[Technical] [FDS] Titanic Mystery - Naming Screens Help *COMPLETED*

[BlackPaladin]

This project had been in deep freeze because of two issues with the translation: The translated title screen and the naming screens.

The translated title screen had a marquee effect showcasing the game's title in katakana, each displaying 14 hex values at a time in a vertical pattern. Using that information, I managed to insert the translated title screen into the game.

https://imgur.com/4TwMrsT

With that hurdle crossed, another issue had to be dealt with... and that's with the naming screens. The first screenshot is what comes up when you enter the name of the CEO/President (the player). The game allows you to input forty-six characters (originally, it's the hiragana characters used.) for the CEO's name. With the English alphabet applied, it only allows the player to use all of the capitalized letters from A to Z, but when it comes to the lowercased letters, it only allowed characters from "a" to "t". As of now, the English letters "u, v, w, x, y, z" cannot be used for the player's name. I need someone to hack the first screenshot to both display and input the missing six letters for the player's name.

That's not all, however. In the second screenshot, the divers' names needs to be changed from the mojibake displayed currently to the divers' actual names. (These are shown in the second screenshot.) Instead of what's shown there, I need someone who can change the names to Momoko/Momo (third screenshot), Reika/Rei (fourth screenshot), and Marin/Mary (fifth screenshot). I had someone who volunteered to do this for me, but this person had ghosted me for months now, so I'll need someone who can do this for me as this beyond my current skill level.

If you can help me out with this, feel free to contact me either by replying here, direct message, e-mail or Discord. Thank you for your time.

 

[BlackPaladin]

Here's some observations regarding the naming screens... There appears to be a table regarding 8x8 tiles regarding the sprites that make up the characters on the screen. According to FCC, the characters in the naming screens are stored not as text strings but as sprites.

Also, the script does not ask for the CEO's name (the player's name) anywhere in the script, so having the English alphabet from A-to-Z in both upper case and lower case letters does not affect the script. Thus, the sprites that display the lower case letters on the naming screen would be unneeded.

As for the aforementioned table, that appears to be located in CPU Memory, starting at $7777 and ending at $79DA. The hex values that start at $79D8 and end at $7A0A is another table, but this is used on the CEO (the player) naming screen. The hex value that starts at $7777 (the letter "A") and ends at $79F4 (the letter "Z") are intact. The values that start at $79F5 and end at $7A08 were converted to "00". As for "30 31" located at $7A09-7A0A is the two hex values that make up "END" as a two-tile ligature. If either of those is selected and the player presses A, the second screen is loaded. (The diver selection screen)

As for the location of said table in the actual FDS file, that is located, starting at 0x4A44 and ending at 0x4CA7, and the actual characters to be entered in the CEO (player) naming screen, that starts at 0x4CA8 and ends at 0x4CD5, and the "30 31" at 0x4CD6-4CD7 are the characters that mark "END".

In the diver selection screen, are the divers' names at the "NtPH", is supposed to read "BOSS", but 2x4 sprite right below that reads the same thing. (It should read "C.E.O" or president, but that can be changed by using YY-CHR.) Anyway, "iiJ" is supposed to read "Momoko". (I don't take umbrage by shortening it to just "Momo".) The second diver, "enut" is supposed to be "Reika". (Again, I don't take umbrage shortening this name either. Either as Raye or Rei...) As for the third diver, the tiles that shows "pBF" is supposed to be "Marin". (This could be shortened to just "Mary".)

Anyway, the area of the ROM located in CPU Memory $7800-78FF could be repurposed as sprites to be used for display for what's currently "NAM" as "NAME" in the CEO naming screen, full names for the diver selection screen, and names of the three divers when selected. (This will not affect the game's script at all.)

All of this data appears to be in a file called "FILE002" on Side A. And since all this is loaded before actually starting to play the game, this file appears to be capable of being expanded. In fact, while looking at Mesen2's memory viewer's CPU Memory, there appears to be space starting at $910F and ends at $D7FF, so it looks as if there's ample for more data if "FILE002" can be expanded.

The problem is... I don't how to do this. This type of ROM hacking is something I have no knowledge in what to do. I'll need either someone who can do the job himself/herself or for someone to patiently show me how it can be done. I'm venturing into uncharted waters (pun marginally intended) when it comes to hacking this game. To anyone who can help with this, feel free to contact me either by replying here, DMs, e-mail or Discord. Again, thank you for your time.

 

[BlackPaladin]

The naming screen issues, thanks to some kind individuals on Discord, has been resolved. The game is now undergoing beta testing as of this point.