ROM Hack [ROM Hacking] klo-gba.js, your dream painter - Level Editor for Klonoa Empire of Dreams

[akaishi]

Hello everyone! (≧▼≦)

After many many months, I'm finally almost arriving to a stable version of klo-gba.js, your dream painter!
Using this rom hacking tool you'll be able to paint your dreams on Klonoa: Empire of Dreams game, and play it on computer by an emulator or on a real Gameboy Advance console!
You don't need to download anything. Just need to go ahead this URL and upload your ROM file: klo-gba.js

I'll be very happy if someone customize the original levels for others amazing level, with nice challenges to solve.
As well to share this tool and your levels in YouTube, Twitter...

Since there is no Klonoa game for a while, we could create own games of the dream traveler, and I hope that it could create more notoriety for his games.
There are so few GBA games that has a complete level editor like that, and now Klonoa is one of these few games!


If you want to understand the crazy things about how it works, you could read these blog posts (in English or in Portuguese). Caution: there are many lunatic and confused things (x_x)
You also could watch these talks, that is a beginner friendly way to understand the internals of this project. You'll learn how to do reverse engineering on others games that you like too.

Talk at The Conf 2019, in Brazil.
Since this conference has a general audience, half of this talk is about reverse engineering, and the other half is about the front-end. Slides



Talk at BalCCon, in Serbia.
Since this conference is geared towards security, this talk is focused on the reverse engineering process. Slides

 

[PZT]

Very exciting stuff! When I was a kid I thought Empire of Dreams was too easy so it'll be interesting to see what people do with an editor for it

 

[FAST6191]

Don't tend to see much ROM hacking at conferences, and don't tend to see much in the way of browser based ROM hacking tools either.

Tried it out. Editor did not work for pale moon (though I might have an older version and it is not the first time its javascript has troubled me) but worked on an old version of firefox I had installed.

As mentioned on the portal I hope to see a nice line in Kaizo hacks (ever seen those silly hard Mario ROM hacks? That is the term many use) for Klonoa before long.

 

[eyeliner]

This is a very amazing job.
I applaud the effort and @akaishi

 

[akaishi]

Thank you for reply =]

@FAST6191 Yeah, some guys said to me that my tool isn't working in some browsers, but it's looking more about a problem in browser over my code. Since I'm using some "new" technologies (webassembly, webgl, canvas), there are some incompatibilities.
I'm feeling that in future we could see more browser based ROM hacking tools, since the browser is more powerful day by day, and it provides a very useful multiplatform.

 

[lordelan]

Cool but how can we share our work because I guess the output of your website is a rom as well?

 

[akaishi]

Yeah.... at this moment the output is a ROM... I know that is a little boring to share it and a little complicated.
Sorry for that, but I didn't develop any other way to share only the changes... |ω･)ﾉ

 

[FAST6191]

Cool but how can we share our work because I guess the output of your website is a rom as well?

There are half a hundred IPS, UPS, xdelta, bsdiff... patch makers out there that you basically just feed it the original file, file with changes and output file name and press go to have it spit out a patch.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=uti...&level=&perpage=20&title=&desc=&utilsearch=Go for some.
For IPS I like IPSXP http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/13/ but there are plenty of others, many would tell you IPS is old and not to use it and they are not entirely wrong but it is supported just about everywhere (any number of ROM handling tools, emulators, flash cart managers... will). If you make the ROM larger you will need to go to something else.

 

[MetoMeto]

i always welcome these kind of editors, they are great fun..sometime more fun than playing the game it self!

 

[lordelan]

There are half a hundred IPS, UPS, xdelta, bsdiff... patch makers out there that you basically just feed it the original file, file with changes and output file name and press go to have it spit out a patch.
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=uti...&level=&perpage=20&title=&desc=&utilsearch=Go for some.
For IPS I like IPSXP http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/13/ but there are plenty of others, many would tell you IPS is old and not to use it and they are not entirely wrong but it is supported just about everywhere (any number of ROM handling tools, emulators, flash cart managers... will). If you make the ROM larger you will need to go to something else.

Didn't know those patchers are creating their files by comparing an original and a modded rom. Cool, thx.

 

[spotanjo3]

Loved it. Klonoa is my favourite games. I wish you can do Klonoa Heroes Legendary Star Medal. The translation was never finished.

 

[akaishi]

@FAST6191 Very nice! I didn't know about these tools. I'll write a short manual about it on website on the next release, to give instructions to user about how to share the creation.

@azoreseuropa Yeah. I noticed about that game, but now I'm studying Switch.
But you could learn about GBA reverse engineering reading my blog posts and watching my talks. Maybe you could do it =P

 

[spotanjo3]

@FAST6191 Very nice! I didn't know about these tools. I'll write a short manual about it on website on the next release, to give instructions to user about how to share the creation.

@azoreseuropa Yeah. I noticed about that game, but now I'm studying Switch.
But you could learn about GBA reverse engineering reading my blog posts and watching my talks. Maybe you could do it =P

LOL. Perhaps... Perhaps not.

 

[cearp]

you're a hero - this is amazing work very very impressed!

 

[raxadian]

This is nice but I am just gonna wait for someone to share, somewhere else, their custom levels.

Part of the problem with the franchise is that one of the spinoff characters uses guns and unlike Sonic the franchise is seen as one for very small kids so no guns allowed outside Asia.

That's ridiculous because despite the cute design the games get quite hard after a few levels.

 

[City]

Klonoa was Namco's somewhat later effort in the "PS1 needs a mascot" contest

Except the first Klonoa game came out on Wonderswan.

 

[FAST6191]

Except the first Klonoa game came out on Wonderswan.

Scanning around it says that came out in 1999 ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/kaze-no-klonoa-moonlight-museum ) where the PS1 thing hit Japan in 1997 and both PAL and NTSC in 1998 ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/klonoa-door-to-phantomile ).

 

[Bonehead]

noboyd cares lol

 

[City]

Scanning around it says that came out in 1999 ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/kaze-no-klonoa-moonlight-museum ) where the PS1 thing hit Japan in 1997 and both PAL and NTSC in 1998 ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/klonoa-door-to-phantomile ).

Really? Shit, my bad!

 

[Deleted User]

I'm glad this is a thing, but I don't understand why you went with Empire of Dreams instead of Dream Champ Tournament, considering that Dream Champ Tournament is basically just better Empire of Dreams, with better music, better graphics, and more stage hazards and mechanics, such as Luckri from Lunatea's Veil and that one new collectable that I forgot the name to.