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102-397: Madeline Stephanie Thorson (born 18 March 1988; formerly known as Matt Thorson ) is a Canadian video game developer , known as one of the lead creators for the video games TowerFall and Celeste , developed under the studio Maddy Makes Games (previously Matt Makes Games). Since September 2019, Thorson has worked as Director of R&D at Extremely OK Games. Madeline Stephanie Thorson

204-416: A game publisher . They usually have to develop a game from concept to prototype without external funding. The formal game proposal is then submitted to publishers, who may finance the game development from several months to years. The publisher would retain exclusive rights to distribute and market the game and would often own the intellectual property rights for the game franchise. The publisher may also own

306-627: A microcomputer from scratch. It was soon ported to the Atari 2600 , becoming the first " killer app " and quadrupling the console's sales. At the same time, home computers appeared on the market, allowing individual programmers and hobbyists to develop games. This allowed hardware manufacturer and software manufacturers to act separately. A very large number of games could be produced by an individual, as games were easy to make because graphical and memory limitation did not allow for much content. Larger companies developed, who focused selected teams to work on

408-405: A quality control . Testing is a highly technical field requiring computing expertise, and analytic competence. ROM hacking ROM hacking (short for Read-only memory hacking ) is the process of modifying a ROM image or ROM file to alter the contents contained within them, usually of a video game to alter the game's graphics, dialogue, levels, gameplay, and/or other elements. This

510-494: A built-in debugger or tracer, or run the ROM through a disassembler , then analyze the code and modify it using a hex editor or assembler according to their needs. While quite challenging compared to the relatively simple methods listed above, anything is possible with ASM hacking, usually within the limits of the hardware and software of the gaming platform. This can range from altering enemy AI to changing how graphics are generated. If

612-516: A four-day game jam to create a PICO-8 game about climbing a mountain with difficult jumping steps. When they completed this, they recognized the opportunity to flesh out the game into a full release, forming the basis of Celeste . Full work on the game started around January 2016. The game was released across multiple platforms in January 2018. By the end of 2018, it had sold more than 500,000 copies, and received numerous industry awards. In 2021, after

714-526: A fourth prototype that evolved into their first game under the "Extremely OK" name, Earthblade , announced in April 2021, described as an "explor-action" game in a "seamless pixel art world". The game was formally announced at The Game Awards 2022 with a planned 2024 release date, but was pushed back an unspecified time in March 2024. Thorson is transgender and uses she/her pronouns. By around 2020, she had adopted

816-644: A game. However, the high user expectations and requirements of modern commercial games far exceed the capabilities of a single developer and require the splitting of responsibilities. A team of over a hundred people can be employed full-time for a single project. Game development, production, or design is a process that starts from an idea or concept. Often the idea is based on a modification of an existing game concept. The game idea may fall within one or several genres . Designers often experiment with different combinations of genres. A game designer generally writes an initial game proposal document, that describes

918-562: A games console. Fan translation (known as "translation hacking" within the ROM hacking community) is a type of ROM hacking; there are also anti-censorship hacks that exist to restore a game to its original state, which is often seen with older games that were imported, as publishers' content policies for video games (most notably, Nintendo 's) were much stricter in the United States than Japan or Europe; as well as randomizers for certain games which shuffle entity placements. Although much of

1020-726: A hex editor, but is generally accomplished with a tile editor (such as Tile Layer or Tile Molester ), which can graphically display the ROM data, as well as finding and editing tiles. Graphics hacks can range from simple edits (such as giving Mario an afro or Luigi a golf club ) to "porting" characters from one game to another (such as creating pixelated "retro-styled" sprites of later generation Pokémon for use in Generation I-V Pokémon games ), to full-blown thematic changes (usually with accompanying palette changes; see below). More sophisticated graphics hacking involves changing more than just tiles and colors, but also on how

1122-754: A humorous tweet that operations manager Heidy Motta had seen that wished its readers an "extremely OK afternoon". Thorson stated that TowerFall and Celeste would remain published under Matt Makes Games, and that the team had already started the early exploratory work for their next title, codenamed "EXOK-1". With everyone in EXOK working in the same office, it had made development time faster, allowing them to test through multiple prototype games to come onto their next project within six months. The team went through three prototypes (named EXOK 1 through 3) which Thorson said "ventured way too far from our comfort zone for them to realistically ever get finished", before coming up with

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1224-456: A level for the Super Mario 64 hack Mario Builder 64 titled Ocean Spire on May 24, 2024. On 5 September 2019, Thorson announced that she was effectively shutting down Matt Makes Games, while re-establishing the same team under the new name Extremely OK Games (abbreviated EXOK). The purpose of the change was twofold. First, the new name recognized that Thorson was not the sole creative force behind

1326-438: A mainframe computer game called Spacewar! was developed by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students led by Steve Russell . True commercial design and development of games began in the 1970s, when arcade video games and first-generation consoles were marketed. In 1971, Computer Space was the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game. It used a black-and-white television for its display, and

1428-424: A mobile distribution channel the share of a developer can be up to 70% of the total revenue and through an online distribution channel owned by the developer almost 100%. The history of game making begins with the development of the first video games , although which video game is the first depends on the definition of video game . The first games created had little entertainment value, and their development focus

1530-406: A multiplayer battle game, where each player would try to defeat the others by shooting them with a bow-and-arrow while avoiding falling off the tower. Because of the frequent visitors to their apartment, they were able to gain feedback and improve the game to be a party-style title. This would ultimately become TowerFall , Thorson's first major commercial game. Recognizing the potential success of

1632-471: A novel example of legal distribution, Sega released a Steam -based virtual hub for its previous collection of Mega Drive (Genesis) games, entitled Sega Mega Drive Classics Hub . The Hub , besides allowing players to play emulated versions of these older games, takes advantage of Steam's support for user-created content through the Steam Workshop, officially allowing the distribution of ROM hacks of any of

1734-408: A publisher and may choose to digitally distribute their games. Developers can range in size from small groups making casual games to housing hundreds of employees and producing several large titles. Companies divide their subtasks of game's development. Individual job titles may vary; however, roles are the same within the industry. The development team consists of several members. Some members of

1836-460: A publishing contract or their production is not profitable. It is difficult to start a new company due to the high initial investment required. Nevertheless, the growth of the casual and mobile game market has allowed developers with smaller teams to enter the market. Once the companies become financially stable, they may expand to develop larger games. Most developers start small and gradually expand their business. A developer receiving profit from

1938-492: A repository of hacks, translations, utilities, documents, and patches for many well-known and obscure video games from the third generation up to the seventh generation . Its immediate predecessor was ROMhacking.com, a similar ROM hacking-oriented site that launched in 2000 and went offline in late 2004. As of August 1, 2024, ROMhacking.net has transitioned over into being a read-only news site for ROM hacking projects after nearly 20 years of hosting due to various reasons beyond

2040-410: A single person to produce a mainstream video game. The average cost of producing a high-end (often called AAA ) game slowly rose from US$ 1–4 million in 2000, to over $ 200 million and up by 2023. At the same time, independent game development has flourished. The best-selling video game of all time, Minecraft , was initially written by one person, then supported by a small team, before the company

2142-512: A standard set of technical requirements that a game must conform to in order to be approved. Additionally, the game concept must be approved by the manufacturer, who may refuse to approve certain titles. Most modern PC or console games take from three to five years to complete , where as a mobile game can be developed in a few months. The length of development is influenced by a number of factors, such as genre , scale, development platform and number of assets. Some games can take much longer than

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2244-506: A successful title may store up capital to expand and re-factor their company, as well as tolerate more failed deadlines. An average development budget for a multiplatform game is US$ 18-28M, with high-profile games often exceeding $ 40M. In the early era of home computers and video game consoles in the early 1980s, a single programmer could handle almost all the tasks of developing a game — programming, graphical design, sound effects, etc. It could take as little as six weeks to develop

2346-501: A title. The developers of many early home video games, such as Zork , Baseball , Air Warrior , and Adventure , later transitioned their work as products of the early video game industry. The industry expanded significantly at the time, with the arcade video game sector alone (representing the largest share of the gaming industry) generating higher revenues than both pop music and Hollywood films combined. The home video game industry, however, suffered major losses following

2448-468: A visit by Alec Holowka , he and Thorson participated in a local game jam and came up with an idea of a single-player platform game based on an out-of-shape archer trying to ascend a tower, collecting treasure and money to help with each attempt to climb it. They had considered pitching the idea to Adult Swim Games, but decided to expand the idea on their own, bringing in Johnston to help. The game morphed into

2550-537: A weak heart or a large appetite, though. Chris Crawford and Don Daglow in 1987 similarly advised prospective designers to write games as a hobby first, and to not quit their existing jobs early. The home video game industry was revitalized soon after by the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System . Compute!'s Gazette in 1986 stated that although individuals developed most early video games, "It's impossible for one person to have

2652-514: Is Game Boy Advance ROMs. The ROMs themselves are generally small, but the memory space available sometimes exceeds it by multiples of up to 17. Once a hack is completed (or an incomplete version is deemed suitable for an interim release) it is released onto the Internet for others to play. The generally accepted way to do this is by making an unofficial patch (in IPS format or others) that can be applied to

2754-579: Is a software engineer who primarily develops video games or related software (such as game development tools ). The game's codebase development is handled by programmers. There are usually one to several lead programmers , who implement the game's starting codebase and overview future development and programmer allocation on individual modules. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, around $ 70,000 annually and an experienced programmer can make, on average, around $ 125,000 annually. Individual programming disciplines roles include: A level designer

2856-599: Is a visual artist who creates video game art. The art production is usually overseen by an art director or art lead , making sure their vision is followed. The art director manages the art team, scheduling and coordinating within the development team. The artist's job may be 2D oriented or 3D oriented. 2D artists may produce concept art, sprites, textures , environmental backdrops or terrain images, and user interface. 3D artists may produce models or meshes , animation, 3D environment, and cinematics. Artists sometimes occupy both roles. A game programmer

2958-416: Is a person who creates levels , challenges or missions for video games using a specific set of programs . These programs may be commonly available commercial 3D or 2D design programs, or specially designed and tailored level editors made for a specific game. Level designers work with both incomplete and complete versions of the game. Game programmers usually produce level editors and design tools for

3060-534: Is fairly easy for NES games, the graphics of which use a pre-defined set of colors among which a game selects (using a YIQ -based color palette); palette hacking in this case entails changing which of those colors are selected. The matter is slightly more complicated with Super NES games as well as games for other systems (which included Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) games), which store absolute RGB color values. Palette editors are usually simple and often are with level editors or game-specific graphics editors. One of

3162-479: Is generally accomplished through use of a hex editor (a program for editing non-textual data) and various specialized tools such as tile editors, and game-specific tools which are generally used for editing levels, items, and the like, although more advanced tools such as assemblers and debuggers are occasionally used. Once ready, they are usually distributed on the Internet for others to play on an emulator or

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3264-408: Is graphics hacking, which is changing the appearance of the game's environments, characters, fonts, or other such things. The format of graphics data varies from console to console, but most of the early ones (NES, Super NES, Game Boy, etc.) store graphics in tiles , which are 8x8- pixel units of data, which are arranged on-screen to produce the desired result. Editing these tiles is also possible with

3366-415: Is more space efficient, is reversible, and is faster than its predecessor. The main purpose of distributing a hack in patch form is to avoid the legal aspects of distributing entire ROM images; the patch records only what has changed in the ROM, hence distributing it does not usually distribute parts of the original game. In this context, patches usually contained user-made code changes to the game and not

3468-526: Is one of the most fundamental tools in any ROM hacker's repertoire. Hex editors are usually used for editing text, and for editing other data for which the structure is known (for example, item properties), and Assembly hacking . Editing text is one of the most basic forms of hacking. Many games do not store their text in ASCII form, and because of this, some specialized hex editors have been developed, which can be told what byte values correspond to what letter(s) of

3570-414: Is standard within the industry. Salaries for these positions vary depending on both the experience and the location of the employee. A development team includes these roles or disciplines: A game designer is a person who designs gameplay , conceiving and designing the rules and structure of a game . Development teams usually have a lead designer who coordinates the work of other designers. They are

3672-459: Is still used today, particularly to patch large files such as ISO CD-ROM images as well as Nintendo 64 games. A new patch format, UPS, has also been developed by the ROM hacking community, designed to be the successor to IPS and PPF. A more recent patching format, the APS patching system, has also been developed by a devoted Game Boy Advance ROM hacker. Compared to other patching formats, the APS system

3774-424: Is usually done by technically inclined video game fans to improve an old game of importance, as a creative outlet, or to make new, unofficial games using the old game's engine. ROM hacks typically redesign a game for an all-new, fun gameplay while keeping most if not all of the items the same, as well as unlocking and/or reimplementing features that existed in the game's code but are not utilized in-game. ROM hacking

3876-1141: The PlayStation to a lesser extent. However, games intended for more recent consoles are not exempt from hacking, and as computers have become faster over time and more programs and utilities have been written, more PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS hacks have emerged. Of these, popular games to play are popular games to hack; many hacks have been released of games of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Mario series (including Mario Bros. , Super Mario Bros. , Super Mario Bros. 2 , Super Mario Bros. 3 , Super Mario Land , Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins , Super Mario 64 and Super Mario World ), Mario Kart series (including Super Mario Kart , Mario Kart Wii , Mario Kart 7 , and Mario Kart DS ), Pokémon series, Chip's Challenge , Castlevania , Final Fantasy , The Legend of Zelda , Mega Man series, Fire Emblem series, EarthBound , Super Metroid , and many others. A notable hacked arcade game

3978-559: The Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) used a sound engine commonly known as "SMPS" (and as "Sound-Source" by some developers), which has been offered in both 68000 and Z80 -based versions. It was predominantly used in a wide variety of Japanese-developed games for the system (including Sega's first-party games), with some games providing modified versions of the sound engine tailored for a specific game. It has been researched for decades by many hackers. Today, many tools are available to alter

4080-510: The original game which added, among others, full-color support (the original game only supported greyscale) as well as some quality-of-life improvements, such as fixes with screen flickering issues from the original game. Another common form of hacking is palette hacking , where color values are modified to change the colors a player sees in the game (this often goes hand-in-hand with graphics hacking ); Palette values are commonly stored in Hex . This

4182-483: The software development process. Games are developed as a creative outlet and to generate profit. Game making is considered both art and science. Development is normally funded by a publisher . Well-made games bring profit more readily. However, it is important to estimate a game's financial requirements, such as development costs of individual features. Failing to provide clear implications of game's expectations may result in exceeding allocated budget. In fact,

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4284-419: The video game crash of 1977 , which eventually came to an end with the mainstream success of Taito 's 1978 arcade shooter game Space Invaders , marking the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games and inspiring dozens of manufacturers to enter the market. Its creator Nishikado not only designed and programmed the game, but also did the artwork, engineered the arcade hardware , and put together

4386-467: The video game crash of 1983 . In 1984 Jon Freeman warned in Computer Gaming World : Q: Are computer games the way to fame and fortune? A: No. Not unless your idea of fame is having your name recognized by one or two astute individuals at Origins ... I've been making a living (after a fashion) designing games for most of the last six years. I wouldn't recommend it for someone with

4488-512: The 1970s with the advent of arcade video games , first-generation video game consoles like the Atari 2600 , and home computers like the Apple II . Into the 1980s, a lone programmer could develop a full and complete game such as Pitfall! . By the second and third generation of video game consoles in the late 1980s, the growing popularity of 3D graphics on personal computers, and higher expectations for visuals and quality, it became difficult for

4590-445: The 1990s. In 2007, the software portion of video game revenue was $ 9.5 billion, exceeding that of the movie industry. The Apple App Store, introduced in 2008, was the first mobile application store operated directly by the mobile - platform holder . It significantly changed the consumer behaviour more favourable for downloading mobile content and quickly broadened the markets of mobile games. In 2009 games' market annual value

4692-591: The NES Mega Man games, Final Fantasy VI , and the Mega Drive (Genesis) Sonic the Hedgehog games. As many Game Boy Advance games use the M4A Engine (informally called "Sappy Driver" and officially known as "MusicPlayer2000" or MP2k) for music, the program SapTapper can be used to hack Game Boy Advance music data. Various other utilities were created to work with the engine such as Sappy 2006 . Another instance of

4794-399: The alphabet, to facilitate text editing; a file that defines these byte=letter relationships is called a "table" file. Other games use simple text compression techniques (such as byte pair encoding , also called dual tile encoding or DTE, in which certain combinations of two or more letters are encoded as one byte) which a suitably equipped hex editor can facilitate editing. A hex editor is

4896-567: The average time frame to complete. An infamous example is 3D Realms ' Duke Nukem Forever , announced to be in production in April 1997 and released fourteen years later in June 2011. Planning for Maxis' game Spore began in late 1999; the game was released nine years later in September 2008. The game Prey was briefly profiled in a 1997 issue of PC Gamer, but was not released until 2006, and only then in highly altered form. Finally, Team Fortress 2

4998-535: The basic concept, gameplay, feature list, setting and story, target audience, requirements and schedule, and finally staff and budget estimates. Different companies have different formal procedures and philosophies regarding game design and development. There is no standardized development method; however commonalities exist. A game developer may range from a single individual to a large multinational company. There are both independent and publisher-owned studios. Independent developers rely on financial support from

5100-498: The big companies to produce games for these devices. The industry did not see huge innovation in game design and a large number of consoles had very similar games. Many of these early games were often Pong clones. Some games were different, however, such as Gun Fight , which was significant for several reasons: an early 1975 on-foot , multi-directional shooter , which depicted game characters , game violence , and human-to-human combat . Tomohiro Nishikado 's original version

5202-410: The computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips . In 1972, the first home console system was released called Magnavox Odyssey , developed by Ralph H. Baer . That same year, Atari released Pong , an arcade game that increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led other companies to develop Pong clones, spawning the video game industry . Programmers worked within

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5304-572: The designers to use. This eliminates the need for designers to access or modify game code. Level editors may involve custom high-level scripting languages for interactive environments or AIs. As opposed to the level editing tools sometimes available to the community, level designers often work with placeholders and prototypes aiming for consistency and clear layout before required artwork is completed. Sound engineers are technical professionals responsible for sound effects and sound positioning. They are sometimes involved in creating haptic feedback, as

5406-509: The developers used a typed language , the hacker may be able to compile their code for the game in the same language if they have access to a proper compiler. One such example would be using C to hack Nintendo 64 games, since MIPS - GCC can compile code for the Nintendo 64. Music hacks are relatively rare in most hacks, due to the wide variety of ways games store music data (hence the difficulty in locating and modifying this data) as well as

5508-592: The development of TowerFall . Video game development Development of commercial video games is normally funded by a publisher and can take two to five years to reach completion. Game creation by small, self-funded teams is called independent development . The technology in a game may be written from scratch or use proprietary software specific to one company. As development has become more complex, it has become common for companies and independent developers alike to use off-the-shelf "engines" such as Unity or Unreal Engine . Commercial game development began in

5610-622: The development studio, or it may have internal development studio(s). Generally the publisher is the one who owns the game's intellectual property rights. All but the smallest developer companies work on several titles at once. This is necessary because of the time taken between shipping a game and receiving royalty payments, which may be between 6 and 18 months. Small companies may structure contracts, ask for advances on royalties, use shareware distribution, employ part-time workers and use other methods to meet payroll demands. Console manufacturers , such as Microsoft , Nintendo , or Sony , have

5712-466: The development, sometimes by paying a video game developer (the publisher calls this external development) and sometimes by paying an internal staff of developers called a studio. Consequently, they also typically own the IP of the game. Large video game publishers also distribute the games they publish, while some smaller publishers instead hire distribution companies (or larger video game publishers) to distribute

5814-417: The difficulties in composing new music (or porting music from another game). As music cracking is very uncommon, many hacks do not have any ported/composed music added in. Exceptions exist, however, such as the most recent Super Mario World hacks where custom music can have new instruments not found in the original game. Other games that have music hacking as part of their research and hacking communities are

5916-526: The early 2000s it became increasingly common to use middleware game engines , such as Quake engine or Unreal Engine . In the early 2000s, also mobile games started to gain popularity. However, mobile games distributed by mobile operators remained a marginal form of gaming until the Apple App Store was launched in 2008. In 2005, a mainstream console video game cost from US$ 3M to $ 6M to develop. Some games cost as much as $ 20M to develop. In 2006

6018-582: The establishment of Extremely OK Games, Matt Makes Games was renamed to Maddy Makes Games. Thorson has developed romhacks for various Mario games. She has released three hacks for Super Mario World including Super Mario World Remix in 2015, Super "Sonic Saves the World" World in 2021, and Sure Shot in 2022. She has also designed levels for Kaizo Mario World collaboration hacks. Her hacks have been featured in various speedrunning events including Romhack Races and Summer Games Done Quick 2023 & 2024. She also released

6120-447: The first time, such as the legendary "Rom Hacking Bible" for the NES written in the mid-to-late 1990s, as well as for learning how to add or change things from start to finish. One of the most popular sites devoted to the ROM hacking of games was ROMhacking.net, which first went online in late 2005. From its inception up until 2024, it served as a hub related to all things ROM hacking, hosting

6222-482: The game can take on a very different look and feel. A core component of many hacks (especially of role-playing video games ) is editing data such as character, item, and enemy properties. This is usually done either "by hand" (with a hex editor) if the location and structure of the data is known, or with a game-specific editor that has this functionality. Through this, a hacker can alter how weapons work, how strong enemies are or how they act, etc. This can be done to make

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6324-522: The game easier or harder or to create new scenarios for the player to face. The most powerful, and arguably the most difficult, hacking technique is editing the game's actual code, a process called ASM hacking ("ASM" means " assembly ", referring to the low-level programming language that gets executed by the CPU). There is no set pattern for ASM hacking, as the code varies widely from game to game, but most skilled ASM hackers either use an emulator equipped with

6426-401: The game to another mapper, which could be easy or extremely difficult. On the other hand, expanding an SNES game (and even a Mega Drive (Genesis) game for that matter) is (relatively) straightforward. To utilize the added space, parts of the game code have to be modified or rewritten (see Assembly hacking above) so the game knows where to look. Another type of ROM expansion that is fairly easy

6528-507: The game's development team as its composer. TowerFall was ultimately developed as an exclusive for the Ouya console. Following its initial release in 2013, the team reissued the game in 2014 as TowerFall: Ascension for most other gaming platforms with additional features. TowerFall: Ascension was critically praised, and within a month had brought in over US$ 500,000 . In August 2015, Thorson and Noel Berry, another member of Matt Makes Games, had

6630-632: The games and ensured that the whole team was fully recognized and shared in the collective output from the company. Second, the change coincided with a move to a new set of offices in Vancouver to house the entire team, which had been previously spread across the world, including some in São Paulo . EXOK was technically founded in March 2019, but the first six months had been spent working to move these international developers into Canada and dealing with immigration requirements. The "Extremely OK" name itself came from

6732-520: The games they publish. Other functions usually performed by the publisher include deciding on and paying for any license that the game may utilize; paying for localization; layout, printing, and possibly the writing of the user manual; and the creation of graphic design elements such as the box design. Large publishers may also attempt to boost efficiency across all internal and external development teams by providing services such as sound design and code packages for commonly needed functionality. Because

6834-437: The main visionary of the game. One of the roles of a designer is being a writer, often employed part-time to conceive game's narrative , dialogue, commentary, cutscene narrative, journals, video game packaging content, hint system, etc. In larger projects, there are often separate designers for various parts of the game, such as, game mechanics , user interface , characters , dialogue , graphics , etc. A game artist

6936-514: The majority of commercial games do not produce profit. Most developers cannot afford to change their development schedule midway, and require estimating their capabilities with available resources before production. The game industry requires innovations, as publishers cannot profit from the constant release of repetitive sequels and imitations. Every year new independent development companies open and some manage to develop hit titles. Similarly, many developers close down because they cannot find

7038-430: The method applies to both types of hacking, this article focuses on "creative hacking" such as editing game levels. Most hacking groups offer web space for hosting hacks and screenshots (sometimes only hosting hacks by the group's members and hosting almost any hack), a message board, and often have an IRC channel. Several hacking groups have also created guides that aims to help others get into grips with ROM hacking for

7140-412: The most popular forms of ROM hacking, level editing entails modifying or redesigning a game's levels or maps. This is almost exclusively done with an editor specially tailored for a particular game (called a level editor ). Level edits can be done to make the game more challenging, to alter the flow of the game's plot, or just to give something new to an old game. Combined with extensive graphics hacking,

7242-428: The multiple talents necessary to create a good game". By 1987 a video game required 12 months to develop and another six to plan marketing. Projects remained usually solo efforts, with single developers delivering finished games to their publishers. With the ever-increasing processing and graphical capabilities of arcade, console, and computer products, along with an increase in user expectations, game design moved beyond

7344-555: The music of games that use the SMPS engine (most notably the Sonic the Hedgehog games in particular); many of the compositions and arrangements made under the SMPS engine had eventually made their way into the Steam Workshop . Generally speaking, a ROM hacker cannot normally add content to a game, but merely change existing content. This limit can be overcome through ROM expansion , whereby

7446-472: The name Maddy Thorson. In the Farewell DLC to the game Celeste , the final cutscene shows the character Madeline in her room with a rainbow flag and transgender flag . Thorson later confirmed that Madeline was trans in a blog post which also reflected on her own coming to terms with her gender identity. Thorson was named by Forbes as one of their " 30 Under 30 " for gaming in 2014, recognizing her for

7548-587: The offered games. Patched ROMs are often played on emulators, however, it is possible to play patched ROMs on the original hardware. The destination cartridge could be the original cartridge from which the initial unpatched ROM was pulled (which usually involves replacing the original ROM chip with a new one), or another compatible cartridge of the same type, such as flash cartridges. This is particularly popular for fan translations , homebrew games , prototypes, games for which ROM cartridges were never produced, or for games that require exact timing or other elements of

7650-452: The only developer. In the 1990s, pre-production consisted mostly of game art previews. In the early 2000s, pre-production usually produced a playable demo . In 2000 a 12 to 36 month development project was funded by a publisher for US$ 1M–3M. Additionally, $ 250k–1.5M were spent on marketing and sales development. In 2001, over 3000 games were released for PC; and from about 100 games turning profit only about 50 made significant profit. In

7752-407: The original game’s copyrighted code, which would have eliminated any copyright issues that may occur with distributing unofficial patches for games. A patch is also normally drastically smaller than the full ROM image (an NES ROM can run anywhere from 8 KB to 2 MB; a Super NES ROM can run from 256 KB to 6 MB; and Mega Drive (Genesis) ROMs can run from 512 KB to 4 MB). In

7854-525: The original hardware that are not available in emulators. The majority of ROM hacking is done on NES and SNES games (including Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) games to an extent), since such games are small and simple compared to games of more advanced consoles such as the Nintendo 64 or Nintendo DS . Games for the Game Boy , Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance are also popular for hacking, as well as games for

7956-427: The player to complete; Thorson felt her goal was not to make her games near-impossible but instead to make games that helped direct the player to improve themselves so that the player could beat the challenges she made for them. Early games were published under the name Helix Games, but in April 2008, she rebranded it as Matt Makes Games, considering the name a more important brand for her work. Thorson's goal in college

8058-460: The profit from a console game sold at retail was divided among parties of distribution chain as follows: developer (13%), publisher (32%), retail (32%), manufacturer (5%), console royalty (18%). In 2008 a developer would retain around 17% of retail price and around 85% if sold online. Since the third generation of consoles , the home video game industry has constantly increased and expanded. The industry revenue has increased at least five-fold since

8160-501: The publisher usually finances development, it usually tries to manage development risk with a staff of producers or project managers to monitor the progress of the developer, critique ongoing development, and assist as necessary. Most video games created by an external video game developer are paid for with periodic advances on royalties. These advances are paid when the developer reaches certain stages of development, called milestones. Independent video game developers create games without

8262-455: The same engine being used between games is on the Nintendo 64 where most games use the same format; albeit with different sound banks for each game. A utility known as the N64 Midi Tool was created to edit the sequences that the majority of Nintendo 64 games use, however it does not cover first-party N64 titles that use a slightly different engine such as Super Mario 64 . Several games for

8364-441: The scope of a single developer to produce a marketable game. The Gazette stated, "The process of writing a game involves coming up with an original, entertaining concept, having the skill to bring it to fruition through good, efficient programming, and also being a fairly respectable artist". This sparked the beginning of team-based development. In broad terms, during the 1980s, pre-production involved sketches and test routines of

8466-643: The share of MMO's was 19.8%, PC/MAC's 9.8%, tablets' 3.2%, smartphones 10.6%, handhelds' 9.8%, consoles' only 36.7% and online casual games 10.2%. The fastest growing market segments being mobile games with an average annual rate of 19% for smartphones and 48% for tablets. In the past several years, many developers opened and many closed down. Each year a number of developers are acquired by larger companies or merge with existing companies. For example, in 2007 Blizzard Entertainment 's parent company, Vivendi Games merged with Activision . In 2008 Electronic Arts nearly acquired Take-Two Interactive . In 2009 Midway Games

8568-472: The site's control, with its former database and files being archived on the Internet Archive . New submissions on the site were also permanently closed on the same day of the announcement, and all downloads will remain available on the site for as long as the site maintainers can handle. Having been created by many different programmers or programming teams, ROM data can be very diverse. A hex editor

8670-602: The staff and stakeholders, schedule and budget maintenance, quality assurance , beta test management, and localization. This role may also be referred to as project manager , project lead , or director . A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by an external video game developer. As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all aspects of advertising. They usually finance

8772-580: The team may handle more than one role; similarly more than one task may be handled by the same member. Team size can vary from 3 to 100 or more members, depending on the game's scope. The most represented are artists, followed by programmers, then designers, and finally, audio specialists, with one to three producers in management. Many teams also include a dedicated writer with expertise in video game writing . These positions are employed full-time. Other positions, such as testers, may be employed only part-time. Use of contractors for art, programming, and writing

8874-473: The tiles are arranged, or tile groups generated, giving more flexibility and control over the final appearance. This is accomplished through hex editing or a specialized tool (either for a specific game or a specific system). Examples of graphics hacks include the incomplete Pokémon Torzach , a hack of Pokémon FireRed which attempts to add a whole new generation of Pokémon and tiles to the game, and Super Mario Land 2 DX: 6 Golden Coins , an enhanced version of

8976-477: The title, Johnston suggested that they get a house in Vancouver to bring in others to help, which they acquired around October 2012, calling it the "Indie House" and inviting other collaborators to join them. Thorson incorporated as Matt Makes Games Inc. shortly afterwards in November 2012. Later, Holowka recognized Thorson as TowerFall 's main creator and relinquished his stake as a co-creator. Holowka remained on

9078-438: The tool of choice for editing things such as character/item properties if the structure and location of this data are known and there is no game-specific editor for the game that can edit this information. Some intrepid hackers also perform level editing with a hex editor, but this is extremely difficult (except on games whose level storage format closely resembles how it is presented in a hex editor). Another basic hacking skill

9180-438: The total size of the ROM image is increased, making room for more content and, in turn, a larger game. The difficulty in doing this varies depending on the system for which the game was made. For example, expanding an NES ROM may be difficult or even impossible due to the mapper used by the game. For example, if a mapper allows 16 ROM banks and all of them are used, expanding the ROM further is impossible without somehow converting

9282-500: The unmodified ROM. This, and usually some form of documentation, is put in an archive file and uploaded somewhere. IPS is a format for recording the differences between two binary files (in this case, between the unmodified and hacked ROMs) and is suitable for ROM hacks. IPS is still used today for small patches—however, as ROMs became larger, this format became useless, leading to quite a few file formats being created—such as NINJA and PPF (also known as " PlayStation Patch Format"). PPF

9384-433: Was Street Fighter II: Rainbow Edition , which featured increased game speed and new special moves. The success of this game prompted Capcom to release Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting as an official response. Your Sinclair magazine published a monthly column called "Program Pitstop". This focused mainly on cheat hacks for games, but also featured both a level map printer for the original Gauntlet , as well as

9486-624: Was acquired by Microsoft and greatly expanded. Mainstream commercial video games are generally developed in phases. A concept is developed which then moves to pre-production where prototypes are written and the plan for the entire game is created. This is followed by full-scale development or production , then sometimes a post-production period where the game is polished. It has become common for many developers, especially smaller developers, to publicly release games in an "early access" form, where iterative development takes place in tandem with feedback from actual players. Games are produced through

9588-522: Was acquired by Time-Warner and Eidos Interactive merged with Square Enix . Development is overseen by internal and external producers. The producer working for the developer is known as the internal producer and manages the development team, schedules, reports progress, hires and assigns staff, and so on. The producer working for the publisher is known as the external producer and oversees developer progress and budget. Producer's responsibilities include PR , contract negotiation, liaising between

9690-544: Was based on discrete logic , which Dave Nutting adapted using the Intel 8080 , making it the first video game to use a microprocessor . Console manufacturers soon started to produce consoles that were able to play independently developed games, and ran on microprocessors, marking the beginning of second-generation consoles , beginning with the release of the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The flood of Pong clones led to

9792-511: Was born on 18 March 1988. Thorson went to college at Grande Prairie Regional College in Alberta , Canada, studying computer science, during which one summer she worked at HermitWorks Entertainment , a local video game development studio. When Thorson was around fourteen, her mother helped her acquire a copy of GameMaker , a software tool to help develop video games. Through working in GameMaker, she

9894-401: Was connected to others in online forums who were also interested in making games, including Chevy Ray Johnston. She developed a number of small pay-what-you-want games through GameMaker in high school and through college, including Jumper and several sequels, FLaiL , and An Untitled Story . Several of her games were described as "masocore", masochistic games that were extremely difficult for

9996-401: Was estimated between $ 7–30 billion, depending on which sales figures are included. This is on par with films' box office market. A publisher would typically fund an independent developer for $ 500k–$ 5M for a development of a title. In 2012, the total value had already reached $ 66.3 billion and by then the video game markets were no longer dominated by console games. According to Newzoo,

10098-529: Was in development from 1998 until its 2007 release, and emerged from a convoluted development process involving "probably three or four different games", according to Gabe Newell . The game revenue from retail is divided among the parties along the distribution chain, such as — developer, publisher, retail, manufacturer and console royalty. Many developers fail to profit from this and go bankrupt. Many seek alternative economic models through Internet marketing and distribution channels to improve returns, as through

10200-474: Was separate from user experience—in fact, these games required mainframe computers to play them. OXO , written by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952, was the first computer game to use a digital display. In 1958, a game called Tennis for Two , which displayed its output on an oscilloscope, was made by Willy Higinbotham , a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory . In 1961,

10302-527: Was the case with the Returnal game sound team at PlayStation Studios Creative Arts' in London. They sometimes oversee voice acting and other sound asset creation. Composers who create a game's musical score also comprise a game's sound team, though often this work is outsourced. The quality assurance is carried out by game testers. A game tester analyzes video games to document software defects as part of

10404-512: Was to get a computer programming degree and join up with a large game development studio, but as she progressed, she realized she could still make video games without having to be attached to a studio. Following her graduation, Thorson moved into a Vancouver apartment with Johnston where they shared game ideas. Most of these were browser games , and they successfully had a few of theirs published by Adult Swim Games on its site. Thorson and Johnston were visited by friends they had made online. During

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