Which way will you go with your hack?

Many options! Many ways forward! A fork in the road!
I’m not just talking about how many levels or worlds, but the differences you put into the graphics and the programming of the game.

What flavor will it be?

Romhacking can be more than level design and map design, but it is at least that, as far as we are concerned. Many amazing hacks have been made which are vanilla; likewise, many excellent hacks and have a lot of changes to the code and graphics, called chocolate.

Vanilla hack? huh?! Well, it doesn’t mean boring, like in other contexts where “vanilla” might be an insult. This is a term used in the hacking community to say that a hack has not been modified other than in its level design / overworld map design. Some may stretch the definition and allow for graphic or sound modifications (or something else) as well. It looks and seems like the stock game.

Vanilla Plus describes a rom which has been changed in a deep way but it doesn’t end up looking a lot different while playing it. Some examples of this would be changing the speed of a koopa, or changing what an enemy throws at you, or how often an enemy throws a projectile. These will not feel like you’ve done something significant, even though it may make significant impact to the gameplay. This is a distinction I have identified which I believe has merit for usage in our lexicon. It distinguishes up front that a hack is more modified than it seems, and it will feel and play close to the original.

Chocolate is a term that is lesser used but still known in the community. It is used to indicate a hack has substantial and obvious changes to the gameplay mechanics and plays largely differently from the original game. New or heavily modified powerups, new enemies, new tiles, etc… It is a lot different and it seems like it when played. As with any specialized vocabulary in a community where there is no codified lexicon, there will be variant opinions on these terms.

To the point!

So what should you do? Good question!

The best thing to do when starting out with anything is to keep it simple — vanilla.

Making a romhack using a vanilla rom, likewise, is the best way to learn a lot about the mechanics of romhacking. It’s just not always an intuitive process, and can be frustrating, but with the tools in regular development, we can be confident about the quality of romhacks and romhacking for the future.

And you don’t want your first venture to be full of frustration, but joy and ease, as you learn the tools.