ROM Hacking and Nesticle
By otacon86@Hotmail.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Read This First
Introduction
Version History
Contacting Me
Thanx
Chapter 2: Basic Palette Hacking
Chapter 3: Basic Sprite Hacking
Chapter 1: Read this First
Introduction
Hi, my name is Lanny Cox, and in this doc I will explain some basic ROM hacking techniques using a very popular NES emulator, NESticle. Although this is a relatively simple doc, you are expected to know the very basics (starting the emu, loading a ROM etc.). I hope to add to this doc over time so check back for the latest stuff.
Version History
1.0 This version. First upload, incomplete with possible errors.
Contacting Me
I would very much appreciate it if you contact me with corrections, info, and stuff like that. You can reach me at:
P.O.Box 495, Hr.Breton NF AOH 1PO Canada
or you can drop me a line via guestbook at: www.angelfire.com/nf/otacon86.
Thanx
Jon Ricketts for introducing me to emulation, as much as I can't stand his guts.
Bloodlust Software for writing a bitchin emu in Nesticle.
All the Console Programmer's Forum regulars for being a great help to me.
Chapter 2: Basic Palette Hacking
Well, I guess you're happy you've finally gotten to the good stuff. So, here we go.
You Will Need:
NESticle emulator, up and running.
An NES game cart and rom. (I'm using Super Mario Brothers because it's easy to find and a lot of people own it, eliminating legal hassles.)
Patience.
Ready? Okay. Start up the emulator and load the SMB Rom. Go to the CPU menu and pause the emulation. Click View, Palette or press F4. Now lookie here, colors! Now let's say you wanted to give Mario blue overalls. Click on the color that's the same red shade as Mario's overalls and you get a popup window with an RGB color editing screen. (If you've ever played SNES Final Fantasy games and edited your window color you get the point.) Turn down the Red and Green colors right to the left. Crank up the blue, exit the screen and BEHOLD! Mario's overalls should be a healthy blue.
Now, the bad news. As you know by now, the palette affects the whole game. Point is, you should see a bit more blue than usual on stage 1-4. Yes, that's the problem. There's a way around this, but you can't do it with NESticle. C'est la vie. Anyway, take a few minutes to fool around, click on File, Write Save palette if you want to save, and reload the ROM for chapter 3. :-)
Chapter 3: Basic Sprite Hacking
And this is the part where you make Mario naked. (NOT!) All fun aside, it gets a bit kooky here.
You will Need:
1Same stuff as last chapter, plus All Night Nippon SMB (off www.tobbeo.com) as an example.
Here we go again! Start up the emu, load SMB and pause like in last chapter. Now go to View, but instead of palette click on Pattern Tables. Now, this looks like junk, but if you look real close you can see Mario's face a couple times. Click on Mario's face. Now if you did this right, a small Window with that sprite (although blocky) will be discernable. Now, for a laugh, switch to Mario's face color and click on a couple spaces to the right of his nose. Close the windows and laugh at Mario's face (stupid plumber deserves it). Done? Now here's another NESticle inspired block. Notice the text? Try to change the O to an A. Yeah, it's the attack of the NESticle block. This is why you change puck to, well, you get the picture in a hockey game and then complain because you play as the Fittsfurgh Fenguins. How to do this right will be explained in a later, non NESticle hacking doc. If you want to save, click on write VROM. Note that if the game doesn't support VROM, you're out of luck with NESticle. I'll include some unhackable games in a later version of this doc.
Last Updated 11/21/99