So I’m planning to make a video on the history of Sonic Hacking (hacking specifically, not fan games) when the SHC comes around this September. Is there anything I need to know that’s maybe not that well known? What hacks should be examples of milestones? How much should I delve into the history of SSRG, SAGE, and the SHC? Advice would be greatly appreciated!
You should check out the talks @NO CARRIER did about this if you haven't already. He goes pretty in-depth, and is most likely the best line to start from.
I suspect there might be holes in our knowledge. On an old Sonic Retro user's profile, this curious bit is mentioned. This is quite vague, but I have a pretty good idea of what might've entailed. Over on the Sonic Cult side of things, waaaaaaaay back 20 years ago there were pages of players handing in reports of them fucking around with Sonic Adventure (the Dreamcast original) to get characters in other levels, or to get a better feel of what made the game tick. Quite frankly, it was alchemy compared to our current methods. Occasionally, some players had the aide of the infamous Action Replay CDX, which Guru Larry explains was one of the last keys towards the growth of the already-nascent homebrew scene of the console. But otherwise, it seems that before datamining was prevalent for Sonic Adventure, there was a glitching scene dedicated to documenting reliable ways on reproducing bugs to get a feel for the game's workings. This is stuff that's quite buried, and until I was doing some cursory research for the TCRF SADX intro, I had almost forgotten about it.
Sounds great! As mentioned, NO CARRIER has done a few talks. Me and some others were part of that last year, and we have videos we've been releasing. We have just one more video to be released which very much will go over the hacking milestones, what some folks did, how things were discovered, etc. When that video comes out, I think that will serve as a good history lesson on the tech side of it. Check out the "Sonic Stuff Research Group" thread for details. I'll also offer any insight I can if you have questions.
We also have the recording of the "SSRG Reverse Engineering" panel from RWX 2023, but that one is still in the works. It's like the "Reunion" panel but goes into more technical details. It's quite interesting. I'll DM you more info on it, but here is the description we came-up for it: Description: The discovery of how to access Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone took the Sonic fandom by storm, unleashing a tsunami of dedicated research into the early Genesis Sonic titles. Join SSRG alumni at the scene of this movement as they take you through the twists and turns of the expedition into what made these games tick. You'll learn about the origins of the events that unfolded, how challenges were overcome, and what led to the advanced technical side of the Sonic scene.
So Saxman and Andy have you covered for the most part. They were already well known members of the community way back when I joined. For the "Sonic Adventure Glitching Scene" it was mostly as Chimes described, Rattleman had his famous "Sonic Adventure Glitches Guide" and there were people actively looking for ways to break the game and documenting them. Getting characters into levels they weren't supposed to was one of the big draws, but if a glitch was cool and repeatable it was worth posting. On the corners of the community I frequented, there were also sections dedicated to Hoaxes - faked screenshots - that started as "Wouldn't it be cool if..?" and then ballooned into its own thing. That scene got big enough for SWS2B(? I think? Maybe it was another site?) having a "Fake Hoaxes" section. This was filled with emulator screenshots of unusual situations in the Genesis/Mega Drive games. Stealth was a regular contributor as he would come through and explain "Oh the thing in that screenshot? It happens because [xyz]" when most of us were kids too young to fully comprehend his explanations.
I was gonna say, the person I think of regarding early SA1 glitch exploration is Rattleman, not Wetflame.
Regarding Dreamcast hacking, I recall fellow SSRG alum SonicBlur (now known as Sappharad) had created some utilities for the console back in the day on MacOS X. His website can now be found here: https://projects.sappharad.com/old/sonicblur/ What does those apps do? Sonic Saver: a screen saver for MAC. (Not a save state editor.) Knuxbine: a tool to combine Sonic & Knuckles with Sonic 2 or 3. (No other tools or methods existed or were known for the Mac.) VMUtil: converts between the DC native VMU format and a format used by third party memory cards that could be backed up on PC. And also edit the metadata used for VMU downloads on an actual DC browser. DC uploader: tool for uploading apps to a Dreamcast running Dc-load-IP connected over the LAN adapter / Broadband adapter. There were also folks doing things for the VMU as well. But I am not sure if they were internal or external to the Sonic Community.
