Spikeman's ROM Hacks and Translations

I am a sixteen-year-old guy from the USA. Most of what I enjoy revolves around computers, including: ROM Hacking, Programming, Web Design, Coding, and the Internet in General. I run a website dedicated to the Mega Man Battle Network series and am an active member of the ROM Hacking community on ROMHacking.net.

Another thing I'm interested in is Speedrunning, although I've never been able to make one. I did attempt to speedrun Bomberman Pocket for the GBC at one point, but wasn't able to figure out how to use the emulator very well.

Since this is my page about ROM Hacking I guess I should probably give some of my ROM Hacking background. I discovered ROM Hacking two or three years ago (2004 I think) when I was randomly browsing. I was very interested and immediately looked for some useful tools. I found ROMHacking.com and downloaded some tools and documents from there and began hacking Final Fantasy I. Although what I had been reading made it seem like hacking games with DTE should be hard for beginners, I figured it out before even finding out what DTE meant. It was then I knew that I could learn to be a fairly decent ROM Hacker. I then discovered Zophar's Domain and started posting on the message board there. I didn't really post much, but I gained some valuable skills there.

I started my first real ROMHacking project sometime in 2005. It was a translation of Rockman EXE 4.5 for GBA. I started off with some simple graphics hacks and eventually inserted an English font and translated the battlechips. Since the game was lacking space I posted on Zophar and it was suggested that I implemented a DTE hack. I was pointed to a tutorial by KingMike on implementing DTE for the NES, but this was the GBA. I learned some basic GBA assembly by reading the document on the ARM processor that I downloaded from GBADev and happened upon the correct routine pretty much by luck, because then I didn't know about breakpoints, tracing, and the like at all. I actually coded a DTE routine and assembled it by hand (typing the opcodes into Windows Calculator in binary and typing the hex into the game).. and to my surprise, it worked! This event is what I mark as the beginning of my major ROMHacking interest.

My Rockman EXE 4.5 Translation project is still in progress today, and is a good deal further than it was before. A few months after I finished the aforementioned DTE hack, I lost my hard drive (and my entire computer) to a power surge. I didn't get a new computer until several months later, after winning it in a contest. I started the hack from scratch. This time I learned how to do ASM hacks the right way, with an assembler, and redid my DTE hack. I coded a utility to dump and insert strings from the game. The dumper/inserter currently can dump any block of text from the game, but needs an option to dump the game's entire script. Currently I am having a bit of "hacker's block" and haven't touched the game in about a month.

As far as other hacking goes, EXE4.5 has held most of my focus, but I have worked on a few other projects. One of these projects is coding a VWF for Cardcaptor Sakura, for Rhys on RHDN. The game uses OAM sprites for the text, so it wasn't as complicated as a "true" VWF, but it was a good test of my ASM expertise. EXE4.5 already had a VWF, so I haven't had a chance to actually code a VWF, but I hope to in the near future. Another project, that I've kept largely secret, is Zelda: The Minish Cap. I've taken some pretty extensive notes on the game, and hope to eventually make an editor for it. Making a game editor has been one of my goals for awhile, to test my programming skills, as well as my hacking skills. I've also been working on a hack for the game to make the Ocarina actually play songs instead of just working as a trigger for the teleports, but that hack is still in it's beta stages. Another project which I hope to finish eventually, is an editor for Zelda: Link's Awakening (I know Jigglysaint made one, but I could never get it to work), and a hack for the game. I've had some pretty good ideas for ASM hacks for it as well, which would be a good segway into the world of Gameboy hacking.

If you've actually read all of this I congratulate you and am thankful that all of this typing had somewhat of a use. Feel free to email me with any questions, comments, etc. relating to this site, my other site, or anything else:

spiderkeman@diemmbsuxno.net.com or spiderkeman@diepanisuxcus.net.org (don't copy and paste, it will return something else due to anti-spam measures)