EarthBound Hacking 101 First Edition Table of Contents Introduction I. CoilSnake Chapter 1. Getting Started Chapter 2. Your First Hack Chapter 3. NPCs Chapter 4. Playable Characters Chapter 5. PSI Abilities Chapter 6. Battle – Actions Chapter 7. Battle – nemies Chapter 8. Battle – Backgrounds Chapter 9. Items Chapter 10. Stores Chapter 11. "he #ser Interface Chapter 12. %usic Chapter 13. %iscellaneous II. CCScri&t III. arthbound %usic ditor I'. PSI Animation ditor '. arthbound Save State ditor Introduction Greetings) and congratulations on your ac*uisition o$ this document+ By doing so) you have not only ensured the renewal o$ ho&e $or all o$ humanity, you have also saved an average o$ nine &u&&ies $ro! a horrible demise+ -n a related note) you have also taken the $irst ste& towards learning ho, to hack arthBound. "his guide will ho&e$ully instruct you in all the basic techni*ues re*uired to get you u& and hacking one o$ the greatest games in modern history. Beyond reasonable co!&uter skills and a willingness to learn) there are no real &rere*uisites) so let.s /u!& right in+ ow can "arth#ound be hacked? It’s on a console' arthBound) like any other console game) can have its data e0tracted and mani&ulated on a co!&uter with s&ecial tools that are able to grab its 1-% 21ead3-nly %emory) $ro! its cartridge) where all the game.s &rogramming and art is located. "he 1-% can then be &assed through something called an emulator, which atte!&ts to recreate an SN S environment so that you can &lay arthBound on a &ersonal co!&uter. "he o,nershi& o$ a 1-% is legally-dubious at best) and distributing a 1-% can $re*uently lead to legal action $ro! the creators o$ the game. Since STA1% N.N " would rather avoid a lawsuit i$ &ossible) it does not distribute the arthBound 1-%) so you.re on your o,n to $ind one 2and in any case) a *uick Google search should be enough to $ind one within a minute4. -nce you have your 1-%) you.ll need to get an emulator. 5SN S is highly recommended) as it is cross3&lat$orm) &ossesses a &lethora o$ $eatures) and is easy to use. Just o&en your 1-% with 5SN S and voilà – you can no, &lay arthBound on your co!&uter. No, that you have the game data on your co!&uter, you can start modi$ying the game. "o do so) you can either manually tweak the he0adecimal values 2an e0&lanation is beyond the sco&e A screenshot of 5SN S8 !enu screen. o$ this manual, but there are many use$ul resources on the Internet4 contained within the 1-% 2,hich is use$ul i$ your ob/ective is to discover new $eatures4) or you can use some o$ the many tools that have been written over the years to automate the &rocess considerably 2&articularly use$ul i$ you.re less o$ a technical &erson and more o$ an artist-type4. "his manual will $ocus on some o$ these tools 2kee& reading...4. (ell) oka*) so !hat about +other% ,nd +other 3% For varying reasons) less e$$orts have been invested into hacking the games that &receded and $ollowed arthBound) namely %other/ arthBound : and %other ;. In the case o$ the $ormer, this is mostly because it is much less interesting to work with the original %other engine than with the arthBound engine) since the latter o$$ers a greater degree o$ customi<ation. In the case o$ %other ;) the architecture o$ its 1-% !akes it di$$icult to hack) so $e, e$$orts have been e0&anded toward doing so. "here are a $e, tools) however; check the! out at STA1% N.N ".s PK Hack section) under ? diting "ools $or %other @ and %other ;A. "hese tools will not be covered in this manual. ow is this -anual or.ani/ed? "his document has been s&lit into se(eral &arts) each dealing with a s&eci$ic tool used to hack arthBound. "hese are the tools which will be covered) in order: • CoilSnake 1 CoilSnake is a re&lacement $or PK Hack 2the original hacking so$tware) also known as JHack4) whose &ro&ensity towards 1-% corru&tion was a severe limitation $or hacking. Chereas PK Hack edited the 1-% directly with custo! editors) CoilSnake e0tracts the re*uired data so that it can be edited with e0ternal &rograms. It can be used in con/unction with CCScri&t 2see belo,4. CoilSnake has both a CLI 2Command3Dine Interface4 and a GUI 2Graphical #ser Interface) ,ritten in "kinter)= this manual will cover both $or each techni*ue where &ossible. However, i$ you.re /ust starting out) you might be more co!$ortable using the GUI. • CCScript 1 the ultimate dialogue editor) CCScri&t is used to edit characters. and ob/ects. dialogue with the &layer throughout arthBound. It &ossesses a si!&le) human3readable and easy-to-use syntax $or creating co!&le0 dialogs) with much more than /ust te0t. CoilSnake is able to bind these dialogues to the e0&orted 1-% automatically. Chile CCScri&t $iles can be created using 'isual CCScri&t) this is not recommended as CoilSnake can handle CCScri&t co!&ilation itsel$) when tied to an ap&ro&riate CCScri&t co!&iler. • "bPro3"dit 1 the best map editor beginning with b and ending with dit) use bPro/ dit to graphically edit arthBound map $iles generated with CoilSnake. • "arth#ound +usic "ditor 1 not only does this tool allo, you to edit music) it also allows you to &lay back songs! 1ecommended $or musicians bound to arth. • 2SI ,ni-ation "ditor 1 a really use$ul tool i$ you.re looking $or a ,ay to animate ne, PSI e$$ects in arthBound. • "arth#ound 0a4e 0tate "ditor 1 a use$ul tool when debugging to *uickly ski& ahead) this tool allows you to /u!& to another &oint in the game by modi$ying your save data. (hat do I need to start hackin.% -&erating syste!B CoilSnake and CCScri&t are cross3&lat$orm &rograms) and will work on Cindows) %ax and Dinu0. B Hack and bPro/ dit will run on any syste! with Java installed. "he arthbound %usic ditor, PSI Animation ditor and arthBound Save State ditor are Cindows-only &rograms) but using the %ono library on Cine) they could &otentially be made to run on Dinu0 and %ac. "e0t editorB A&art $ro! an ap&ro&riate o&erating syste!) you.ll need various standard utilities to edit game $ilesB a te0t editor to edit .yml $iles) such as NotePadEE 2Cindows4) "e0t%ate 2%ac)) or Gedit 2Dinu04. A word &rocessor 2such as %icroso$t Cord4 is unlikely to work. Image editorB Photosho& is the industry standard $or image editing) and with good reason) but remains an e0tremely e0&ensive &rogram. I$ you can.t af$ord it) there are many other &rograms available) such as GraphicsGale 2$ree4. Carning: while GI%P is an e0tremely &o&ular o&en-source alternative to Photosho&) there is currently a bug in recent versions when saving inde0ed PNGs= it is there$ore not recommended to use GI%P. Fe&endenciesB Individual &rograms might have third3&arty de&endencies) or might even de&end u&on each other to work. ach tool’s documentation will outline what is needed. -ne human brainB Pre$erably not in a /ar. ow complete is this -anual% Not co!&letely co!&lete. "his First dition deals only with CoilSnake and skims over some &arts) but later editions will try to cover all the other i!&ortant tools) while also &roviding ap&endices o$ re$erence $or control codes) various (alues) and more+ But that is $or another day. I. CoilSnake CoilSnake is &erhaps the single most i!&ortant tool in your hacking arsenal, as it allows you to deco!&ile 1-% $iles to an organi<ed directory which will contain 2almost4 e(erything $ro! the game) including PSI &ower lists) enemy statistics) artwork and more. Its &urpose is to eventually su&ersede PK Hack9JHack through the &rogressive addition o$ new $eatures. "he main advantage o$ CoilSnake over PKHack is that it does not directly modi$y the 1-% $ileB this means that the chance that the 1-% will get corru&ted is a lot less signi$icant. It also gives you more $reedo! over your hacking, letting you choose your own image editors) te0t editors) and so on) while &reserving the human-readable YA%D $ormat $or its te0t data $iles. CoilSnake is written in Python and is there$ore cross3&lat$orm. It re*uires 2*thon 2.7) Python.s 5,+6 extension) and the 2*thon I-a.e 6ibrar* 82I69. I$ you wish to use its Graphical #ser Interface) you.ll also need to have Python.s Tkinter extension. Additionally, i$ you wish to !ake use o$ CCScri&t within your hacking &ro/ects 2which you &robably should i$ you intend to write some dialogue4) you.ll have to obtain a CCScri&t co!&iler binary and s&eci$y its location within CoilSnake.s &re$erences 2see below $or more instructions4. For instructions on co!&iling CCScri&t $or your syste!) see the ap&ro&riate section. Note $or non3Cindows usersB CoilSnake uses a &re-built binary blob $or the NativeComp Python module= however, this binary will not work on other systems) so you.ll have to co!&ile your own. ScaredG Fon.t be+ build_NativeComp.py is a user-friendly Python scri&t that will build the module $or you.