Fixing Block 0 Bugs, Part 2

15 years ago by Mato

Found a tiny bit of time, so I continued my work from earlier, this time I solved one piece of the Block 0 problem. A few more things need to be untangled and modified, but this part was a display routine that got broken during my fix a few months back to allow infinite letters per screen (for the main text) rather than 42. Anyway, extra good news is that this also fixes the special menus in the debug room and elsewhere. Fans who’ve played through the Japanese game already are in love with the game’s debug stuff, so it’s cool that this stuff’s working again in the translation. I’m sure it’ll add tons of extra stuff to do after diehard fans play the normal game.

Incidentally while I was messing with the debug stuff, I went to see if I could increase the # of letters per menu option from 20 to something bigger. But it was going to lead to crazy insanity, and 20 is decent enough, so I left it as is. Didn’t want to get too sidetracked and it was already acceptable enough. BTW, since I know people will ask, info on accessing the debug room is here.

Anyway, I’ll forego pics of the debug stuff working, but since a good chunk of this Block 0 problem is now out of the way, I’ll update the to-do list entry with the percentage of approx. 25% done. Good news is that I have a bit of time this weekend to keep working on this. Most of the rest involves reorganizing memory and moving things around. Not necessarily difficult, mostly just very annoying because of how the game works.

Posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 3:28 am by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

81 Responses to “Fixing Block 0 Bugs, Part 2”

  1. NeoXCS said 15 years ago:

    Yay, less block 0 to deal with! Good work! =)

  2. Daemenus said 15 years ago:

    wow i cant believe i check 5 mins after update… checking obsessively pays off! keep it up mato!!

  3. Frank West said 15 years ago:

    I must say, you must have some dedication on this project. Me, I would’ve given up forever ago. Thanks for all the hard work you’re putting into this project.

  4. Poser Man said 15 years ago:

    yea Mato keep up the excellent work 🙂 Im lovin it

  5. hailthethief said 15 years ago:

    Love and respect and admiration and support for youuuu.!

  6. BizarreAngel said 15 years ago:

    You are such an awesome person, Mato. We love you.

  7. Megaron said 15 years ago:

    Why do I get the feeling that people are posting things slightly off-topic?
    Why do I get the feeling I just posted something completely off-topic?

  8. limberheadpollen said 15 years ago:

    Could you please make a patch Without ever fixing Block 0? i think it would be fun to have Nut bread on the head 😀

  9. Jabberocky said 15 years ago:

    \m/(^_^)\m/

    Crappy ASCII art aside, yay Mato! And Jeffman! And everyone else working on this project!

  10. YoshiAngemon said 15 years ago:

    Well, TWO of the Warner Siblings bypassed the nasty Block 0 Troll! Now it’s up to Yakko to Romp past him, and smash him into the ground.

    Yakko: Romp, romp, romp, romp, romp, HEY! Romp, romp, romp, romp, romp, HEY!
    Block 0 Troll: BLAH! I’m gonna eat you! (Yakko smashes him with a giant Mallet)
    Yakko: Romp, romp, romp, romp, romp, HEY!

  11. Fireblend said 15 years ago:

    No secret link this time? Or do I suck too much at finding them? Anyway awesome news, keep up the brilliant work; I can already see the light at the end of the ghost-infested tunnel 😀

  12. Germ said 15 years ago:

    The upbeatedness of this update makes me very optimistic, thanks for your work!

  13. Acacia Sgt said 15 years ago:

    Almost there, almost there…

  14. Fanta said 15 years ago:

    Wow, you’re doing great guys. : D We really appreciate everything you’ve done! Your dedication to the project is admirable.
    <3

  15. Pilot said 15 years ago:

    Nice work.

  16. Rai said 15 years ago:

    Keep up the awesome work Mato, we’re rootin’ for ya!

  17. slicemasterflex said 15 years ago:

    Sick man! I love you.

  18. TheReaper08 said 15 years ago:

    Its good that you fixed the special menus in the debug room and elsewhere because when I beat the game I plan to play with whatever that room really is.Also,its good news to hear that you have more time to work on this project.

  19. Battousai said 15 years ago:

    That video is both ridiculous and amazing. Any idea how many chapters there will be?

  20. Andy said 15 years ago:

    Ike will probably knock power out for a few days, so I’m interested to see how far you’ll have come when I get back online.

    Great job Mato and team!

  21. Moose said 15 years ago:

    Yay, that debug room sounds fun.

  22. mitch said 15 years ago:

    Don’t Fear the Reap– I man, Fearrow.

    http://i35.tinypic.com/2evaihz.png

  23. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    You weren’t really planning on worrying too much about the debug room before, right? So it’s good that this happens to fix that 🙂

    With any luck, you’ll finish tracing this code soon enough and then you’ll be able to hack everything into place so that all you’ll have to worry about is testing.

  24. Millhouse said 15 years ago:

    come on, Mato. this was kinda unfair. really. I had to cheat to get it done…

    apart from that… YAY! UPDATE-O-RAMA!
    man, 25%?! Block0 gets hacked to smithereens way faster than I thought… I expected that thing to take two months of hacking… that only shows your great work, mato!
    I’m already anticipating playing the game through as wes. or a train. or Lucas’ Nightmare (btw, they should have left that one in. seriously. I want my magicant!)

  25. Lei said 15 years ago:

    Woot for progress! We await that next strawberry-colored window!

  26. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    Maybe you should come down to Mexico for the weekend. 4 days cuz of the Independence Day!

  27. MajorasMask9 said 15 years ago:

    “EarthBound Saga – Chapter Four”

    Wasn’t that the thing starmen.net was hyping up a while back when they said something about September 5th on the main page :P? I’ve been off for a while so I kinda forgot about that :3.

    Also, I can’t believe there’s so little left to do :3. You guys rock :P.

  28. Captain Bozo said 15 years ago:

    That…

    Is one very well hidden secret link :3

  29. Dark Hamstelord said 15 years ago:

    Wow, you’re fast! In just a few days you’ve got a quarter of Block 0 done!

  30. EmpoleMew said 15 years ago:

    Wow, now I need to make another Block 0 EB Hack, and the first one isn’t even on Youtube yet.

    YOU ARE AMAZING!

    Expect a crazy post later in the night.

  31. Jay6 said 15 years ago:

    Good job on hiding the secret link this time! That vid made my entire day. =D

  32. Random Lurker said 15 years ago:

    This was the first secret link I actually couldn’t find. Ended up having to look at the page source (maybe that was the point?). Good video, nonetheless.

    Anyways, great job on the progress so far guys.

  33. Ness Ness Ness said 15 years ago:

    Wow, that was a REALLY hard link to find <.< I never thought of looking at my source page like the other guy. That was tricky, lol.

    Anywho, I appreciate the awesome work you’ve done, keep it up 😉

  34. Jatopian said 15 years ago:

    What might you have done if you’d managed to increase the number of characters per menu option?

  35. ERIC said 15 years ago:

    I can’t wait for the finished version of Earthbound 2!!!

  36. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    ok, I give up. Where’s that link?

  37. Demolisho said 15 years ago:

    What about block -57B? Hmmmm?

  38. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Still too early to say anything for sure, but I might’ve made some good progress just now. Hopefully all the Block 0 things play along with this new thing I just tried. What sucks most is that the [CENTER] code handles text on the stack in the middle of a sea of stuff that uses relative addresses to the stack pointer. Very barfy, so I might have to move it out of the stack altogether rather than try to rewire all the relative addresses which I’d have to track down in all possible situations ever.

  39. Naraku2000 said 15 years ago:

    you know what I think is ironic? The fact that you wrote something like “the second hardest thing to hack left” into the to-do-list, though it belongs to the only 2 things left to hack :O You’re doing great, all MOTHER-fans, all your fans appreciate the hard work you invested into this project. Keep it up.

  40. Joe said 15 years ago:

    Naraku, I think you’re a little confused about what irony is.

  41. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    totally, but what do i care, I FOUND IT!

  42. Old West said 15 years ago:

    Good good

  43. This Man said 15 years ago:

    Okay, I’m a pathetic noob, but how is everyone finding this link? I don’t know about all this “looking in the source code”
    thing. I need help.

  44. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    I didn’t actually find it, I Tabbed it till it appeared at the bottom and hit enter

  45. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Not sure how to explain it, but hit a weird problem, I’m gonna take a break for a little while before I try to figure it out. So close to making this other section of Block 0 work too. Bah.

  46. EmpoleMew said 15 years ago:

    And so comes the revival of the Tomato-bot, the 1337 h@xin’ machine. Who shall crush Block 0 like the Worthless Protoplasm it really is.

    I told you it was coming.

  47. Triple10X said 15 years ago:

    Good luck with the weirdness!

  48. kevinchai said 15 years ago:

    Scary thought: What if there is a block 0 bug that Mato can’t fix?

  49. noco said 15 years ago:

    @EmpoleMew
    like the what do i matter anyway it really is

  50. Derrick T. said 15 years ago:

    cool

  51. TStarboy said 15 years ago:

    so then Block 0 is the second easiest thing left to hack. Mato can do it!

  52. ERIC said 15 years ago:

    Earthbound 2 WOOO!
    dont over work yourself man. breaks are good can be beneficial.

  53. ERIC said 15 years ago:

    breaks can be beneficial*

  54. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Ack! Yeah, I’d try to find some unused memory somewhere and push things off the stack, because trying to alter relative addresses by hand will only drive you crazy 🙁

  55. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Heh, wouldn’t it help if the secret link enclosed some text? I can’t actually click on the link directly, without using keyboard shortcuts or view source… 🙂

  56. Douglas said 15 years ago:

    You Maniacs! You Blew It Up!! Damn You!!! Damn you all to Hell!!!

    Okay so I had a bit of “Planet of the Apes” Moment there…but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Mato’s reaction to the new bugs. 😛

  57. Zaxtur said 15 years ago:

    I think I’m looking forward to playing Mother 3 more than any other game this holiday season. Hack away, Mato.

  58. TLS1988 said 15 years ago:

    I was just playing Mother 3 on my DS and I found out that if you touch your top teeth against the top screen, the game sounds louder. Go on, try it.

  59. TLS1988 said 15 years ago:

    Oh, and it work with most of your head.

  60. Sharkgod999 said 15 years ago:

    TLS1988:
    That’s called bone conduction. That term always makes me think of a skeleton conducting an orchestra. Eh, weird.

  61. Cpt.Cheese said 15 years ago:

    Go Go Hacking Rangers!

  62. triangle said 15 years ago:

    …there’s a link?! waw… i looked through it and determined that there was no link this time..but waw… i gotta find it now without cheating

  63. triangle said 15 years ago:

    okay…. i hovered over every bit of text. Why must you torture my soul like this?

    (it’s time to cheat)

    (by the way, this link hunting thing is pretty damn fun, thanks)

  64. Fireblend said 15 years ago:

    triangle: You’re not gonna find it hovering over text… how genius, Mato; I had forgotten searching for that link was on my to-do list until now…

  65. nintendope said 15 years ago:

    Good gravy, I searched high and low for that link until I broke down and cheated! See what you’re making me do? XD

    Great link, though. 🙂 Congrats on your progress!

  66. J. said 15 years ago:

    I found the link…weeee

    PAUULLLAAA!!!!

  67. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Triangle: It encloses no text. The inside of the anchor tag is empty. There’s nothing you *can* hover over, but there is a link.

    Tab makes it show as a single pixel for some reason, but I still can’t click it directly. The only way to win is to cheat 🙂

  68. Brendan said 15 years ago:

    Best secret link ever. You guys are as cool as The Flint.

  69. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Alright, think I figured out what caused last night’s problem. Still got some tinkering left to do to make sure text can fit in the new locations properly in RAM. It sucks because the game moves text around in memory like 5 times, and if you want to expand text, you gotta hack all those things. Oh, the number of swear words this game has caused.

  70. blueflare said 15 years ago:

    Hooray for Mato!

  71. confused said 15 years ago:

    How do you cheat!

  72. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Alright, managed to get the final battle Block 0 stuff not to crash, and got it formatted and stuff right, including the centering codes. But now the scrolly text used elsewhere in the game acts strange and repeats itself every few lines for some reason, which is something Jeff got to happen a few months back when he tried Block 0.

    Dunno how I’m gonna do this, but guess untangling this crap comes next.

  73. The Game Master said 15 years ago:

    I stay away from this website and come back to find that you are 25 % done! W0ot!

  74. Derrick T. said 15 years ago:

    I want this game in english sooo badly thank you. Next you should try to translate the Mother 1+2 collection, that way, you’d be able to play all 3 mother games on 1 system for the first time!

  75. soupy said 15 years ago:

    I wish people would stop bickering him about translating two games that are already available in english

  76. Anon said 15 years ago:

    debug room could come in handy for testing.

  77. The Game Master said 15 years ago:

    Ugh… People keep asking him that, the original versions are the best ones! Why do you need it translated?

  78. Jorge said 15 years ago:

    for me anyways, I asked once for a joke. I know he doesn’t really want to, but still, it would be nice to have.

    I want them over the originals so that I can play them on one portable system, like he said

  79. odan said 15 years ago:

    its amazing to think that such a task as just changing the text from Japanese to English would be so hard.
    Sounds simple enough , but its only the great ones that keep sticking to get the thing done. Cant wait to play this in english.

  80. triangle said 15 years ago:

    Mato: that’s gotta be annoying… a fix for one thing messes up another.. well keep at it, you’ll figure it out as you always do

    I wonder what JeffMan’s up to… it seems like it’s getting close to another one of those times where he just comes in from nowhere and announces a problem he solved

    Fireblend & A Fan : yeah i tabbed around and hit enter 🙂 it’s gonna be hard to outdo this one next time (if there’s gonna be a hidden link next time)

  81. mike k said 15 years ago:

    Oh man, I hope you figure this stuff out soon. I also really want to get spore.