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Hey everyone, I've got some bad news and some good news.


The bad news: It's just been discovered that goldensunhacking.net was infected with malware around the end of February in 2016.

The good news: There is no indication so far that the attacker was trying to target user data, or impact normal site visitors in any way.



I'm still sifting through everything to determine the damage, but fortunately what I've analyzed so far indicates that the attacker was just using our server as a proxy.  What that means is that they were masking their IP address as our server's to access other sites.  I haven't found anything yet that would indicate regular users of the site would have been impacted by the malware, but I will keep you updated if I discover anything that indicates otherwise.



21 Mar Update

I've found code that could have been used to redirect traffic coming in specifically from the search providers Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Bing, or replace all of the links on the site with different links for traffic coming from those same search providers.  It appears to have never been configured properly though, and would not have been functioning.  So far this is the only code I've found that could have impacted normal users, but again it would have required additional set up that was not performed, and would not have been functioning.

Although there are still no indications that user data was targeted, I'm continuing my analysis of all of the site's files to make sure, and will keep you informed.  I have no estimate for when I'll get the site up and running again, making sure everything is clean is my main priority right now.

So... Everyone following the Zelda series probably already saw this coming for a while now, but it's official as of the 5th of November.

Having never beaten Majora's Mask (I didn't get the expansion pack for the N64), I'm pretty excited about it.  Although Eiji Aonuma's comments that it's "not going to be just another remake," and him saying "We've spent a lot of time making sure the gameplay experience is smoother than in the original version without taking away from this unique world. I hope those that haven't played the original game, and those of you that played it but gave up mid-way through will take this opportunity to give the new version a try." make me want to play the original game first so I can see what's different.  I wonder how much they plan on changing to make the game more accessible to people that didn't like the original version.  Some of them were turned off from the downsides of being forced to replay the same three days over and over again, but the way time flows and events unfold because of it are a major part of the original game.

Also, intentional or not, the Ben drowned creepypasta famed statue seen in the video still creeps me out, surely Nintendo is aware of it.  "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" I can already see the nightmares.

Hello everyone still here at Golden Sun Hacking Community.

I'm amazed that there are still so many active members here, I'm glad to see the small community I founded almost six years ago is still going strong despite all of the hardships it has faced.  I have a ton of very fond memories of working with the members here at unlocking the secrets of the Golden Sun games, and making an editor so we could hack them together.  Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, I haven't been nearly as active here as I once was.  Over the years since I founded this community I've had many changes in my life, and my priorities have shifted.  Now that this moment has come I realize that I still love this community as much as I did the day I created it, but it's time I let it go.  I don't have the time I used to have to dedicate to administrating these forums any more, and it's in the best interest of the community.  I officially announce that I am stepping down as the Administrator of Golden Sun Hacking Community.

Overlord Kain is being promoted to the main admin of GSHC.  I didn't choose him just because he's been serving the community as our Global Moderator for the past two and a half years.  I honestly believe he is the best person for the job, and have faith that the community will continue to flourish with him taking care of it.

The game doesn't come out in the US till Feb 7th, but there's a demo on the eShop now.

I've been hearing a lot of good about this game so I decided to check it out.  I rather like the battle system, you have the choice to "Brave" and use an extra turn or "Default" to defend and save a turn for later.  You can use turns in advance too, so if you're feeling brave (pun not intended) you can attack the enemy at full force right away to try to defeat them quickly, but if you fail to do so you're stuck standing there taking a beating for the next few turns.

The enemies can also use this mechanic, so for example there's one boss I've fought that likes to default a couple turns then use his strongest attack multiple times in a row later on.  I was pretty much forced to default (which also defends) when he braved so I could survive.  Then everyone in my party could use two turns the next cycle (Except my healer who I had default several turns in advance so they could act 4 times now and get everyone back to 100%)

I can't comment on story or much else since the demo doesn't really cover it, but you should check it out if you haven't.

That is all.

So Indie Game: The Movie, who's seen it?  It's a documentary film about indie game developers, and what they go through to make their games a reality.  I didn't expect it, but it hit me deep and reminded me of what my dream is in life.

[Developer Alpha Version 0.5]

Developer Alpha Version 0.5


[Download Link]
Developer Alpha Version 0.5, Feb 25, 2012 (1.99 MB .zip)



Wait, the editor is open source now?  What's going on?

I've realized that the editor doesn't just belong to me, it belongs to everyone here.  Combined with the fact that ever since I enlisted in the Military I simply haven't had enough time, or energy to give the project the attention it deserves, this seemed like the logical choice to me.  I'm opening up the project so that anyone with the skills, and desire can contribute to it.  Toward that end I've released the program, and it's source under the GNU public license.  What this basically means is anyone is free to copy, share, and modify the source as long as they give me credit, and it remains under the GNU public license.


As an additional note, I apologize in advance for my poorly organized, uncommented code.

What does this "Developer Alpha Version" nonsense mean?

This is the in-development version of the editor, it contains features that haven't been completed or fully tested.  No guarantee is made about it's level of polish, or stability.

What features that haven't been completed?

1) The sprite editor of course, as I've said before it only works with 2 out of 4 sprite formats right now.  It's extremely slow, hasn't been polished or fully tested yet.  For example, while it's saving the editor may appear to lock up.  It's still working on saving sprites it's just decided it's become too busy with that to play nice with Windows any more, after it's completed saving it will begin responding again.

2) The data viewer (which has been a long time coming, but still isn't finished)  It's a gargantuan feature that won't be polished and final for a LONG time, it's still quite unstable and unpolished.  Still, it can do a lot of cool things: view palettes, tilesets, images, Hex data, ASM code, scan code for data pointers, track where those data pointers are used in the code, e.t.c.

Can I make modifications and release my own version of the editor?

Yes you can!  Just be aware of the following conditions:

- You must label your release as modified, you cannot release it as an "official" version of the editor under my name.
- Your modified version must also be released under the GNU public license.
- You must make your modified source code available for download.
- You can NOT remove any notices in the program that it was originally created by me, or that it is under the GNU public license

To label it as modified by you I highly recommend editing the create event of "obj_about" in the "titlebar buttons" folder of the Game Maker source code to include a statement that it is your modified version of the editor.

This topic has been moved to Open Discussion.

http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=1389.0

[Version 0.4]

Version 0.4



[Download Link]
Version 0.4, June 30, 2011 (1.37 MB .zip)

Some of the changes from v0.3
- Artifact editor
- Shop editor
- Innate Ability editing added to party member editor (Only compatible with TLA)
- Ability animations now identified by names of abilities that use them
- Preview pane added to Ability Animation selector (Only compatible with TLA)
- Function call detector added to NPC editor (Allows easy editing of shop & dialogue data called in ASM scripts of NPCs, only compatible with English TLA)
- Improvements to Sprite viewer (You can now view all the sprites in a sprite set)
- Compression efficiency improved
- Improvements to data location detection methods (Slight speed up of loading ROMs)
- Some very basic compatibility with NitroROM filesystem (.NDS files)
- Bug Fixes
-- Error reading byte in map editor
-- Leak in data repointer fixed
-- String mismatches on foreign language versions (Most notably Japanese)
-- "*Crashes Game*" labels on ability animations offset by 1 slot

Well...  As you can see, due to some recent, er... Events, the forum is kind of in shambles at the moment.  Anyway, I'll get straight to the point since I'm sure you're all wondering what exactly is going on.

- Charon has been perma-banned for locking me out of, then destroying the forums
- All of our theme data is gone
- There are probably a ton of minor things broken that I don't even know about yet

Please bear with me while I working on cleaning up the destruction.


Edit: There's been an important update to the situation.

... and it only took you a month to diagnose it?

And who could blame them, I mean it was the wind that did it, it's sneaky, like a ninja.  Well, it wasn't so much THAT the wind was blowing, as it is WHAT the wind was blowing, that being a door.  Although as my medical care providers would tell you without doing X-Rays of the affected area until the pain persists a month after the event, a door being slammed on you by the wind is rarely the cause of serious injury. Never mind that the door was made of fairly heavy metal, and the wind was blowing at ~50 mph (~80 kph). Clearly my wrist is at fault for failing to make the basic logical assumption that under most circumstances door + wind does not equal serious injury.

Still though, as an active duty member of the military this presents you with several amusing problems such as explaining to your Leadership that you can't do push ups (let alone carry around the heavy equipment necessary to complete the day to day mission) because your wrist will only allow you, in an exceptionally painful fashion, to fall flat on your face while the clinic is saying that it only has minor bruising at worst.  Oh yes, it has been a fun month indeed.

So who has it so far?

It took driving to 5 different places, but finally at what was to be my last stop of the night either way I found a store whose shipments weren't late.

With the addition of the Hex editor for map code, you can do a lot of neat new stuff if you know how.  Today I'm gonna show you how to edit where you end up when exiting an area.

I'm going to be working on the flooded map of Dalia.
The first step is to find out where the data for the exits is at.  Lucky for us the editor has a data pointer detection algorithm that scans the code of the function that loads it, and finds it for us.  Under the "Code Pointers" section of the Map viewer we can see what the editor found neatly organized under it's parent function.  Unfortunately for us it looks like we have 2 sets of data for exits, so how do we tell which one we want?

Next we'll switch over to the "Code Hex" section to take a look at that data.  I've outlined each set of data in red in the image, so let's find out which one is what we want.  In this case the code data is actually used for multiple maps, and each has it's own exit data.  For separating them the first value of each block of exit data (outlined in yellow) is going to be the key.  Essentially this value just says which map the data actually applies to.   Since we're looking at map 10, which translates to 0xA in Hex we want the data at 0x02009018.  The next step is to find out exactly which exit defined in the data we want to edit.

Opening up the game in VBA, I actually walked through the exit I wanted to edit, the Sanctum in Dalia in this case.  Next I took a look at the value at 0x02000420 (0x02000400 if you're editing the original Golden Sun) in VBA's memory viewer. 0x0001000C, the first four digits tell us the entrance we entered, and the last four tell us which map it is.  Taking this back into the editor...

...we find our corresponding data entry here, 0x1070100C.  This value can be broken up as such: 0xABBCCDDD where the values at C correspond to to the entrance, and the D's will correspond to the map this exit takes us to.  The A is unidentified as of yet, and B identifies which exit it on the map it is.  We won't go too deep into this value since there's not much we can do with it, but suffice it to say that it corresponds with an event index used in the tile data for the map that the game checks to tell when the player walks into that exit.  Anyway, back to editing our exit, we now need to find a new place we want it to take us to.

We could use the same technique I used to find the values for Dalia's Sanctum, but I wanted to demonstrate another method.  Here I used a debug menu I found a while back.  The values you use in this menu correspond directly to what you would actually use in your edit (Don't forget to convert them to hex though)

Back in the Hex editor, I replace the old map value with the one for the credits in this case.  A quick save, and reload of the game in VBA later, and...

...now when I walk into Dalia's Sanctum the credits begin to roll as if I beat the game.

Yup, it's started already.

Alright, so with the addition of the Hex editor for map code, you can do a lot of neat new stuff if you know how.  Today I'm gonna give you some info useful for changing around when/which party members are added during the game.

The function for removing party members is located at 0x080AD110 in the ROM.  One place in the game that this function is called is at 0x02009ABE in the code for map 5 (VT001)  Apparently at the very beginning of the game Felix & Jenna are both in the party, but Felix is removed at the end of the cutscene between Jenna, Kraden, and Alex.  If you look back 1 command at 0x02009ABC, this "mov r0, #0x04" is where it tells it to do it to Felix, if you switch over the hex editor, and change the 0x04 value at that location to 0x05 you can remove Jenna from the party instead.  You'll still play as Jenna, but during battles and in menus Felix will be your only party member.


As for adding party members, that is controlled by a function located at 0x080AD0F8, which is often called through a function at 0x080C8048 used to display an accompanying "so-and-so joined your party." message on screen.  If you go to map 9 (OTMP0008) you'll find several places this function is used:

Talk to Jenna, 0x0200847A
Talk to Sheba, 0x02008620
Try to leave without Jenna, 0x02008A84
Try to leave without Sheba, 0x02008CD6

Look for a command that begins with "mov r0" before the function call, that's where it sets who joins the party, by changing the value at the location of that command to something between 0-7 you can add any other party member at that time.  Anything above 7 won't work, and will likely result in glitches.


The switch between Jenna & Felix at the beginning of the game is somewhere in the code of map 0 (It happens when the title screen is displayed after Felix & Sheba wash up on the island)  It uses a slightly different method at that point, more information on it will come later.

Piers joins the party on map 111 (KBMB10) at 0x0200A03C

[Golden Sun The Abridged Series]

Golden Sun The Abridged Series

I'm glad to announce the return of Magmabear's Golden Sun The Abridged Series on it's own page hosted by us here at Golden Sun Hacking Community!



Watch the newly released episode 8 now at GS Abridged's new location at gsabridged.goldensunhacking.net, or on Youtube here at Magmabears new account.

[Class editor, auto & party 2 check boxes]

Until I get around to making a new guide, it's probably a good idea to have somewhere for me to explain new features that people are having difficulty understanding.  So post here to request explanations of things your having difficulty with in the new editor.

Class editor, auto & party 2 check boxes
These check boxes are used to automatically set the type value to the left of them.  The "Party 2" setting works with the "Auto" one, so if you have "Auto" unchecked the "Party 2" box will have absolutely no effect, you'll have to set the type value manually.  The type value for party members 4-7's classes have 20 added to them.  Additionally, the "Party 2" box will only appear if you have the class separation patch enabled under code patches.


Enemy battle sprites can't be used in many places, including as party member battle sprites
Unfortunately many enemy sprite sets are compressed in a way that the game is only programmed to decompress if they're used as enemy battle sprites.  Although these sprites are highlighted in red you can still select them, and the editor will save your selection correctly, unfortunately the game itself just doesn't decompress them at all unless they are used for an enemy in battle.  Once sprite editing comes, you'll be able to convert these sprites to a more friendly format for use in other areas of the game.

[Version 0.3]

Version 0.3



[Download Link]
Version 0.3, October 31, 2010 (1.68 MB .zip)

Some of the changes from v0.2
-Text editing
-Item modifiers that are multipliers are identified
-Party member battle sprite swapping
-Automatic type setting option for classes
--Class separation patch added to code patches for party members 4-7
-Djinni Editing
-Summon Editing
-Enemy Editor updates:
--Stat layout reorganized
--Attack patterns identified, and put into drop down list
--GS1 compatibility added
-Map Viewer updates:
--Drawing code optimized, support added for special effect modes on layers
--Added buttons for hiding layers
--Some basic NPC editing functionality added
---Can view all NPC sets detectable in Map data
---Can change NPC locations, and sprites
---Event viewer allows viewing of ASM, and idle scripts associated with NPC, as well as editing of dialogue
--Hex viewer now allows editing
--Code pointer viewer (Scans functions at the beginning of the map code for data pointers)
--Tileset viewer
-Most lists can be browsed with arrow keys
-All input fields allow text to be highlighted, cut, copied, and pasted
-Majority of text from interface has been exported to language.ini file to allow translating
-Bug fixes
--Unknown variable errors when saving, or exiting the program
--Party member maximum name length no longer changes to 11 by itself
--Enemy defense is now editable
--Error defining external function sometimes in newer versions of windows fixed
--First enemy in a group no longer gets set as the leader of the previous group as well
--Parts of the interface no longer disappear while using the party member editor
--Saving should no longer cause errors while in the ability editor
--Some errors relating to ability ranges have been fixed
--Starting the editor from a shortcut, or dragging & dropping a file onto it from another folder should no longer cause errors with finding necessary files
--Some typos in disassembled ASM code fixed

[Spoiler etiquette/rules]

Happy Japanese Dark Dawn release date day everybody!  *pulls out the almighty ban hammer, and drops it on a desk in front of everybody*  Now that the game has officially been released I'd like to remind everyone of the usage of [spoiler] tags on these forums, as well as general courtesies when it comes to spoilers.


Spoiler etiquette/rules

- All spoilers should be placed inside of spoiler tags
- DO NOT PUT SPOILERS IN TOPIC TITLES!!!
- If you're creating a topic for discussing something that is a spoiler, warn people by adding "*Spoilers*" or something similar to the beginning of the topic title
- DO NOT PUT SPOILERS IN TOPIC TITLES!!!!!
- Don't talk around spoilers outside of spoiler tags, Example: "Wasn't it cool when that guy did that thing to that other guy who turned out to really be a you-know-what?"
- When in doubt, spoiler tag it


How to use spoiler tags

- [spoiler=reason]Content[/spoiler]

This is the basic form of the spoiler tag note that setting a reason is optional, and the reason itself should never actually be a spoiler.  Let's look at an example:

[spoiler=chapter 8 of wizardyguy's Harry Potter fanfic]Zombie Dumbledorf kills Harry Potter's distant cousin's room mate's ex-girlfriend's uncle.[/spoiler]

which gives us this:

[spoiler=chapter 8 of wizardyguy's Harry Potter fanfic]Zombie Dumbledorf kills Harry Potter's distant cousin's room mate's ex-girlfriend's uncle.[/spoiler]


When to use spoiler tags

So what would qualify as a spoiler?  Well, this topic is kind of fuzzy different people have different ideas of what constitutes a spoiler, but as a general rule think major plot points, places, people, or special items/abilities that might have been a bit surprising/unexpected when they're revealed, and might ruin that feeling of surprise for someone else if they learn about it too early.  If in doubt you should treat anything that hasn't already been revealed about the game in the previews as a spoiler!  It's much better to err on the side of caution, and mark something that isn't a spoiler as one, than to not mark something that is.



I will be enforcing the use of spoiler tags, as well as keeping spoilers out of topic titles.  Most infractions will just result in a verbal warning, but if I see multiple continuous infractions from the same person it may result in a temporary ban.  This will be effective for spoilers relating to Dark Dawn until further notice, it will be at least several months after the release of the game before this policy is no longer in effect.

Does anyone else have anything to add to this?

"Wait, what, why is an admin making a topic in the feedback section shouldn't they be able to just do stuff?"

Why yes, yes I could.  That said I'd rather not just go around doing things without any regard for what the members want, because one person saying "This is a problem, and if you don't take care of it I will" in the Cbox without caring what anyone else thinks about the matter isn't the way to do things.  I'm not all that irritated with whether people disagree with me,  it's the way they go about trying to get things changed that can really get to me.  I mean, your opinion is cool and all, but everyone else has their own too, and not just because you tried to give it to them.  So wouldn't it be awesome if there was a section on the forums where we could post about things we wanted changed, that way we could actually discuss them instead of just ranting about it in the Cbox?  *sigh*  If only...  

This section is here for a reason, please feel free to use it.  I promise it only bites a little bit, I'd really even describe it as more of a nibble, it kinda tickles.


Anyway, since I was forced to start this topic myself I might as well give my thoughts on the matter.  I'd rather not get rid of the forum games since it gives people a place to socialize even when they have nothing to talk about.  I would not, however, be opposed to the idea if there was a general consensus.   My thoughts are that we should just downplay the section so that it's less in the way of everything else.  What I propose is changing it so that new posts in there don't appear in the "Latest Posts" box, or when you click on "Show unread posts since last visit" / "Show new replies to your posts"  That way people can still mess around there when they want to, but everyone else doesn't have to hear about it, and those that do use it don't constantly see reasons to be pulled back there unless they actually monitor the section.

[Happy 2nd Anniversary Golden Sun: TLA Editor]

Happy 2nd Anniversary Golden Sun: TLA Editor

Two years ago today the first version of the Golden Sun: TLA Editor was sent out into the world, here's a video to celebrate the anniversary and show what's in store for the future.

If it weren't for the fact that my video editor didn't decide to actually work until the day before I may have been able to do something that didn't completely suck. Of course I also blame my video capturing software, after all it doesn't even show that the cursor actually does change when you hover the mouse over a text field.

[Golden Sunrise]

You may have already noticed them at the bottom of the page for a while now, but I've been meaning to make an official announcement about it.

Golden Sunrise


A small but growing Golden Sun community formerly known as Golden Twilight.



Fire Emblem Shrine


They're a nice Fire Emblem community with a small, but very informative, section on hacking the games as well.

Hello everyone, I've just installed an algorithm into the forum that runs weekly to purge inactive members, and most bots from the forum's database.  Here are the criteria it looks for so you know how to avoid having your account deleted out from under you, although I think you'll find you'd really have to be trying in order for it to actually happen.

Your account will be deleted automatically if the following apply:
- It has been 6 months since the last time you logged in
- You have never posted on the forums

There are also anti-bot protections built into the algorithm as well, but as long as you make at least 2 posts on the forums you'll be safe from being accidentally purged by those as well, after all, bots usually make themselves pretty obvious with their first post anyway.


So, there you have it, get a post count of 2 and you're 100% safe from being purged.  Easy, right?  Just keep in mind that some sections of the forum don't count posts, but if you do as little as make an introduction topic here then reply to everyone after you've been greeted you'll be good to go.

[Main Computer]

On top of having a dry socket from my wisdom teeth being removed last week I've also been having quite a bit of computer trouble, here's the situation as it stands now:

Main Computer: Unable to boot, immediate BSOD even in safe mode, switched to back-up secondary operating system installed on machine, same results.  All troubleshooting so far has produced no results.  Next step would be to format the hard drive, and attempt to reinstall one of the operating systems.  It's highly unlikely they would both fail due to software reasons so hopes that this will actually help in any way are low, however there's a snag before I feel I can even attempt this...
Back ups: Corrupted, cause unknown.

Since the computer is a laptop and the hard drives are incompatible with this older desktop (32-bit processor to give you an idea how old) I managed to get my hands on, the only option I can think of to verify the status of the data on the laptop, and attempt to copy it somewhere else is to create a disk that can be booted from, unfortunately archaic desktop lacks a CD drive capable of burning (Yes, that old)  To be clear, yes the source code for the editor is among the data that would be lost if the information on the hard drive cannot be recovered.  Although all signs point to a hardware failure, and the laptop may need to be replaced I do not believe the hard drive is what failed.  Unfortunately this also means that it may not be able to successfully boot from a CD either, making data recovery efforts all the more difficult.

Finally a custom map demonstration!  Man that's tricky to do.  Nothing fancy, but it still helps me figure out the process so it can eventually be done with the editor.  I also inserted Kari, and decided to push Link around for the fun of it/to show how far NPC's really can be pushed.