The History Of ROM-Hacking
PAGE 2, CONT. FROM PAGE 1...
1999:
In 1999 the number of hacks continued to steadily grow. Games like Super Butt Bros. 3 slightly improved upon earlier Mario hacks. But the complexity of the storyline in hacks were furthered by 2 hacks.
I dont think he means ganja.
In Dragon Pervert, AC2K returned for the final time. He didn’t finish the hack, but he released a partially complete version of the hack. It was the 1st attempt to completely replace the storyline of an RPG. This was the most epic hack of its time, though the incomplete versions of the game floating about caused great confusion. It was eventually finished by a hacker going by the name Spookykids.
I always wished I could enter that school.
Also in 1999, Pussy City Pimps was released. At the time I saw all those incomplete or simple hacks floating about and thought I could do it better. It was one of the most complete hacks of its time, with all the text being changed and some graphics. It has became rather popular over the years and is one of the few hacks which can compete with Megacrap in terms of notoriety. As far as I can tell it may be the 1st ROM hack to be put back onto a NES cartridge and sold on the black market in Asia as if it were an original game. This has caused some confusion among gamers who are not familiar with ROM hacking, with some people believing it to be an actual game released in Japan.
2000 - 2001:
It's Wilford Brimley.. YAY.. *gun to forehead*
My recollections of what happened from 2000-2004 are going to be second-hand. You’re just going to have to live with it. I was living in a cage during those years for Christ’s sakes. Apparently not a whole lot happened during these 2 years. They were dark years for ROM-hacking. In 2001 Pope Hentai made Wilford Brimley Battle, starting the new genre “fucking lame ROM hack centered around Wilford Brimley”, which is just a sub-genre off of “poorly insert popular characters into games they don’t belong in”. Pope Hentai is the only hacker pursuing this avenue of ROM-hackery, but he does it with a blind devotion.
At some point during this timeframe The One-Stop ROM-Hack Shop disappeared, decentralizing the whole “scene”. Now hacks can only be found sprinkled throughout the internet at various small sites. Many of the earlier ROM-hacks are immortalized in ROM collections though. Also, with the coming of Windows XP, the NESticle emulator no longer works correctly. This has the effect of making ROM-hacking less accessible to the masses. In NESticle’s place stand alone tile-editors, such as Tile-Layer Pro are made. These new editors are better and more versatile than NESticle was. These new editors could edit tiles from systems other than the NES. This opened up the possibility of expanding the ROM-hack scene beyond the NES, though to date this has not happened in any real way. Only intermittently is a ROM hack of note released outside the NES.
We all knew kids found them addictive
In 2000, IceSage releases the hack Cokemon. This is a hack for the Gameboy, making it the 1st notable hack outside the NES, and one of the few times an entire RPG is taken on by a hacker. Unfortunately no notable “scene” springs up around Gameboy hacks, and Cokemon is mostly ignored by the NES "scene". This makes it a lost classic.
2002:
Read all about it.
The comedy website I-Mockery.com decides to write a comedic review of the hack Knife Boy. It is a huge success and spawns a new section of the I-Mockery website dedicated to ROM hacks. At the same time this brings ROM hacks to a whole new and much larger audience. Being featured on I-Mockery becomes a badge of honor amongst ROM-hackers, and the sole goal of many. The website inspires the new generation of ROM-hackers and continues to the present day.
A lot of us learned to do that in the bath-tub...
Grimlick creates the hack Ernie & The Muppets Take It All Off. This is the most disturbing hack up to this point, putting Sesame Street characters into sexual situations. Also, this may be the 1st and only ROM-hack to elicit a cease & desist letter. This one from Sesame Workshop based on their feeling that this hack was damaging the reputation of their characters. A very notable accomplishment indeed.
This is also about the time that ROM-hacking gets hijacked by “serious” ROM-hackers, typified by a distain for any of the acceptable genres of ROM-hacking , a holier-than-thou attitude towards anything they don’t like, a firm belief that they are actually making original games rather than ROM-hacks, bitching, and a tendency to actually find humor in Wilford Brimley related hacks. They came up with the silly ROM-hacking genres known as “Pretend you are improving the original game‘s graphics”, “Pretend impossible new levels in an old game are worthwhile”, and “complicated hack wankery”. This last genre is related to the musical genre “technical expertise guitar wankery”.
2003:
I think this fight may have happened in real life.
RyanVG creates the hack World Heroes 3. The case of RyanVG is typical of the modern ROM-hacking “scene”. RyanVG only makes text hacks of the sort which would have been enjoyed in the late 90’s. But instead he only gets endless ridicule, belittling, and death threats. He is told that he is creating “juvenile potty humor” and “ruining the scene” by ignorant ROM-hackers unaware of our rich history. He makes a long string of hacks including ones meant to appease the modern “scene” before retiring in frustrated disgust in 2007. He is the only ROM-hacker who could be almost as prolific as Grimlick.
2004:
In 2004, a new crop of ROM hackers was taking shape, but this time under the repressive atmosphere of the new “scene”. But some of the hackers rebel and continue to make real ROM-hacks despite peer pressure.
You also fight Wilford Brimley in this game.
Dr. Floppy creates Super Nazi Penis Cartel Freedom Fighters 3. He cites the ROM-hack section of I-mockery.com as his inspiration. His hack is a modern classic of ROM-hacking, having twisted the new “scene”’s “Pretend impossible new levels in an old game are worthwhile” paradigm on its head by designing new levels that are actually very reasonable difficulty level and which are driven by the plot of the hack rather than by a desperate need to show off with “hack wankery”, or “hankery” if you will.
In this game Xstacy is pushed on wild animals.
Googie creates Pimpin’ Xstacy, updating the drug-based hack for the new millenium. He is known for working within the new “scene” but nodding towards the true “scene” from time to time. He is even better known for making “Pretend impossible new levels in an old game are worthwhile” hacks which are so extreme as to become a parody of “Pretend impossible new levels in an old game are worthwhile” hacks.
2005:
Ride her in the dark, you wont know the difference.
I finally escape from my confinement only to discover how the ROM-hacking “scene” had devolved into a bunch of nerds whining about how they want to suck Mario’s cock but aren’t actually gay. Or how if Link fucks them in the ass it doesn’t really count as sodomy because Link is an elf. I also discovered that Ernie & The Muppets Take It All Off was clearly still the most obscene hack in 2005. I released Little Remo The Child Abuser as the most obscene game ever conceived. It featured full hardcore 8-bit sex, and themes of forcible rape, pedophilia, and incest. While working on Little Remo I pioneered a method of also manipulating the game music in a ROM.
Near the end of 2005 Romhacking.net opens its doors. It is mainly focused on the translation “scene”, but also aspires to host ROM-hacks of all kinds. It is very successful at archiving tools and documents, making learning how to hack easier. Due to pressure from the crybabies it decides to only host hacks of “merit“, and looks down on hacks which are deemed “spoof”.
2006:
Did anything happen last year? It kind of went by in a blur. I’m sure something happened but no one noticed yet….
2007:
Ignore Double Dragon III, this is the true sequel to Double Dragon II.
Tran Tramps - The Family Jewels was released, which was a ground-breaking hack in many ways. It was the 1st which had it’s own CD soundtrack (which some people even bought), it was the 1st to feature characters from other ROM hacks as part of a larger narrative framework, and most importantly it was the 1st to have its own hacked instruction manual.
I think this is next to gross in the dictionary.
Fucker’s Quest was released by the hacker Shitdic. It was a notable hack because it was rejected by Romhacking.net, showing the elitism running rampant at the site. And it spawned this website, bad hacks.net
This is the true history of ROM-hacking. Anyone who tells you different is engaging in “revisionist history” or “the victor’s write the history book” or perhaps just drawing moustaches on the photos in a history book. What’s next? We’ll have to wait and find out. Maybe we’ll break out of 8 bits and invade 16 bits *wink wink*,*nudge nudge*
(unknown, 2007)