6 ms·

Show HN: Kirby's Dreamland 2 level viewer, in JavaScript

40 points by fallat 11y ago

gravypod 11y ago
How did you dump the rom?
- mattdotc 11y ago
  Chances are he didn't. Verified dumps are all over the internet. However, a sufficiently motivated individual can create cartridge dumpers with hardware like Arduino and a broken Game Boy (to harvest the socket for convenience). The cartridges for most/all game systems are widely understood by this point thanks to the efforts of reverse engineers. Of course there are also pre-built dumpers available through various sources. They are not unique to the present-day. Even when the SNES and Game Boy were still selling on shelves, there were devices created specifically for copying cartridges to alternative storage such as floppy disk or custom cartridges.
RodgerTheGreat 11y ago
Could you add some screenshots or GIFs to the readme, to give a sense of how it works for people who don't have a ROM handy?
- Karuma 11y ago
  This is a much interesting link: http://ecc-comp.blogspot.com/2016/03/reverse-engineering-kirbys-dreamland-2.html http://ecc-comp.blogspot.com/2016/03/reverse-engineering-kir... Has some screenshots too.
  - fallat 11y ago
    Yeah, document.org in the repository is a reflection of that post.
- fallat 11y ago
  A friend of mine helped me setup gh-pages for this, so now you can use it right away :) http://lf94.github.io/kdl2viewer/ http://lf94.github.io/kdl2viewer/
huangc10 11y ago
Rundown? Can you use that in a sentence?
- fallat 11y ago
  run·down noun noun: rundown; plural noun: rundowns; noun: run-down; plural noun: run-downs ˈrənˌdoun/ 1. an analysis or summary of something by a knowledgeable person. "he gave his teammates a rundown on the opposition"
  - lpbonenfant 11y ago
    I think it the parent meant to reference Oscar in "the Office"
benbenolson 11y ago
Why?
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  Conveniently, section 1.1 of the current link [0] covers this (it's one of the earlier sections). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300075
- khedoros 11y ago
  Why not? Learning how things used to be done is interesting. With reverse engineering in particular, it feels a little like software archaeology and being the first one to see something in decades. Objectively, it's probably not worth the time, unless you do a lot of embedded programming. Subjectively, there's no accounting for taste.
dang 11y ago
We changed the URL to this one because it tells the story. The submitted URL was http://github.com/lf94/kdl2viewer http://github.com/lf94/kdl2viewer. Both are great.
xlm1717 11y ago
>Kirby's Dreamland 3 for SNES, except it's rare and worth at least $80 I have that game, always loved playing that game, and am surprised to know it's now worth at least $80!
HCIdivision17 11y ago
I was really pleased with the vgrep technique he used at the start to figure out what changed the map data. I often forget just how awesome our eyes are at spotting changing stuff at a glance and small datasets don't take long to manually look at. Simply open the working RAM and look at it; lo and behold the thing is right there. (There's some super spiffy things built on this idea, the one I was really excited to see come out was ..cantor.dust.. [0], which was never released.) [0] https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/ https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/ EDIT: formatting
- fallat 11y ago
  Whoa. I can't tell if this is a joke, or 100% serious. I'm trying to find a download link because damn this looks cool. Thanks for sharing.
  - HCIdivision17 11y ago
    Totally for real, but a bit of a vaporware. You can get a demo version from this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1izity/cantordust_a_binary_visualization_tool https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1izity/...
    - fallat 11y ago
      Now we reverse engineer the reverse engineering tool and create an open source version that can hook into /proc/mem and other streams instead of just files :)
pcwalton 11y ago
Looks like the compression is a variant of LC_LZ2, used in lots of Nintendo games: http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/LC_LZ2 http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/LC_LZ2

40 points by fallat 11y ago

gravypod 11y ago

How did you dump the rom?

mattdotc 11y ago
Chances are he didn't. Verified dumps are all over the internet. However, a sufficiently motivated individual can create cartridge dumpers with hardware like Arduino and a broken Game Boy (to harvest the socket for convenience). The cartridges for most/all game systems are widely understood by this point thanks to the efforts of reverse engineers. Of course there are also pre-built dumpers available through various sources. They are not unique to the present-day. Even when the SNES and Game Boy were still selling on shelves, there were devices created specifically for copying cartridges to alternative storage such as floppy disk or custom cartridges.

RodgerTheGreat 11y ago

Could you add some screenshots or GIFs to the readme, to give a sense of how it works for people who don't have a ROM handy?

Karuma 11y ago
This is a much interesting link: http://ecc-comp.blogspot.com/2016/03/reverse-engineering-kirbys-dreamland-2.html http://ecc-comp.blogspot.com/2016/03/reverse-engineering-kir... Has some screenshots too.
- fallat 11y ago
  Yeah, document.org in the repository is a reflection of that post.
fallat 11y ago
A friend of mine helped me setup gh-pages for this, so now you can use it right away :) http://lf94.github.io/kdl2viewer/ http://lf94.github.io/kdl2viewer/

huangc10 11y ago

Rundown? Can you use that in a sentence?

fallat 11y ago
run·down noun noun: rundown; plural noun: rundowns; noun: run-down; plural noun: run-downs ˈrənˌdoun/ 1. an analysis or summary of something by a knowledgeable person. "he gave his teammates a rundown on the opposition"
- lpbonenfant 11y ago
  I think it the parent meant to reference Oscar in "the Office"

benbenolson 11y ago

Why?

HCIdivision17 11y ago
Conveniently, section 1.1 of the current link [0] covers this (it's one of the earlier sections). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11300075
khedoros 11y ago
Why not? Learning how things used to be done is interesting. With reverse engineering in particular, it feels a little like software archaeology and being the first one to see something in decades. Objectively, it's probably not worth the time, unless you do a lot of embedded programming. Subjectively, there's no accounting for taste.

dang 11y ago

We changed the URL to this one because it tells the story. The submitted URL was http://github.com/lf94/kdl2viewer http://github.com/lf94/kdl2viewer. Both are great.

xlm1717 11y ago

>Kirby's Dreamland 3 for SNES, except it's rare and worth at least $80 I have that game, always loved playing that game, and am surprised to know it's now worth at least $80!

HCIdivision17 11y ago

I was really pleased with the vgrep technique he used at the start to figure out what changed the map data. I often forget just how awesome our eyes are at spotting changing stuff at a glance and small datasets don't take long to manually look at. Simply open the working RAM and look at it; lo and behold the thing is right there. (There's some super spiffy things built on this idea, the one I was really excited to see come out was ..cantor.dust.. [0], which was never released.) [0] https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/ https://sites.google.com/site/xxcantorxdustxx/ EDIT: formatting

fallat 11y ago
Whoa. I can't tell if this is a joke, or 100% serious. I'm trying to find a download link because damn this looks cool. Thanks for sharing.
- HCIdivision17 11y ago
  Totally for real, but a bit of a vaporware. You can get a demo version from this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1izity/cantordust_a_binary_visualization_tool https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1izity/...
  - fallat 11y ago
    Now we reverse engineer the reverse engineering tool and create an open source version that can hook into /proc/mem and other streams instead of just files :)

pcwalton 11y ago

Looks like the compression is a variant of LC_LZ2, used in lots of Nintendo games: http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/LC_LZ2 http://www.smwiki.net/wiki/LC_LZ2