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I have an interest in simulated life (Alife). I was a big fan of the Chao from Sonic Adventure and like wise, I'm also interested in the Nightopians and MyDream of Nights: Journey of Dreams. Unfortunately, Sonic Team rarely releases *any* information on the mechanics of these systems. Sure, they give basic info, but nothing beyond that... its like, Why go through the trouble of programming an incredibly complex system and then not bother to tell anyone how to fully take advantage of it? And well... even if they did I would still want god like control over every aspect of it. Figuring out how something ticks and taking advantage of it is part of the fun 
Thankfully the Sonic community dissected everything about the Chao system and documented instructions on raising them, breading paths, ect.
Unfortunately the fan base of Nights is much smaller. It is still sizable, but for ever 10,000 avid fans you might have 1 among them who is has the skills to analyze the system outside of it's intended use (hacking :P ) And this is very unfortunate because the Alife system in NJOD is incredibly more complex than the Chao. Not just the creatures themselves, but their entire environment is a sandbox system.
Unfortunately there are many factors that prevent the player from experiencing it. First, the player has little control / interaction with this system and it all depends on the Alifes in it. Second, no information about the system itself, how the creatures in it influence the sandbox environment was released. Third, no information on how to interact with the alifes was released. Their breeding system/ chart is still a mystery.
Compounding all of this is the mechanics of interacting with the alifes is needlessly tedious and largely up to chance... and very small chances at that. Here is an example. To get the alifes into their garden you have to "capture" them from the action stages. Problem 1, you are on rails through a set path in an 3D environment yet the creatures have full range of movement. They are placed to spawn in or near your path, but they can wonder away and often do. Problem 2, to is influencing the Alifes traits. To do this, after you kill an enemy it becomes a ball. You have to "aim" this bouncy ball on a rotating 360o axis at Alifes that are still in the action stage and hope it hits one. The ball bounces along your railed flight path, but once released you can't touch it again... and the alifes are rarely still in that path. In the off chance one does get it an egg is created... which could very easily land too far away for you to capture.
Now, lets say you actually get one of these eggs. The "change" or influence on the resulting alife is totally random. Much like giving a Chao an animal, the alifes in NJOD will have various body parts replaced by the enemys that helped create it. Only in this game, what parts are changed and how many are totally random and unchangeable by the player.
The player can then breed the alifes collected in the garden. The breeding paths are affected by which enemy traits the alife has. Only it takes an act of god to obtain an altered alife and the alifes don't breed easily or often. It is no wonder no one has had the obession and thousands of hours of trial and error to figure it out. There is also "the ultimate form" of these creatures, but no one is sure on how the got it.
On top of all this, the garden is a sandbox environment. It changes depending on the alifes in it. From elevation (it starts out flat and can end vastly hilly with lakes), to trees, the color of the grass, objects, weather, ect. All of which are beyond the users control. Somewhat like animal crossing, only constantly changing.
There is a similar, yet much simpler system in the Saturn Nights. It took 10 YEARS and hundreds of hours of gameplay for them to figure out how to get the "ultimate" alife. They made a website about it, but it was in french and is still uncommon knowledge among Nights fans. I suspect it is similar in NJOD, but with even if it is, the chances of getting the right conditions are so small... I have too much of a life to devote to the trial that might not even work.
So... I'm going to hack the game Not just to get the garden to my custom preferences... but to be able to set up the circumstances and conditions at will and see what happens. Essentially, not just so I can customize the save, but study and figure-out how the system actually ticks. Ok, enough on that...
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Wii emulation has gotten pretty darn decent as of late and that will make this far, far easier. I have extracted the save from my wii as I already have a developed garden to compare/play with. (Yes I used homebrew apps to extract the save unencrypted) Its actually convenient as within the game save files is actually ALifeStorage.
I know how to use a hex editor to search / find and change values. But, that is the extent of my knowledge. Alot of this will be trial and error for me.
The most important thing I need to know/ will need help with is: do saves have check sums and if so how do I recalculate them? I haven't actually set any of this up yet to start experimenting, but it would be nice to already know before I delve in.
And, once I have a working knowledge of the save and know what values do what, is there anyone who can program interested in helping to create a GUIed editor?
Thankfully the Sonic community dissected everything about the Chao system and documented instructions on raising them, breading paths, ect.
Unfortunately the fan base of Nights is much smaller. It is still sizable, but for ever 10,000 avid fans you might have 1 among them who is has the skills to analyze the system outside of it's intended use (hacking :P ) And this is very unfortunate because the Alife system in NJOD is incredibly more complex than the Chao. Not just the creatures themselves, but their entire environment is a sandbox system.
Unfortunately there are many factors that prevent the player from experiencing it. First, the player has little control / interaction with this system and it all depends on the Alifes in it. Second, no information about the system itself, how the creatures in it influence the sandbox environment was released. Third, no information on how to interact with the alifes was released. Their breeding system/ chart is still a mystery.
Compounding all of this is the mechanics of interacting with the alifes is needlessly tedious and largely up to chance... and very small chances at that. Here is an example. To get the alifes into their garden you have to "capture" them from the action stages. Problem 1, you are on rails through a set path in an 3D environment yet the creatures have full range of movement. They are placed to spawn in or near your path, but they can wonder away and often do. Problem 2, to is influencing the Alifes traits. To do this, after you kill an enemy it becomes a ball. You have to "aim" this bouncy ball on a rotating 360o axis at Alifes that are still in the action stage and hope it hits one. The ball bounces along your railed flight path, but once released you can't touch it again... and the alifes are rarely still in that path. In the off chance one does get it an egg is created... which could very easily land too far away for you to capture.
Now, lets say you actually get one of these eggs. The "change" or influence on the resulting alife is totally random. Much like giving a Chao an animal, the alifes in NJOD will have various body parts replaced by the enemys that helped create it. Only in this game, what parts are changed and how many are totally random and unchangeable by the player.
The player can then breed the alifes collected in the garden. The breeding paths are affected by which enemy traits the alife has. Only it takes an act of god to obtain an altered alife and the alifes don't breed easily or often. It is no wonder no one has had the obession and thousands of hours of trial and error to figure it out. There is also "the ultimate form" of these creatures, but no one is sure on how the got it.
On top of all this, the garden is a sandbox environment. It changes depending on the alifes in it. From elevation (it starts out flat and can end vastly hilly with lakes), to trees, the color of the grass, objects, weather, ect. All of which are beyond the users control. Somewhat like animal crossing, only constantly changing.
There is a similar, yet much simpler system in the Saturn Nights. It took 10 YEARS and hundreds of hours of gameplay for them to figure out how to get the "ultimate" alife. They made a website about it, but it was in french and is still uncommon knowledge among Nights fans. I suspect it is similar in NJOD, but with even if it is, the chances of getting the right conditions are so small... I have too much of a life to devote to the trial that might not even work.
So... I'm going to hack the game
Not just to get the garden to my custom preferences... but to be able to set up the circumstances and conditions at will and see what happens. Essentially, not just so I can customize the save, but study and figure-out how the system actually ticks. Ok, enough on that...---
Wii emulation has gotten pretty darn decent as of late and that will make this far, far easier. I have extracted the save from my wii as I already have a developed garden to compare/play with. (Yes I used homebrew apps to extract the save unencrypted) Its actually convenient as within the game save files is actually ALifeStorage.
I know how to use a hex editor to search / find and change values. But, that is the extent of my knowledge. Alot of this will be trial and error for me.
The most important thing I need to know/ will need help with is: do saves have check sums and if so how do I recalculate them? I haven't actually set any of this up yet to start experimenting, but it would be nice to already know before I delve in.
And, once I have a working knowledge of the save and know what values do what, is there anyone who can program interested in helping to create a GUIed editor?