Gachaste! Dino Device (Red and Blue)

Discuss the Dino Device 1 games here.
Blaziken257
Posts: 983
Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2006 11:52 am

Re: Gachaste! Dino Device (Red and Blue)

Post by Blaziken257 »

I haven't hacked Dino Device before, but GBA pointers are pretty straightforward (at least compared to GB/GBC pointers). Usually, pointers point to the address of the first element of something (e.g. the first letter in a block of text).

For example, let's say that one line of text starts at address 0x00123456. To find the pointer, you would add 0x08000000 (this is unique to GBA; each system has their own unique way of doing this) to get 0x08123456. On some GBA games, such as Telefang 2, you have to break each byte apart (which is 2 nibbles long) and reverse the order, e.g. 08 12 34 56 will become 56 34 12 08. Then you start at the beginning of the ROM and do a hex search for either 08 12 34 56 (if it's forwards/big endian) or 56 34 12 08 (if it's reversed/little endian) -- if you don't know whether a game reverses the bytes or not, then you have to try both until you find a match. (Of course, once you figure out the endianness of one pointer, then you'll know how the game orders all other pointers.)

You'll know when you'll have found a pointer table when every fourth byte is 08 (since every pointer is 4 bytes long, and will always have 08 in it), and the other three bytes have some pattern to them, usually increasing (since the address they point to will be close to each other). You can then edit these pointers to readjust lengths of text.

Oh, and the beauty of GBA is, since pointers are 4 bytes long (unlike any other system that I've seen, like (ugh) GB/GBC), you can point them ANYWHERE in the ROM, so any blank space is fair game. This is unlike GB/GBC games, where you're confined to a block of 0x4000 bytes, which is why Telefang (and pretty much any other GB/GBC game) has constant space issues with text, despite having loads of unused space. (Thankfully SNES isn't as bad as GB/GBC...)
RacieB
Posts: 871
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:27 am

Re: Gachaste! Dino Device (Red and Blue)

Post by RacieB »

Asterisk wrote:However, I think I found a glitch:
Ooop, that's probably my bad, I don't recall that happening unpatched. Sorry.
wrote:If you run out of money you can also play the minigames on the main menu, they give you money though it's not very much...
Why did I never think of that =/
Asterisk(imported)
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Dec 18, 2008 1:54 am

Re: Gachaste! Dino Device (Red and Blue)

Post by Asterisk(imported) »

I also found several more bugs:

I use two Dinos with names seven letters long during battle. It normally doesn't affect much, but when they fall in traps, the exclaimation point is pushed over the system message mugshot (if you get what I'm saying). Basically, it starts the next line over to the far left of the screen...a screenshot would explain it better.

When I have my Dino directly drop on another Dino, it uses the enemy's name as my ally's. Um, another hard to explain one, I hope you get what I'm saying.

I have another glitch to report, but I don't have the game with me right now and I've learned that I can't explain glitches very well at all. My memory of it is foggy, but all three of these I can screenshot when I get back to my other computer.

Fun game, though. The battle system is addicting, and now that I've gotten some overkill-y shoulder cannons for one of my Dino, it's also really easy. The strategic elements keep it from getting dull, though, so I don't get bored with it. I only recently figured out how to keep up happiness, but I found out that I had two rivalling Dino diagonally from each other and they were very angry. Oops.
RacieB
Posts: 871
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:27 am

Re: Gachaste! Dino Device (Red and Blue)

Post by RacieB »

Asterisk wrote:When I have my Dino directly drop on another Dino, it uses the enemy's name as my ally's. Um, another hard to explain one, I hope you get what I'm saying.
That was just a mistake on my part in the translating, it should say something like "Enemy NAME got hit" or whatever. I was planning on fixing that but never got around to it.

I'm not sure why long names would push the messages over limit, I'd think it would compensate for those in message length (although I did move line breaks somewhat, I didn't change the overall length of messages.)
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