More sophisticated graphics hacking involves changing more than just tiles and colors, but also the way in which the tiles are arranged, or tile groups generated, giving more flexibility and control over the final appearance. Graphics hacks can range from simple edits (such as giving Luigi a golf club, or making pixelated sprites for later generation Pokémon) to 'porting' characters from one game to another, to full-blown thematic changes (usually with accompanying palette changes see below). Editing these tiles is also possible with a hex editor, but is generally accomplished with a tile editor (such as Tile Layer or Tile Molester), which can display the ROM data in a graphical way, as well as finding and editing tiles. The format of graphics data varies from console to console, but most of the early ones (NES, Super NES, Game Boy, etc.) store graphics in tiles, which are 8x8- pixel units of data, which are arranged on-screen to produce the desired result. Some intrepid hackers also perform level editing with a hex editor, but this is extremely difficult (except on games whose level storage format closely resembles how it is presented in a hex editor).Īnother basic hacking skill is graphics hacking, which is changing the appearance of the game's environments, characters, fonts, or other such things. Other games use simple text compression techniques (such as byte pair encoding, also called dual tile encoding or DTE, in which certain combinations of two or more letters are encoded as one byte) which a suitably equipped hex editor can facilitate editing.Ī hex editor is the tool of choice for editing things such as character/item properties, if the structure and location of this data is known and there is no game-specific editor for the game that can edit this information. Many games do not store their text in ASCII form, and because of this, some specialized hex editors have been developed, which can be told what byte values correspond to what letter(s) of the alphabet, to facilitate text editing a file that defines these byte=letter relationships is called a 'table' file. Hex editors are usually used for editing text, and for editing other data for which the structure is known (for example, item properties), and Assembly hacking.Įditing text is one of the most basic forms of hacking. Having been created by many different programmers or programming teams, ROM data can be very diverse.Ī hex editor is one of the most fundamental tools in any ROM hacker's repertoire.

Most hacking groups offer web space for hosting hacks and screenshots (sometimes only hosting hacks by the group's members, sometimes hosting almost any hack), a message board, and often have an IRC channel.

Although much of the method applies to both types of hacking, this article focuses on 'creative hacking' such as editing game levels. įan translation (known as 'translation hacking' within the ROM hacking community) is a type of ROM hacking there are also anti-censorship hacks that exist to restore a game to its original state, which is often seen with older games that were imported, as publishers' content policies for video games (most notably, Nintendo's) were much stricter in the United States than Japan or Europe there are also randomisers which shuffle entity placements. Once ready, they are usually distributed on the Internet for others to play on an emulator or games console. ROM hacking is generally accomplished through use of a hex editor (a program for editing non-textual data) and various specialized tools such as tile editors, and game-specific tools which are generally used for editing levels, items, and the like, although more advanced tools such as assemblers and debuggers are occasionally used. ROM hacks either re-design a game for new, fun gameplay while keeping all items the same, or unlock features that exist in the game but are not utilised in-game. This is usually done by technically inclined video game fans to breathe new life into a cherished old game, as a creative outlet, or to make essentially new unofficial games using the old game's engine. ROM hacking is the process of modifying a ROM image or ROM file of a video game to alter the game's graphics, dialogue, levels, gameplay, and/or other elements. ( July 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations.

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