Genesis/MD game Mods - Steam Workshop and Utilities

Introduction

Well, that was certainly unexpected. I mean, I saw the announcement and all when it was first posted, but it was just too weird

Here we are, today, where SEGA has overtly implemented a means of sharing Genesis game mods with their blessing through a major commercial game service.

Of course, you do have to have bought the original game through that service to be able to play them (which is reasonable and expected), but still

SonED2 Update?

Apparently it’sbeen nearly five years since I’ve posted a public update for SonED2. A lot has been going on since then, and I just haven’t gotten around to completing (or in some cases, starting) all of the features I’d still like for it to have. It’s taken a back-seat to several other projects, most notably some big contract jobs I had been able to get. Even now I’m still working on the project I mentioned back when I said that I’d have to let my Patreon content slip

On the other side, though, I know that there are still some fans of SonED2 who are still using the five-year-old public release, so I just couldn’t pass up what seemed to be the perfect excuse to wedge in just a little “me time” and make the program just a little better. Yesterday, I did just that-

SonED2 is now at version 16.04.28 Q&D! It’s..not a whole lot, really, but I think some people are going to be pleased with what I’ve managed to do with it.

In short, usability has been improved with multiple resizable windows and level/object editor zoom, and a new quick collision editing feature

The “Q&D” stands for “Quick and Dirty”. Although I tried my best to tie/cut off loose ends and run tests with what time I had, it wasn’t very much, and I really can’t dedicate any more time to this since I’m supposed to be spending the greater majority of my time with that other project. Please excuse any new bugs that may have been introduced as a result of the new features and/or me having to clean up and remove experimentation, as I only wanted to get this out in celebration of the Steam Workshop support for the old Genesis games

That said, I hope you enjoy it!

Remember ROMulan?

No? I’m not surprised. It didn’t get very popular from what little exposure I gave it. As noted on its webpage, “ROMulan is a tool designed to automate the process of extracting data from program files for manipulation by an external utility

and then re-integrating the modified data in a useful way even if its new size requires it to be relocated.”

What that means is that it’s meant for breaking down “ROM images” or other files into individual pieces that can be edited and put back together into something playable. Usually, if you were working with a whole file instead of source code or something like it, you’d have to deal with a hex editor and manually move data around and change address pointers if you were to make big changes to it. For a major major modification, that could become a major headache. Those who know where all of that data is, though, can write scripts for ROMulan to automate extraction and “injection”, and share them with others to make some games more accessible for modding

I mention this because of the multitude of games that are available for SEGA’s “Mega Drive/Genesis Hub” on Steam, many of which, to my knowledge, haven’t been broken down to the level of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. In the right hands,  ROMulan could help open the door for some pretty interesting stuff, and I’d love to see that happen

Don’t get the wrong idea, though. It’s not Genesis-only; it should be useful for any other console, or even some PC games. For example, it’s already being used for the old 90s version of Sonic CD for Windows (and long before the 2011 re-release :P)

Give it a look, and be sure to let me know if you come up with anything for it!

Closing

With that, I’m back onto the contract project. It’s getting nearer to time that I’ll know whether or not this is actually going to work out. If it does, it’ll still take a while to deal with, but my understanding is that I’ll be able to say what it is in the near future

Until then, I’ll probably be pretty quiet again, and it’s a certainty that I won’t be able to move my own personal projects any more for a while, given my workload vs where those projects are right now. I apologize for that, but hopefully, it’ll all be  worth it