How to hack stuff thread idea

[puggsoy]

I've been talking about this on the Discord but I figured I'd make a thread about this so everybody can see it.

I've been thinking about making a thread where I teach people about things like how bytes work, how they make up files, and generally some things that's good to have under your belt if you want to hack or otherwise mess around with stuff. It wouldn't be anything too specific, maybe I'd use examples but it would aim to be very general, rather than going specifically into PS2 or NDS formats. It could be useful even if you're not interested in game hacking/ripping at all, and are just curious about this sort of thing.
However, it's not just a regular tutorial thread. The reason I want to make people aware about it is because it'll be interactive. The idea is, each week I write a post that covers a certain topic, and then during that week people can ask questions, discuss it, make sure they understand it, etc. This makes it a bit more interactive and fun, and more of a two-way learning experience. This way it should be easier to follow, and be a bit more fluid than when you're trying to follow and understand a standard tutorial.
It would probably go in the Game Development section (unless someone thinks it fits better here), but you obviously don't have to be interested in game development or know any kind of programming. I would aim this towards the typical computer user, so you wouldn't even have to have ripped anything (although that probably helps a bit).

So yeah, I'm making this thread here to see who might be interested in it, and to know what you guys think.

[Raccoon Sam]

Sounds super! It's essential to know your way around hex editors and binary, bytes and the general idea of interpretation of bytes as something other than numbers on a screen.
It's a valuable skill but resources are scarce so kudos and good luck

[Kriven]

It looks like the rest of us are anti-social, so you'll have to count the likes as a gauge of interest :p

[Kosheh]

dont do it, then everyone will know our secrets!!!!!!!!!!

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just kidding this is actually a pretty cool idea. it's been a while since I did any romhacking, so it'd be nice to get a refresher on this kinda stuff

[Pingus!]

Sounds awesome, maybe even GBA could be used too? Such as for simple edits like palette changes, graphics changes, or even cheat codes like infinite life in a game? Awesome demonstrations out there with using breakpoints with a certain version of VBA (Can't remember the "-"Something part of it).

[Garamonde]

All the technical hoo-haas that go into stuff like this always eluded me so I'd love to be able to understand more so I could one day crack some Sick Rips open!

Also including Bonus Content would be great as well.

[puggsoy]

Sounds awesome, maybe even GBA could be used too? Such as for simple edits like palette changes, graphics changes, or even cheat codes like infinite life in a game? Awesome demonstrations out there with using breakpoints with a certain version of VBA (Can't remember the "-"Something part of it).

Well as I said, it'll try to be very general, to be honest I'm actually more experienced with PC formats than ROMs However once most of the basic stuff is out of the way we can venture it more specific areas, depending on what people want.

Also including Bonus Content would be great as well.

Bonus Content?

[Garamonde]

Like what Pingu! was referring to among other technical thingies other than just cracking file formats.

[puggsoy]

Oh yeah, sure. The focus will be info and things that are useful for cracking formats (although obviously not just for that), but I'll try mix it up with examples and such. As I said it'll be a two-way thread, so if people want me to cover something specifically I can do that (provided I know how to do it myself lol).

[miyabi95_]

that sounds like a good idea! i'll probably be learning about this kinda stuff in college so it'd be informative to me.

[puggsoy]

I'm kinda late but I've finally started the actual thread here. Just notifying those who don't tend to visit the Game Development section often.