Project To-Do List

Here is the current to-do list as of October 14, 2008. Everything has been completed, and the patch will be released soon.

(Note that the list used to be much much longer, here’s how it was in Dec. 2007: here)

Main Script Hacking:

  1. Hack the game to make it not ignore control codes after 33 characters. This may be very evil to hack, but it should fix most of the the main script overflows.
  2. Hack the game to allow lines to be as long as we need them to be.
  3. Hack all kinds of main script display stuff to fix crashes/glitches/freezes/etc. The original game only allows for 40 letters on screen at once, gotta get around that. Lots of tough stuff to do here.
  4. Make scrolly text display fully. Related to the above problems.
  5. Add in new control codes for things like a, an, the, some, he, she, it, they, them, etc. EarthBound had some of this reprogramming done to it too, and it made things sound nicer and more professional.

Gray Name Box Hacking:

  1. Do some “cheating” hacks to make names right at the name length limit look better.
  2. Add an 8-bit hack to a key part of the routine. This may also work on other parts of the game, so that’d be a bonus. But this is required to make names loaded from the enemy list work correctly.
  3. Fix the 8×8 font up a bit and tweak some width values.
  4. Make the gray box fit the name correctly. It currently assumes each letter is 8 pixels, so it extends too far out.
  5. Move the name text up 1 pixel.
  6. Hack it so the name box can print 8-letter player names correctly. It currently barfs and prints crazy stuff in such cases.

Menu Hacking:

  1. Get the sprite text VWF to do what we call “sprite welding”. (PS I’d rather give birth than do this hack again)
  2. Allow for item names that are at LEAST 18 letters long. We’re stuck at 8 or 9 letters right now and that’s absolutely unacceptable. This also affects PSI names and skill names, so this is pretty important overall anyway.
  3. Make the music player’s text-centering code work correctly. Right now it assumes 10 pixels for each letter.
  4. Write an 8-bit hack for some control codes used in menu text. Or revert various things back to 16-bit, which would be easier.
  5. Fix the naming screen, for now you have to hit B a few times before you can name things. It’s weird.
  6. Hack the naming screen menus to work and look and act nicely.
  7. Allow for 8-letter names.
  8. Figure out how to re-order some of the things used in what we call “menus1”, so that “Nut XX DP Sell?” can be changed to something like, “Sell this Nut for XX DP?” The game hard-codes this arrangement and it’s lame in English. This will be surprisingly difficult.

Battle Stuff Hacking:

  1. Allow for more than 42 letters on the screen at once, and change the auto-wrap thing. This will be VERY hard.
  2. Look more into the old ugly bug that cuts off hooks in item menus. It may be gone now. Not sure.
  3. Figure out why long description text erases player names, then fix this. It may be as easy as a call to an existing function, or it may be hell itself.
  4. Add control codes for he, she, it, a, an, the, they, cohort, cohorts, etc.
  5. Try to hack things so the intro text doesn’t sound so convoluted, as the Japanese version always assumes the enemy name comes first.
  6. Hack special text boxes and other important things that appear later in the game. This will be a real pain.

Misc. Hacking:

  1. Insert some sort of intro screen/disclaimer screen thing.
  2. Possibly add in whatever hacks are needed to make the game work properly on emulators and real systems. For some reason, some emus and flash cards have trouble with MOTHER 3, but I think sblur found a fix or something. I forget.
  3. Add in extra little stuff (like that silver star thing) if we feel up to it and if it doesn’t take much time.

Remaining Hacking:

  1. Fix some Block 0 text display routines.
  2. Replace two Japanese sound clips (hear them here if you’re interested) that play for about half a second or so each with English sound clips.
  3. Try to make scrolly text not make sprites blink. Not essential, but would be very nice to have.
  4. Fix the weird menu sprite text “morphing”. This may take a few weeks.
  5. Find a better hash algorithm for sprite text routine stuff, or figure out an alternative method.
  6. Fix some ending sequence text stuff — this involves sprite text, let’s hope and pray we don’t need to do sprite text welding again. Currently has some pretty crazy graphical glitchiness.
  7. Fix a bug with in-battle custom control codes.
  8. Fix/make a few outside custom control codes
  9. Fix the “enemy stole your item” thing in battle.

Translation & Editing:

  1. Do script draft #2
  2. Find and fix context issues in Draft 2.
  3. Finalize battle text and all other misc. text.

Final Stuff:

  1. Testing and polishing. This will last for several weeks, approx. four or so, it’s too hard to say. (note: testing will be done on various emulators and hardware, including various flash carts and things like the PSP, etc.)