Dreamcast Save Editing

[Play2win80]

Hello! I need some help editing a save for Dreamcast’s Timestalkers- I’m trying to “hack” out some items and unlock other things if possible.

I have the save copied to a hard drive but beyond that, I know very little about programming or hex editing, so I’d be willing to compensate someone if they could help with this.

Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you in advance for any help!

[mrneo240]

Make a bunch of saves with slightly different stuff. Then compare and narrow down.

Or look up data fuzzing and use that.

[Play2win80]

I appreciate the reply but I probably don’t have a technical skills to pull either of those off. I’d be willing to hire someone to do it though. Also, someone did find some game shark CDX codes in another forum that would be a good starting point

[RyoDC]

Actually you touched a very complicated topic.

What you're asking is the crosssection of knowledge in different domains - reverse engineering (mainly), programming, well, yep ,that's it.

I suggest you to start from basic things, learn some basic programming, some basic Computer science, and slowly get into theme.

In general, there' differnet methodics to do this, games use complex serialization protocols, people use software like IDA pro or other debugger\dissasembler tool to get inside the software and learn what it's doing exactly.

The simplest approach is mentioned by @mrneo240, you just change something in a game, modify it's state by some infitestimal small change, and then compare the resulting save files. That's how you learn what's changed and where. But it's long and error prone job.

I suggest you to start googling some basic tutorials on programming and dissasembling, and by that start to slowly dive into the topic. Don't overload, just step-by-step. It's an interesting way to learn things actually, my interest was the same when I was 11 or 13 of age.

I wish you luck!

[Play2win80]

I appreciate the reply! Although I would love to acquire this knowledge, working 15 hour workdays really limits the time I have to learn new skills such as these.

My hope is that I could basically hire someone who already has those knowledge and skills to complete this one time project. We already have a list of codes which appears to trigger certain item changes in the game.

For working codes or a hack which provides the missing items, I could pay a flat fee or hourly fee depending on the agreement.

Take care.

[mrneo240]

for what it would cost to hire me, you'd be better off doing it yourself.

[Play2win80]

About how much would it cost, ballpark? Thanks

[mrneo240]

$30/hr

[Play2win80]

Ok. Do you have a ballpark estimate of how many hours would be involved? Thank you.

[Play2win80]

PM sent

[Play2win80]

$30/hr

Hi- Per below, I think we're good with moving forward. When is the soonest you can start? I can send you the save and explain exactly what we need modified. Thank you.

[Play2win80]

Hello! Just following up to see if anyone would be interested in taking on this assignment. I haven’t made any progress with the project but I’m still willing to hire a game hacker to edit the saved file to find missing items and/or fix the last NPC story arc. Thank you!

[YZB]

Please tell me in detail how it needs to be modified and how to fix it. I don’t understand this game.

[Play2win80]

Basically I just need my save file edited to include the missing items, which includes some regular items and legendary items. It looks like it can be done with hex editing but this stuff is way over my head.

If possible, I’d also like the save file edited to also complete a story arc which apparently not possible to complete again due to the programming bugs. The story arcs are listed in the character list section of the options screen. They turn yellow when they are completed – I’ll ask a completed except for “Ayame”, I believe

Please let me know if you need any additional information! Thank you for your interest. Please take care.

[YZB]

My English is terrible, I use Google Translate, I don’t understand what you mean
You mean, modify the game save to correct specific items, specific events?

If possible, please send a game save and picture description