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Step 5Hacking Games
Now that you've gone through some tutorials, my opinion is the best way to learn is to start hacking games. There are some of the original games that have been reverse-engineered so you can see what a complete game looks like. In addition, several other homebrew authors have published the code from their completed games. This is generally for learning purposes- you can play around with hacking homebrew games, but it bad form to post your hacks since the author was nice enough to share it with you in the first place.
You don't even need a ton of programming experience to hack games. While the old fashioned way of disassembling and changing values certainly works, there are a few programs around that let you scroll through the bits. If you look carefully you can often find the sprites in the bits, and alter those values so you are actually changing how the games looks. Two such programs I am aware of are HackoMatic (version 2 & 3) and Bithacker. Unfortunetely, both original hosting sites seem to be down, but you can still find downloads available lurking in different atari forums. In general these tools don't allow color changes unless you knew the bits you're looking for or really have a lot of free time to try and find random bits. For example, bithacker will show you the PacMan sprites (remember there are more than one) and you could alter them into an animated robot. Besides sprite shape, playfield and background colors are often easy changes to make without a ton of programming knowledge. More on that in the next step, but the more you play, the more you learn!
Here is a quick look at bithacker in action. If you look at the first image, you can see the Activision logo upside down and split up into groups of eight pixels. Simply by re-arranging the bits that are on/off if these section I can make the game read "RoboTHacK" as you will see in the second image. Unfortunetely in the emulator I use, screen shots don't work so I can only show you a mockup of what the hack would look like.
You don't even need a ton of programming experience to hack games. While the old fashioned way of disassembling and changing values certainly works, there are a few programs around that let you scroll through the bits. If you look carefully you can often find the sprites in the bits, and alter those values so you are actually changing how the games looks. Two such programs I am aware of are HackoMatic (version 2 & 3) and Bithacker. Unfortunetely, both original hosting sites seem to be down, but you can still find downloads available lurking in different atari forums. In general these tools don't allow color changes unless you knew the bits you're looking for or really have a lot of free time to try and find random bits. For example, bithacker will show you the PacMan sprites (remember there are more than one) and you could alter them into an animated robot. Besides sprite shape, playfield and background colors are often easy changes to make without a ton of programming knowledge. More on that in the next step, but the more you play, the more you learn!
Here is a quick look at bithacker in action. If you look at the first image, you can see the Activision logo upside down and split up into groups of eight pixels. Simply by re-arranging the bits that are on/off if these section I can make the game read "RoboTHacK" as you will see in the second image. Unfortunetely in the emulator I use, screen shots don't work so I can only show you a mockup of what the hack would look like.
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