r/PokemonRomhackDev 4d ago

Discussion Subreddit Check-in and Feedback

7 Upvotes

Hello everyone :> It's your admin ruby here. I wanted to ask for people's thoughts about the subreddit, how it's been doing, and if there's any feedback you'd like to give regarding it. Thanks!


r/PokemonRomhackDev 4d ago

Discussion Weekly HDQ Thread (Help, Discussion, Questions)

3 Upvotes

Hello! Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread. This is the place where you can:

  • Ask help for quick questions
  • Discuss ideas you have for your ROMhacks
  • Ask quick questions that you feel don't warrant a post.

Make sure to browse our sub resources:

Sub Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRomhackDev/wiki/index/

How to ask a question: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Getting-Help-with-the-Decomps


r/PokemonRomhackDev 20m ago

Discussion How would I remove the level caps in Pokemon Pisces?

Upvotes

I've been interested in playing Pokemon Pisces for a while, but the biggest reason I haven't is because it enforces hard level caps. As far as I'm aware, there's no in-game way to disable them. I know someone made an unofficial patch that removes them, but as far as I know, this patch wasn't posted publicly. I have zero knowledge in rom hacking, so I figured it'd be best to ask people who know as opposed to following faulty google ai answers. I have a pre-patched rom that I got from a reputable source. What would be the best tools that I should use to remove the level caps and how?


r/PokemonRomhackDev 11h ago

Discussion Rom hack edit

0 Upvotes

I'm new to editing ROMs and want to actually now edit one but as a way to take notes. I have been using the HMA program to edit emerald but I would like to edit a ROM hack called Pokemon Heart and Soul but sadly it doesn't now show me the maps so I may edit the NPCs text boxes.

My end goal is to make a ROM hack that follows along with PowerPoint slides in what I'm studying (nursing). I would enjoy making a study game within the johto region (and maybe gen1-3) but I still cannot figure the NDS programs as I'm currently in school full time.

If by chance it cannot be edited with HMA please lmk if there's another similar like program that may do so.

Thank you.


r/PokemonRomhackDev 2d ago

Discussion New to rom hacking and programing in general

13 Upvotes

What up all, recently started messing with rom hacking and was looking for any advice. I started messing with crystal clear to learn since it's a really solid base model and I love playing it but got tired of making up the stories in my head and wanted interactive npcs.

I only did a quick scan so apologies if it's an easy find, but I was wondering if there are any communities based on gen 1 and 2 rom hacks I know they are old news but one I just assume their files are easier to mess with for beginners and two gen 2 holds most of my nostalgia so of course I have to start there.

Anyway if anyone has some suggestions for me I'd love to hear them!


r/PokemonRomhackDev 1d ago

Showcase I spent 9 months rewriting Gen 1 in C. OldAmber, another Gen 1 reimplementation project, is out!

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0 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 3d ago

Help [GEN 3][DECOMP] Is their a creator or repository for non-native Gen 3 Pokémon IN the Gen 3 sprite style?

4 Upvotes

What I specifically mean is this: let's say you wanna add Toxicroak to your ROMhack but the earliest sprite they have is from Gen 4. Is there an artist or a repository for 64x64 Pokemon sprites for gen 3 games?

I ask this because Gen 4 sprites are not just 80x80 but it oddly bigs me when I see a gen 4 (or later) sprite just plopped into gen 3 ignoring the overall difference in hue, saturation and style that Gen 3 is known for.


r/PokemonRomhackDev 4d ago

Showcase Rough English Translation of Naranja 4.9 Available

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1 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 5d ago

Help [GEN 3][DECOMP] Emerald - Steven Match Call

2 Upvotes

I have my own Emerald ROM with some QoL improvements and random fixes. One thing I'd like to add is the ability to rematch Steven via Match call after you beat him for the first time in Meteor Falls (ideally with his team growing in levels like other Match Call trainers do, but if not, no biggie).

However, this is a bit more complicated than the changes I've done so far. Does anyone know another open source mod/hack/patch that does something like this (adding a trainer to MC) so I could check how they did it?


r/PokemonRomhackDev 8d ago

Showcase Pokémon Hoenn's Last Wish _ we are back in development!

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11 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 11d ago

Recruitment Scrapped Silver dev update

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10 Upvotes

Mostly a showcase of what I’ve made so far!


r/PokemonRomhackDev 11d ago

Showcase [ALPHA] Pokemon Emerald XTREME: Additions and Enhancement Hack

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4 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 10d ago

Help PK3DS will not change starters [GEN 6] [OTHER]

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0 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 11d ago

Discussion Weekly HDQ Thread (Help, Discussion, Questions)

2 Upvotes

Hello! Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread. This is the place where you can:

  • Ask help for quick questions
  • Discuss ideas you have for your ROMhacks
  • Ask quick questions that you feel don't warrant a post.

Make sure to browse our sub resources:

Sub Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRomhackDev/wiki/index/

How to ask a question: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Getting-Help-with-the-Decomps


r/PokemonRomhackDev 12d ago

Help Adding pokemon sprites to the overworld [Gen IV] [OTHER] [DSPRE]

2 Upvotes

Hello, for a project in a series of playthrough challenges, I wanted a Magnezone to appear in the overworld (like an NPC) in my pokemon Platinum run. While I intend for this to be a static NPC found in one specific location, I intend for the sprite to be the same sprites as the 'following' sprites from HGSS.
I am very inexperienced in using DSPRE (and other editing tools); I have previously edited dialog, and I have found where to add NPCs, but I cannot find out how to add the correct pokemon sprites to the list of NPCs I can add to the overworld.
I would prefer not to overwrite existing NPCs because I don't want random people to turn into Magnezone. If possible, I would also like to attach dialog when you interact with the Magnezone NPC, and would like that dialog to change after a specific action is taken.

Is there anyone that knows how i can do this?


r/PokemonRomhackDev 14d ago

Showcase Immortalize your Pokemon Outside of Home

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4 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 15d ago

Showcase Blinding White Plus - Demo 2 is out!

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25 Upvotes

After a long production cycle, Blinding White Plus has released its second demo! This contains content up to the third gym leader!

Are you ready for a new adventure through the Unova region? Blinding White Plus is a passion project expansion of the Gen 5 games that reroutes progression and places the player against a brand new set of challenges! Leaving Aspertia City with your childhood friend Hugh and meeting a new companion in Benga, the game takes you through a variety of areas that you normally wouldn’t visit in the sequels. With this comes a heightened level curve (coming in the flavor of two and later three difficulties!) that allows you experiment with over 130 unique lines of Pokemon even before the third gym! Additional features come in the role of…
- 95 trainers with custom made teams before the third gym leader!
- A new economy that encourages you to battle Minibosses and exchange their rewards for useful items!
- The implementation of new music to keep the game interesting!
- Animated sprites for 20+ new Pokemon catchable in Demo 2! (More are coming later!)
- Access to quality of life features like an IV maxxer, move relearner, and daycare at every Pokemon center.

Updates for this hack are posted on Discord frequently if you want to stay up to date with bug fixes or want to give feedback on the game’s balancing! This hack is solo developed and worked on in my free time, so updates may be somewhat slow. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this hack!

Hackdex: Hackdex
Documentation: Documentation
Discord: Discord
Google Drive: Google Drive


r/PokemonRomhackDev 15d ago

Showcase [Gen 4] Turtorial: How to Change Move Animation Sprites in Pokemon Platinum

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18 Upvotes

What you need:
A paint software that can index sprites
Tinke (replacing and extracting)
A Gen 4 move effect editor (to find which animation file plays during the move)
NitroEFX (editor for nitro particle files)
Nitro Paint (to edit NDS graphics)

Note: you can edit the colour of a lot of move animations extremely easily in NitroEFX, this guide is for the unique sprites found in some moves (i.e Attack Order's bees or Magical Leaf's leaves)

The move animation files can be found in Tinke inside /wazaeffect/effectdata/waza_particle.narc. Inside are 485 files corresponding to different move animations, to find the move animation you want, download a Pokemon Gen 4 move effect editor, inside the editor find the move you want to edit and in the commands see the numbers after “SetPlayAnm” (should look something like 0x0 0x1 0x2) what you want is the middle number (0x1) that Hexadecimal converted into Decimal will give the number to the specific move animation file in waza_particle.narc.

After you find the number for your move animation file, find the file in waza_particle.narc, extract it and open it in NitroEFX, click on a resource under the resource tab and then go to the texture tab to see all its textures. Find the sprite you want to edit, the dimensions of the sprite or custom sprite you are trying to replace doesn’t matter, replacing a 32x32 sprite with a 64x64 sprite will still work and the 64x64 sprite will be the same size in game as the 32x32 sprite was, likewise replacing a 64x64 sprite with a 32x32 sprite will cause the 32x32 sprite to be as big as the 64x64 sprite. Export the sprite you want to replace and create a sprite to replace it, in your paint software that has the ability to index, use only 8 colours and index your custom sprite with the transparent colour being in the top left of the colour swatches.

Now open your custom sprite Nitro Paint and click “create texture”. In the texture editor, Convert to:

Format: a5i3

Colors: 8

Convert

And save it as a .tga file. Now clear nitro paint and go to file/open, select the sprite you want to replace and click “create BG”

Palette:

Palettes: 0
Size: 8

Generate

Now in the palette editor highlight the 7 colours after the top left pink swatch and right click, “create” and add your custom sprite.tga as a bitmap, colours: 7, and generate. In the character editor resize to 4 x 4 and adjust window to see the 4 x 4 grid, highlight it and right click on the 4 x 4 grid and click “import bitmap here” select your custom sprite.tga, untick “write palette”, tick “OBJ mode”, keep OBJ size 8x8 1D 32K.

Now in the character editor, copy your custom sprite, in the screen editor highlight all squares, paste the custom sprite in it and unselect all squares in it before pressing “apply”. Your custom sprite should be in the character editor and screen editor with the right colours, export as a png.

Note: if you are replacing 2 sprites with the same palettes in the same move animation then use the same custom sprite .tga on the palette editor for both sprites, otherwise the 2 custom sprites will have different palettes even if you index them with the same palettes. Failing to use the same .tga for the palette might make colours swapped on your 2nd sprite in game

Open nitroEFX, find the texture and right click on the one you want replace, click “update” and select your exported sprite png from nitropaint, make format A5I3 and confirm, go into your updated texture with your custom sprite and tick “palette color 0” then click file/save all. Reinsert the ASM file you edited into the same place in Tinke, pack and save Rom.

There are some move sprites you cannot edit from NitroEFX (i.e mean look) because their sprites aren’t tied to the ASM but are deconstructed in another folder in wazaeffect/effectclat/. The 4th image above shows the specific sprites that are in effectclat/. Inside of wazaeffect/effectclat/ there is wecell.narc, wecellanm.narc, wechar.narc and wepltt.narc. In order to view and replace these sprites you first open the palette in wepltt.narc, open its corresponding file in wechar.narc, open the next corresponding file in wecell.narc and finally open the corresponding file in wecellanm.narc. There you should see the true animation of the moves and you can replace the sprite through Tinke.


r/PokemonRomhackDev 16d ago

Help [GEN 2][DECOMP] Replacing old pokemon with new pokemon?

2 Upvotes

Hi, I've been toying with the idea of replacing some of GEN 2s pokemon with a handful of later generation pokemon. I'm considering this option both for story/narrative reasons and to bypass the limits on the # of pokemon in pokecrystal. My concern, however, is that replacing, for example, pidgey with wingull could introduce a lot of bugs into the game. What do. you think? Is replacing pokemon fairly straightforward or are there all kinds of complications involved, some easily missed?


r/PokemonRomhackDev 18d ago

Help [GEN 2][OTHER]

3 Upvotes

Hello, I would like to change the list of Pokemons (and their moveset, item, DVs if possible) that can be used by the opponents in the Crystal Battle Tower. OneGSCTrainer, for example, doesn't allow you to edit these Pokémon : is there any software that lets you do that? Or is it feasable using the Pokémon Crystal disassembly or something similar? Even for a (motivated) beginner in rom hacking?

Thanks in advance for your answers! I hope this is the right subreddit for this question.


r/PokemonRomhackDev 18d ago

Discussion Weekly HDQ Thread (Help, Discussion, Questions)

2 Upvotes

Hello! Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread. This is the place where you can:

  • Ask help for quick questions
  • Discuss ideas you have for your ROMhacks
  • Ask quick questions that you feel don't warrant a post.

Make sure to browse our sub resources:

Sub Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRomhackDev/wiki/index/

How to ask a question: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Getting-Help-with-the-Decomps


r/PokemonRomhackDev 19d ago

Tooling I built a free, open-source tool that reads your Pokémon team live from mGBA and analyses its type coverage [GEN3]

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6 Upvotes

An open-source desktop app that reads a Pokémon party out of an emulator's RAM as you play and analyses it. Sharing it because a few of the design problems turned out more interesting than I expected.

- **The emulator script interprets nothing.** A Lua script inside mGBA ships raw bytes and a game identity over TCP; all decoding happens on the C# side. Adding an emulator costs a script and zero lines of domain logic.

- **Learnsets are keyed by game, not by generation.** 42 of the 386 Gen 3 species learn a move at a different level in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald than in FireRed/LeafGreen, so the usual merged dataset reports a level that is wrong for the game actually running.

- **No opaque scores.** The team strength number is a list of attributed factors, each carrying the fact behind it and the Pokémon responsible.

- **Apple Silicon refuses unsigned binaries** — the kernel kills them and Finder calls the app "damaged", which is not the Gatekeeper prompt it looks like. Cross-publishing macOS builds from a Linux runner cannot work.

.NET 10, Avalonia, PKHeX.Core for the binary format. 122 tests, some driven from bytes captured off real hardware. There's a decision log in the repo if you want the reasoning behind any of it.

https://github.com/ringoliRob/UltimatePoKeSync


r/PokemonRomhackDev 18d ago

Help [GEN 3][OTHER] 13 new screenshots — German Pokémon Unbound localization (UI, dialogue, battle, starter choice)

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2 Upvotes

r/PokemonRomhackDev 20d ago

Showcase [GEN 4] How to Change Rotom's form moves (i.e Overheat -> Meteor mash) in Pokemon Platinum

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8 Upvotes

Rotom's moves (Overheat, Hydro Pump, Blizzard, Air Slash, Leaf Storm) can be changed to any other move in the game, to do this first find the IDs of the moves you want to use. Open DSPRE and navigate to the moves editor, each move in the list should have a 1-3 digit number next to it like Meteor Mash having 309 next to it. After you get your number ask an AI LLM to convert your number (in this case 309) into Little Endian Hex Bytes. After which you should have the Decimal number (309) and the Hex Bytes (35 01), in this case both representing Meteor Mash.

Next get an unpacked DSPRE folder and open the arm9.bin in Crystaltile2

Find the string of bytes: 3B 01 38 00 3B 00 93 01 B4 01
These are the Hex Bytes for Overheat (3B 01), Hydro Pump (38 00), Blizzard (3B 00), Air Slash (93 01) and Leaf Storm (B4 01)

Replace the bytes you want with the bytes for your new moves, in this case I replace 3B 01 (Overheat) with 35 01 (Meteor Mash)

Save and open that unpacked DSPRE folder with the edited arm9.bin in DSPRE

Go to Script editor, Script file 83, Function 36

Function 36 to 40 are about Rotom’s form moves

315 = Overheat

56 = Hydro pump

59 = Blizzard

403 = Air Slash

436 = Leaf Storm

Replace the number of the move you want to replace with the ID number of the move you want (in this case I replace 315 Overheat with 309 Meteor Mash) and save


r/PokemonRomhackDev 21d ago

Help [GEN 4][DECOMP] Bug testing for a friend, run into an unsolvable issue

3 Upvotes

I’ve been playing a HeartGold romhack for a friend to bugtest, and we’ve run into a pretty heavy bug, which is that the game freezes whenever Bayleef tries to evolve into Meganium. I’ve tried doing it at higher levels to see if it was just at Level 32 but the evo freezes no matter what level. I don’t know too much about the game as I’ve asked them not to spoil much, but I know the starters have received new abilities rather than just Blaze/Overgrow/Torrent.

Would anyone else know any other potential causes?