91 - Yes
Line Twelve - 44 A1 61 C1 62 71 65 B1 42 91 61 - Yes
Line Thirteen - B1 61 A1 42 64 51 73 51 71 E3 C1 61 - Yes
Line Forteen - 61 51 71 E2 C1 62 B1 F1 A1 64 81 42 A1 61 - Yes
Line Fifteen - A1 62 81 41 A1 B1 42 F1 42 A1 B1 A1 B1 (45:Last tile 1st tile on L.16) - Yes
Line Sixteen - A1 61 B1 45 F1 4F:Last 5 tiles 1st tiles on L.17) - Yes
Line Seventeen - 44 F1 4A - Yes

A big thankyou has to go out to a guy called Hyperhacker who first found the maps location in the first place and how it is stored.

cooley said:

Now that it's documented, we should have no problem Making a tool for it, all we need is the data and the Pic of all Tiles used in the World Map.

Click to expand...

Well...Iv already provided all the data.
Heres the tiles:

cooley said:

Wow, That's all the tiles? xD

Click to expand...

Well incase you didnt notice it only goes upto F, so I would have expected that :)

Well since you first asked me I checked but seeing you'll ask thethethethe let him do it.

Cool, thanks for posting this up Cartmic, how you specifically do it aswell, i'm sure for me this will come in handy later on.

Binary said:

Woah, nice document. Now thats what I call handy...
I might try making a RBY hack now....but using a tool would be easier ...lol

Click to expand...

I really agree. some people are in this community because theres a bunch of information that can be put together to make tools. I think someone should make a tool for nobbs like us

is the compression scheme (Run Length Encoding) for the mapping on RBY the same for compression of pokemon sprites in the same game?

Also does pokemon silver/gold also use Run Length Encoding?

OMG I missed you Cartmic! Great document! God bless dude.

once you changed the map, how can you move the cities?
(for example, while flying, the game opens the map for you to choose the city to go to: but if you change the map the new map's cities won't match the old cities).
Does anyone knows how to solve this using hexeditor?

mcfreal said:

is the compression scheme (Run Length Encoding) for the mapping on RBY the same for compression of pokemon sprites in the same game?

Click to expand...

Sprite compression in r/b/g/y involves RLE and something else that makes it damn complicated to understand...
it's a long time that I'm trying to deal with sprite compression, no solution yet.