Presents

's Gameboy Tile Editor

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A simple example

Before you read any further please notice that I will use the ROM file 'Super Mario Land' to demonstrate 's Gameboy Tile Editor. It is illegal to own a ROM file, which you do not own as a licensed copy such as a module. I use 'Super Mario Land' because I actually own the module and I use it for teaching purposes only. This program is in no way supported by Nintendo and most of the graphics shown beneath are copyrighted.

I plan to change some objects in 'Super Mario Land' so I start the Tile Editor and load the ROM. This is how my browser looks now:

This example was created using 's Gameboy Tile Editor 0.11.

By scrolling down the file with the help of scroll bar and turning on the grid I found some tiles I want to edit.

Now I could start coping some tiles to the editor by double-clicking them but talking a closer look at the tiles I recognize that the last line of every sprite is the first line of the next tile, which makes it very difficult to make exact changes to a tile in the editor.To correct this problem I select a number of bytes to add to the address when scrolling by the following rule: Number of missing lines * 2. In this case it would be 2. This is how it looks after scrolling to the tiles.

Now I copy some tiles to the editor by double-clicking them. After zooming in I get this result:

I make sure that I am in 'Select' mode. Now I click on the free space under the first tile in the editor and the black rectangle will change its position to this space. I copy some more tiles from the browser to the editor.

Finally I can start repainting the sprites. First I change from 'Select' mode to 'Paint' mode and then select the color I want to use in the 'Colors' box. Now I click on the pixel I want to paint over with my selected color and draw around on the editor. After I let loose my creativity the editor looks like this.

Considering the things I did as good I decide to save my changes to file. I press the 'Save all' button in the 'Editor Control' box and tell the program that I want to save. After saving I use the browser to test if the altered tiles were saved correctly. Please note that saving to file will change the ROM files checksum. If you want to release your hacked ROM to the public you should use a tool to restore a correct checksum.

Comparing this screenshot and the screenshot above you can see that the tiles were saved correctly. Here are some pictures I made running the patched ROM in an emulator.

I hope this small example helps you to understand what possibilities 's Gameboy Tile Editor has to offer.

In case you discover a bug or incompatibility please E-Mail me. I would also appreciate it if you write a short review about my program or send me a list of your hacking projects. If you do so please tell me if I am allowed to post this review or list on my page and maybe even include your E-mail or URL.