HamsterWrench: Rise from the Ashes

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:55 am

I have decided to continue my work on the RPG tool HamsterWrench. As of right now I am focusing on file I/O and RELOAD support.

The project page is at http://code.google.com/p/hamsterwrench/, and I am once again watching the nightlies.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 2:09 pm

Tell us, dear Ichiro, what is a hamsterwrench?

Meatballsub · Post by **Meatballsub** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 2:29 pm

Meowskivich wrote:Tell us, dear Ichiro, what is a hamsterwrench?

You know, it specifically says what the project is intended to do on the front page of the site he linked. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Meowskivich · Post by **Meowskivich** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 3:46 pm

(Meowskivich doesn't feel like clicking on something unless he knows what he's going to be looking at)

Meatballsub · Post by **Meatballsub** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 3:47 pm

I see!

Post by **TMC** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:33 pm

Great. But are you planning to focus on anything in particular? Since it's such an ambitious goal maybe it's best to try to get some useful portion finished first, such as enemies.

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:16 am

File I/O and RELOAD tree structures.

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 5:54 am

Finished the routine that interprets a RELOAD file! Turns out that a VLI in the RELOAD specification is little-endian, as opposed to the big-endian pseudocode in http://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce ... rmal_Specs. Next step for me is to present a releasable project: a GUI RELOAD structure snooper.

KF Harlock · Post by **KF Harlock** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 6:43 am

Maybe it would be helpful to provide an interpretation of what your current work means to those of us who are interested in the project but aren't programmers. Like, what does this achievement with the RELOAD file mean to us as the end users?

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 7:22 am

It means when you read in a RELOAD file, it'll do it with a minimum of messiness.

Post by **TMC** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:37 am

Haha.

RELOAD is a building block that much of the rest of the engine builds upon; implementing it is required for a lot of other things.

But a GUI tool for viewing RELOAD files could be quite useful in its own right, and end users could realistically use it as well (though I can't think of many uses). RELOAD documents are (partially) self explanatory, a completely different league to having to use a hex editor. Will it be able to edit too?

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sat Aug 17, 2013 3:23 pm

Once I write code to write back to a file.

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 10:00 pm

I'll be releasing a viewer at first. I'm still kinda learning Swing.

Chronoboy · Post by **Chronoboy** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:26 am

TMC wrote:But a GUI tool for viewing RELOAD files could be quite useful in its own right, and end users could realistically use it as well (though I can't think of many uses).

A big end-user use would be save-file editing. Remember how much fun that was back in the 90s, to edit the SRAMs of your favorite NES/SNES game? There were SRAM editors for all the popular RPG games, you could give yourself a limitless amount of GIL, give yourself new items and weapons, swap in a party member that should not otherwise be there. Oh and the fun never stopped there. You could change internal game flags and make interesting things occur in the game once you load it.

Ichiro · Post by **Ichiro** » Sat Aug 24, 2013 7:26 am

Expect to see this soon: