Introduce Yourself!

[Su]

Greetings. I am Dragon-Tamer 795.
...Dragon for short. Unless the famous Dragon is here as well...

Some of you fine entities may have seen me over on the AM2R board. I make games, music and fiction. I also recently expressed an interest in hacking, and KentaKurodani kindly directed me here.

So, yeah. I have some ideas I'd really like to see made into hacks, but I'm almost a complete newbie in this field.  I've been lurking around for a few years, playing the greats and reading the supplementary material on the main site, but there's tons of stuff I don't know. All I've actually done myself is change a single tile in Cliffhanger.

Where do you think should I start?

...I think there was something else I was going to say, but my brain seems to have mislaid it.

[Zhs2]

Never start a hack, it takes up to four years and comes with the most arbitrary requirements to memorize and several topics that people have already created in Engine Works but will inevitably be created again because people don't use the search function. Write fanfiction about how it all sucks instead. :colonrightv:

Also, the dragon is always sleeping. Welcome to Metconst!

[Yuki]

Sup Dragon! It's me, Kenta, I need to bother Zeke into changing my name again. Glad to see you here, and I hope that you fit in nicely.

[Su]

Never start a hack

This is merely a warning of the terrible soul-destroying trials involved rather than a DO NOT DO THIS THING EVAR-esque statement, right?

Write fanfiction about how it all sucks instead. :colonrightv:

Also, the dragon is always sleeping. Welcome to Metconst!

Kekeke, thanks. I don't really write Fanfiction (not that there's anything wrong with that), but that there is an interesting concept... Meta is my favorite thing at the moment.

Sup Dragon! It's me, Kenta, I need to bother Zeke into changing my name again. Glad to see you here, and I hope that you fit in nicely.

Thanks! I'm sure I will. This place seems as mad as I am.

[Yuki]

Zeke's talking about fanfiction because he's wrote metconst fanfiction twice now (among other things...). This place is madder than you know, you have but yet scratched the surface :)

[Su]

metconst fanfiction
you have but yet scratched the surface :)

Clearly.

BTW, what kind of NSFW is that? I'd like to read it, but there are some things I can do without.

Edit: Why does the "Edit post" button read "Modify" and not read "Hack"?

[Yuki]

The metconst fics are posted right here on the forums, look up ragekit and ragetrain. IIRC nothing more NSFW than a little blood and gore, it's not all that bad

[Quietus]

I feel that I must vehemently deny that we are mad on MetConst.  Zebedee, who talks to me when I'm alone, told me so.  He's a six-legged flying giraffe, don't ya know, and he casts spells on any doubters using his magical box of frogs. :oh:

[Su]

six-legged flying giraffe

Psycho furry elephant cyborg twins constantly suggesting I achieve sentience at inopportune times. Your voices got nothing on mine. :D

...I just read both Fanfics. Very...bizarre. Mm.

Anyhow, to get back to my original question - where should I start, and what tools should I use? There's so many.

[Smiley]

Well, if you want to hack Super Metroid, go grab a clean [JU] rom somewhere, download some version of SMILE, open the rom in SMILE, open some room and just mess around for a while and get familiar with how it works. Oh, and remember, back-ups are very important. Very. You will inevitably break ROMs.

If you have any questions regarding hacking, use the search function and look through the Engine works first. You'll likely find your answer. Main site also has a good bunch of different documents. Feel free to also pop on IRC.

I'm off to work on more Grapple rooms. Vi ses!

[Quietus]

where should I start

Do what SMILEuser said above.  Once you've had your first tinkering session, you should start with Person's guide here, followed by the FAQ.

[Su]

Thanks for the advice, guys. Signing off for now, but I'll see where I get.

[FreeSci]

Oh man, I STILL didn't introduce myself!

I'm FreeSci=The Freekin' Scientist. The idea came.. once in summer. That's pretty much it.

I quickly learned and continuing to learn. I'm pretty bad at drawing, so GFX got thrown away immediately.

BUT WAIT! Thing after thing!
I was watching a lot of NintendoCapriSun. After watching his SM race with BearOfLove, I decided to give it a try, myself.
Tried and noticed how much I suck... Turned to cheats... WTF is "raw cheat"? Raw address? ROM?
That way I got to ROM hacking. Firstly discovered SMILE, the best SM hacking program ever. Then turned to hex editing. Saw Scyzer's ASM lessons. It took me a while to find stuff out about editing RAM - you can't edit it in a hex editor.

Assembly got me in. I'm doing a lot of it now.
===============================================================================================================================
Ideas come and pass by, but the community remains with you all the time. Whoever comes by looking for hacking tutorials, ask real people in real time instead. On IRC. And register here on MetConst, guys.

[Mettyk25jigsaw]

Hello everyone, I am Craig.

I have 2 mental illnesses---1--OSMD (Obsessive Super Metroid Disorder)
                                     2--OQD  (Obsessive Queen Disorder [The band not that lady])

I do not know which one is the biggest problem, if I don't have them in my life I feel lonely and anxious to have them back again, Too late for Freddie Mercury though, he needs a resurrection...But Roger Taylor, Brian May and John Deacon are still alive, I will have to stick with them, although JD is completely retired, the other 2 are still doing stuff together but they split as a band after they made the best album on the face of the planet in history and future (impossible to beat) 4 years after freddie's death called Made In Heaven with unreleased freddie vocals + some of Roger's And Brian's added, which were recorded at various times prior to FM's death and finished as a complete album in 1995. Not one single song outside of queen do I like--not one (I am serious). Including solo material they produced approx. 370 songs and my top 11 favourite songs of all time all come from the Made in Heaven album--Guess what, there are only 11 songs on that album. I totally do have Obsessive Queen Disorder.

Now My other illness---OSMD---Obsessive Super Metroid Disorder...
Well I believe lots of people have this illness, how many people who have played super metroid could say that they didn't like it, not many is the answer...I still much prefer it to the 3 metroid prime series and other metroid games, most of them are very very good but in my mind you cannot possibly go past Super Metroid. SM is what made metroid, the 1st 2 games I hated but when I played SM, instant addiction. I remember though honestly halfway through the game I was completely stuck and took something like 21/2 to 3 months (yeah laugh if you want) to find where to go next. However I liked the game sooooooooooooooo much, I insisted on finding where to go next no matter what and eventually found where to get the grapple beam. Then i said to myself, why the heck did i not think of that, Doh.
  I remember after completing the game, I was thinking I'd die to be able to make my own game of this, believing that I knew my dream was never going to come true, I gave myself not a glimmer of hope for many years, It wasn't so much I thought I couldn't do it, rather it was I would never get the opportunity. However in 2011, I somehow stumbled across this game called 'super metroid redesign', most of us here would know it. I was thinking, the game I know was only called 'Super Metroid', so I read more into it and evidence showed that it was like a brand new version of the game with a completely different layout, I just had to learn how to load it onto my computer and I did so, otherwise my life wasn't worth living. Then I found other games over this website and others, it was too much for me, i jumped with joy, hit my head on the ceiling and brought down the house (maybe). Eventually I learnt about a program that people used to make such games. Why should I tell you the name of it, shouldn't 'you' know? Well it brought a SMILE onto my face that lasted for years to date. And my OSMD became a much bigger problem...Today I can say yes, I certainly do Have Obsessive Super Metroid Disorder and Obsessive Queen Disorder. Without them in my life I feel anxious and lonely I must do something about it I say to myself, something along the lines of turn on the cd player and turn on the computer and open that program...

  Do you have OSMD and OQD? if you don't you do not know what you are missing...

[Quietus]

I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near disorder level, but I never seem to go very long before playing it again - the original or its hacks.  You're also in at a good time, since hacking for Super Metroid has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years.  Where it used to be primarily new room layouts and map designs, it's now possible to do pretty much whatever we can think of.  I'm still waiting for the monster hack set on multiple worlds using Black Falcon's (I'm pretty sure it was BF) take-off and landing ASM. :^_^:

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

*deleted post*

[Dessyreqt]

Rawr.

[Vismund Cygnus]

Rawr.

what is a dessy and why is it reqt?
Nice to see you finlly made an account here though.  :^_^:

[Dessyreqt]

what is a dessy and why is it reqt?
Nice to see you finlly made an account here though.  :^_^:

I would like to know more about sidehoppers, do you have any references?

[Quietus]

Welcome, Dessyreqt.  Assuming you're the Dessyreqt, I hope you transition easily from the world of repetitious attempts to achieve the improbable, to the world where we make all things possible. :^_^:

[Vismund Cygnus]

I would like to know more about sidehoppers, do you have any references?

Metroid Database has a decent amount of information on them, as well as their cousins the Desgeega. However, your best bet is to carry out a few field experiments of your own. Currently I'm attempting to understand the gravity-defying jumping of the upside-down variety, however little information has been found as of yet.

[Kitsune_Phoenix]

Okay, time to start introducing my own self, as best as I can.
My name is Ta'kaya, I like electronic music, I love Unreal and Metroid (and battletech games, as is evident by my current MechCommander icon), and I am a girl.

I like to personify myself on the internet as an anthropomorphic kitsune with phoenix traits.

Now enough of my irrelevant self. Everyone else continue to introduce yourselves~

[Megakidicarus]

Hello I'm Megakidicarus or Mega for short. I've not hacked a game in years. I'm interested in all kinds of games from mario to zelda to the obvious (Metroid) to final fantasy and sometimes I halo. I play a lot of games.

I'm most interested in helping beta test but don't know where to start.

[Quietus]

Your best bet will likely be the IRC channel.  Usually, betatesters are picked from people known to the hacker, and since you aren't really looking to hack, you'll have to ingratiate yourself with hackers using some wit and charm instead. :^_^:

[FullOfFail]

Beta-testing is pretty common here, but I think people usually ask others that have been hacking for awhile to do it. Reason being, they catch tiling-errors and permastucks much more easily, among other subtle flaws. Having a fresh tester would be beneficial too, though. Especially if you're making a hack geared at casual-players.