ROM Hack Pokemon e-card decompression question?

[Sunicune]

Dear people,


I’m somewhat new to GBAtemp and the E-reader community and because of that, im trying to get some more information about the E-reader because Im tying to understand it really.


My goal is to develop a Pokemon Pinball demo e-card that was never for distribution and also never dumped.

This is what Serebii has to say about it:
“With this card scanned in, you're encounter chances of Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile and Aerodactyl are increased so you are likely to get them more often. This card was given away at certain e-reader+ trial stands in Japan.”


Now, there are dumps of all the other 4 Pokemon Pinball E-cards, except the one mentioned above and there is a good chance it will never be found/dumped. So I’m trying to find out if I can convert the .raw or .bin files of the dumped Pinball cards into readable lines of code to understand what the card exactly does. After that I will try to edit that code to reach my goal of creating the never released E-card.

Right now im stuck with the .raw and .bin files, which I opened with Visual Studio 2013. Can someone explain to me how I can decompress these files in understandable and readable lines of code? I think GBAtemp is the only platform where I can ask this kinda stuff.


Thanks in advance for responding, you can add me on Discord if you prefer that (I do!) Sunicune#0349.


Yours Sincerely,

Sunicune

 

[FAST6191]

I don't know if they are all lines of code. Certainly some things contained some code (standalone or possibly some kind of overlay*) but many other things could just as easily be straight binary data the game knows to look for and react accordingly to (be it flags or something a bit more special).

*whether it is strictly an overlay or one of the similar concepts I don't know. I am using it as shorthand for section of code something else jumps to but does not function standalone.

If I was making such a thing I would almost certainly just have some data on the cards to set flags to do certain things, or set encounter/capture/whatever rates. Flags are flags, rates can either be a whole table or things for individual entries in the relevant table.

That said other than linking people to http://caitsith2.net/ , http://ereader.no-intro.org/index.php , http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#gbacartereader and some of the things discussed in https://gbatemp.net/threads/super-mario-advance-4-all-unreleased-e-reader-cards-translated.529179/ I am not as familiar with the ereader as some of the other weird and wonderful GBA related things.

 

[Sunicune]

I don't know if they are all lines of code. Certainly some things contained some code (standalone or possibly some kind of overlay*) but many other things could just as easily be straight binary data the game knows to look for and react accordingly to (be it flags or something a bit more special).

*whether it is strictly an overlay or one of the similar concepts I don't know. I am using it as shorthand for section of code something else jumps to but does not function standalone.

If I was making such a thing I would almost certainly just have some data on the cards to set flags to do certain things, or set encounter/capture/whatever rates. Flags are flags, rates can either be a whole table or things for individual entries in the relevant table.

Hey there, thanks for responding
I have been researching all those websites before, but I couldt actually find a clear answer to question (How do I decompress .bin or .raw files into readable lines). I saw some people on here, especially in the Super Mario Advanced translated e-card section, who know more about the decryption of those file types. I saw some guys like "W Hat" and "Renegade" who seem to have mastered all the knowledge of this topic.

I hope someone can help me further with this

Sunicune