ROMhacking Diary - Entry One

Obviously, I love video games, so it stands to reason that for as long as I can recall I've wanted to make my own. I've made small attempts in the past, reading through a book for making games in Flash, messing around with RPG Maker XP, but I've never made any real headway. Recently I decided to actually do something, anything. Somehow ROM hacking Pokemon Fire Red was what I ended up looking into. For several weeks I read through as many beginner's guides and tutorials that I could find, and finally I feel comfortable starting.

I haven't come up with a name for my ROM hack, but I'm hoping to make a worthwhile Pokemon game. Mainly I'm focusing on story, introducing characters that don't show up in Kanto for several years, or ever, increasing an emphasis on Team Rocket's presence, requiring short little "quests" to be completed before fighting a gym leader, etc. I'm not too concerned with adding new Pokemon, but I do want to add in at least the evolutions the fourth generation games brought, as well as one specific "fakemon" (something I'm not really a fan of). I plan to alter some routes and other locations and hopefully, add in several more routes that fit logically, or that originated from the anime and manga.

Right now I'm still testing the waters so I've just been messing with things slowly in a test file. So far I've managed to alter Oak's introduction, add an NPC with dialogue, add a map with wild Pokemon and transitions, as well as writing some basic scripts. Getting comfortable with these things, and expanding my knowledge, especially in regards to scripts, is the next major goal. Honestly though things are going fairly smoothly, I've hit a couple snags, but they've all been easily solved.

This isn't an official announcement of a ROM hack, nor is this a planned regular topic. If I feel like reflecting on what I've learned, or sharing a humorous anecdote of my failures I'll probably post another one of these. Eventually, assuming everything goes according to plan, I will make an actual announcement and offer a better look at things to come. Right now, I'm a mere novice. I'm really excited about all this though.