general
Table of Contents
Welcome To The General Section
Welcome MetConstian to the General guides section, whether you are looking to get into hacking or to improve your level design, its all here, if you are new here you should check out ??Why ROM Hack to see why you should try getting into ROM hacking if you have a serious interest in getting into games design, once you read that you can go check out the rest of this section of the wiki for all the tools and guides to read to get into ROM hacking more.
WebArchive
Useful tools and utilities
Below is a section of essential downloads for any hacker, you should probably have these already downloaded, but just in case we will list links to them below.
| General | |
|---|---|
| xvi32 | xvi32 is a freeware hex editor, you can pick between this or HxD depending on your tastes. |
| HxD | HxD is a hex editor, useful for when you need to do any kind of hex editing in your ROM. |
| Lunar IPS | Tool for applying any IPS patches you may download from MetConst. |
| Floating IPS | Tool for applying IPS, BPS, and UPS patches. Same interface, basically a new-and-improved Lunar IPS. |
| XDelta-UI | Tool for applying any xdelta patches you may download from MetConst. A more updated CLI version can be found Here. |
| Lunar Address | SNES address converter tool, useful for during hex editing. |
| Graphics Editors | |
| YY-CHR | Graphical Editing Tool. Two versions. (C++ and .NET) .NET Version recommended |
| Tile Molester | Another graphical editing tool, written in Java. Has some bugs. Supports Mode 7, which other editors lack. |
| Tile Layer Pro | Graphical editing tool, used to edit any GFX files you may download or uncompressed graphics inside the ROM. |
| NES | |
| FCEUX | Contains debugging tools for Metroid hacking, nestopia is probably better for playing, but lacks debugging tools. |
| Mesen | A high-accuracy NES emulator for playing, debugging, and even audiovisually enhancing Metroid ROM hacks. |
| Nestopia | Latest version of nestopia, for playing Metroid ROM hacks. |
| GB | |
| BGB | BGB is a GB/C emulator and debugger. |
| Sameboy | Sameboy is a GB/C emulator designed for high-accuracy gameplay, along with WIP debugging. |
| RGBDS | An assembler for GB code. While primarily designed for homebrew games, it can be used to patch code to ROMs for hacks. |
| SNES | |
| Mesen-S | High-accuracy SNES emulator for Windows and Linux. Game Boy games, Game Boy Color games, and Super Game Boy emulation supported. |
| SNES9x | Latest version of SNES9x, for playing Super Metroid ROM hacks. |
| Geiger's SNES9x | Debugger version of SNES9x, for tracing and debugging your Super Metroid hacks. |
| bsnes-plus | A modern debugging emulator based on bsnes. May have better compatibility for some users than Geiger's. |
| SNEStuff | This program combines Lunar Address/ips/Expand, xkas v0.6, an HDMA color converter and more. Very useful. |
| xkas v0.06 | A 65c816 assembler, you will need this for any assembly you download from MetConst. |
| ASMDev | ASMDev is mainly a ASM code editor that allows users to change the ASM code in a ROM without the use of an external assembler. |
| GBA | |
| no$gba | A recommended GBA/DS debugger, useful for when assembly hacking. |
| VBA Debugger | VBA with enhanced debugging abilities, useful for GBA hacking. |
| mGBA | mGBA is an emulator for playing GBA/GBC/GB games. |
| Visual Boy Advance | VBA is an emulator for playing GBA and GB games. |
| armips | An assembler for various ARM and MIPS platforms. Automated builds are available Here. |
| DS | |
| melonDS | melonDS is an emulator for playing DS games. More accurate than DeSmuME, but currently lacks features such as Lua scripting. |
| DeSmuME | DeSmuME is an emulator for playing DS games. |
| NDS Editor | A simple tool for importing and extracting files to and from DS ROMs. |
| Tinke | Another DS ROM file editor, but this one's more fully-featured. |
| GC/Wii | |
| Dolphin | Dolphin is an emulator for playing GC/Wii games. Also has a debugger. |
| PrimeHack | PrimeHack is an unofficial variant of Dolphin designed to allow mouse and keyboard control for Prime Trilogy. |
| Nintendont | Nintendont is a Wii homebrew app that can play GC ISOs on a Wii or Wii U. |
| NODTool | A fairly new command-line tool that can deal with GC and Wii disc images. |
| Wii Backup Fusion | A graphical tool that can extract and rebuild GC and Wii disc images. |
Guides
Starter Guides
- Beginners Guide to playing ROM hacks - Useful quick guide for anyone not knowing how to patch a ROM.
- Other guides before…
- Pre-production - The final starter guide, inside this guide we talk about your preperation for making your hack or fan game, including setting a goal and planning out what you want and need to do, this is a must read!
Other Guides
- Tile Molester Graphics Guide - Quick Guide on using Tile Molester to Rip, View, and Edit graphics.
- YY-CHR Graphics Guide
- Quick Guide for viewing, editing, and ripping graphics in YY-CHR.
- HxD Hex Edit Guide - Guide on using HxD to Find, Compare, and Edit hex.
- Hex Editing - Quick guide on hex editing, including problems you may face and need to avoid.
- Graphical Editing - Quick guide on using the graphical editors.
- Hacker Pitfalls - First time hacking? Better check this to make sure you dont bugger up anything.
- What Not To Do - There are a lot of things people do wrong first time they start on their journey to making a game, read this and make sure you don't fall prey to these problems.
- Spikes - Read this before you start using spikes.. please..
- guide_name - basic level design rules test guide thingy
Game Specific Guides
Since some guides are game specific, they have been split off to their own pages, click a game title below to be taken to their page, you may find guides written up on how to use publicly released tilesets on MetConst below in their specific game page.
general.txt · Last modified: by felixwright