Several hand-ported scripts carry pokered dialogue as inline English
literals instead of reading game.data.text, because the real ROM
label was never reachable from data/generated/text.lua:
ViridianCityYoungster2OkThenText/CaterpieAndWeedleDescriptionText,
TMNotebookText, the SS Anne kitchen cook's three dish lines, and the
Viridian fisher's pre-gift line (data/scripts/story5.lua's gift()
already read t[label] here, just had a stale comment and a missing
fallback).
Traced the actual cause carefully -- there are two independent,
differently-behaved label scanners in this codebase:
- tools/extract/text.py's parse_text_file() requires a label to
start with "_" to be collected. This is a real bug (confirmed
against a real pret/pokered checkout), but this function has no
callers anywhere in the tree and no __main__ entry point -- it
looks like dead code left over from an earlier version of the
pipeline.
- The function that actually produces the shipped label list is
text_metadata() in tools/make_rom_manifest.py, which feeds
manifest["text"]["labels"], which build_rom_data.py's
extract_text() iterates to decode each label straight from the
ROM. text_metadata() already uses the permissive regex (no "_"
requirement) since commit 0f581e2f.
So the actual blocker is that the committed tools/rom_manifest.json
was stale relative to text_metadata()'s current code, not a source
bug. Verified by rebuilding pret/pokered from source with RGBDS
(reproducible -- the resulting pokered.gbc/pokeblue.gbc hash to the
same canonical SHA-1s gen1recomp already pins, so no cartridge dump
was involved anywhere here) and running the real, unmodified
make_rom_manifest.py against it: 2595 labels against the committed
manifest's 2585, a clean superset containing everything these
scripts need. SilphCo2FSilphWorkerFPleaseTakeThisText is the one
exception already in the manifest -- confirmed by commit 0f581e2f
("so many bugs i cannot even breathe") that it was hand-patched in
exactly this same targeted way, for issue #393.
Fix:
- tools/extract/text.py: relaxed parse_text_file()'s regex to match
text_metadata()'s, for consistency (no effect on what ships, since
nothing calls this function, but no reason to leave a legacy copy
of the same scanner out of sync).
- Four scripts read the real label first (t[label] or fallback, the
established pattern): celadon_eevee.lua, ss_anne_kitchen.lua,
viridian_city.lua, story5.lua (comment/fallback only, lookup was
already correct).
- tools/rom_manifest.json and tools/rom_manifest_blue.json:
regenerated for real -- both files are the direct, unedited output
of running make_rom_manifest.py/make_blue_manifest.py against a
real pret/pokered checkout at POKERED_REVISION, not hand-assembled
or reverse-engineered to match. Only safe because of the two fixes
below, which exist specifically so a real run doesn't regress
anything the previously-committed files had. Diffing a real
make_rom_manifest.py run against that previous file (1143 lines
out of 45253) found exactly what a naive "just regenerate against
whatever pokered HEAD is handy" would have silently broken:
- pret/pokered commit 079d1cc92fc3b0ec82bc1418c2b4045bfca84620
(PR #596, 2026-08-06) renamed
_SilphCo10FGiovanniILostAgainText/_SilphCo10FPorygonText to
_SilphCo11F... (they live in text/SilphCo11F.asm, Giovanni's
floor). data/scripts/victories.lua:183 still hardcodes the old
name, and extracting under pokered's new name would silently
blank Giovanni's "I lost again!?" rematch line. Fix is the pin
below: POKERED_REVISION is pinned to the last commit before this
rename, so today's generator output matches victories.lua
natively, no engine code touched, no generator-side workaround
either. Advancing the pin past this commit is a real, welcome
future upgrade -- it just needs victories.lua's labels (and
anything else's) fixed up in the same change.
- trainerPartyOverrides.OPP_CHIEF (Giovanni's Celadon gym team)
wasn't produced by any code under tools/ at all. Traced why:
pret/pokered's data/trainers/parties.asm has "ChiefData: ; none"
-- the Celadon Chief's battle is unused/cut content in the
original game, and RomExtractor.lua's own comment confirms
gen1recomp reimplements it as a real fight using a hand-authored
party for exactly that reason -- no pokered commit, old or new,
will ever produce this data. Added a TRAINER_PARTY_OVERRIDES
constant to make_rom_manifest.py so this survives every future
regeneration automatically; verified it reproduces the committed
value byte-for-byte and flows through to Blue/Yellow for free
via their existing derive-from-Red path.
- trainerHeaders.MtMoonB2F's Super Nerd slot is pre-existing
fabricated data, not pokered drift: his event name,
EVENT_BEAT_MT_MOON_3_SUPER_NERD, has never existed in pokered at
any point in its history (the real name,
EVENT_BEAT_MT_MOON_EXIT_SUPER_NERD, has been stable since 2015),
nor in gen1recomp's own event_flags.lua; trainerDefeated()
checks defeatedTrainers[npc.id] first, the same pattern already
used for the Fighting Dojo's Karate Master, so this entry is
very likely already inert. field.seafoam also differs from a
fresh regeneration (two showObject boulder-toggle IDs in the B3F
puzzle, a live gameplay system nobody has verified either value
against), and field.tradeArt is new content a fresh extraction
produces that was never shipped. None of those three are this
PR's problem to fix, but a real generator run has to do
something with them regardless -- so make_rom_manifest.py gets a
new apply_known_nonreproducible_overrides(), called right after
text_metadata()/field_metadata(), that pins MtMoonB2F and
seafoam back to what was already shipped and drops tradeArt,
each with a comment explaining why and what the real fix looks
like (MtMoonB2F needs a Data:seedMtMoonB2FSuperNerd()-style
engine seed, not manifest data). Verified this override function
was complete and correct -- diffed a real run against the
previously-committed file first, empty -- before trusting it to
write tools/rom_manifest.json/_blue.json directly; both are now
literally that generator's output, not hand-assembled.
tools/rom_manifest_yellow.json isn't touched by this PR at all:
it already had all ten labels, and make_yellow_manifest.py has
no matching override yet for its own field.oldManBattle outlier,
so regenerating it for real isn't safe the same way yet.
- tools/make_rom_manifest.py: added a POKERED_REVISION pin --
cf621a76d4941c93c078eb38e0880fe8db48ef40, the last pret/pokered
commit before the Silph Co rename above, chosen deliberately
rather than current HEAD -- and a check_pokered_revision() guard
main() calls before generating: fails loudly if --pokered isn't
at that commit instead of silently absorbing whatever upstream
renames or restructures since, with an explicit
--allow-revision-mismatch escape hatch for a deliberate pin bump.
That's the intended way this pin moves forward: diff a fresh run
against the committed manifest, fix up whatever engine code
depends on by exact name, and bump POKERED_REVISION in the same
change -- a conscious, reviewable decision instead of a silent
contributor default. Wired the same guard into
make_blue_manifest.py and make_yellow_manifest.py for their own
--pokered/--pokeyellow checkouts; make_yellow_manifest.py gets its
own POKEYELLOW_REVISION (e6ba56989b0f2694f393e6924820be11dcc1fbb8,
verified here). The pin and its guard live entirely in the
generator source, not also embedded as a field in the shipped
manifests -- that would be redundant with the .py constant next to
it in the same commit, for no protection the guard doesn't already
give.
- tools/make_rom_manifest.py, make_blue_manifest.py,
make_yellow_manifest.py: switched json.dump(..., ensure_ascii=
False, ...) to ensure_ascii=True to match how the committed
manifests were actually encoded (escaped \uXXXX rather than
literal UTF-8). Purely cosmetic -- json.load parses both
identically -- but needed so that a fresh make_rom_manifest.py run
at POKERED_REVISION now produces tools/rom_manifest.json
byte-for-byte (plain diff empty), not just content-equal. One
small, pre-existing cosmetic mismatch remains and wasn't chased: a
single nested dict, field.cardKeyDoors.doors, has its
SILPH_CO_10F/11F keys in natural floor order in the committed file
instead of the sort_keys=True lexicographic order everything else
in the file uses -- same content either way.
- tests/rom_manifest_generator_test.py: new ROM-free unit tests (same
style as the existing tests/build_rom_data_cli_test.py, wired into
scripts/test.sh as a T0 tier) for check_pokered_revision() and
apply_known_nonreproducible_overrides() -- matching/mismatched/
bypassed/unresolvable-checkout revision cases, and that the
MtMoonB2F/seafoam/tradeArt overrides land correctly (including
alongside a populated map entry, and without erroring when
tradeArt is already absent). Doesn't replace the manual real-ROM
verification above, which needs an actual pokered/RGBDS toolchain
-- but a future typo or logic slip in either function now fails
immediately instead of only surfacing next time someone happens to
redo that manual check.
- Left data/scripts/flavor/silph_co_9f.lua's nurse dialogue (labels
also added to both manifests here) untouched code-wise: static
command table, not a function, needs its
face_player/heal_party/fade state machine restructured to use
t[label] safely, and show_text's un-resolved-label fallback prints
the label name literally rather than English -- not safe without
interactive testing.
Checked Yellow's equivalent case (Melanie's House) since it looked
like the same shape: it isn't actually broken.
tools/make_yellow_manifest.py's YELLOW_EXTRA_TEXT_LABELS already
force-includes those eight labels, and a real built
dialogue_yellow.lua already has correct French translations for
them. tools/rom_manifest_yellow.json also already carries all ten
labels this PR adds to Red/Blue. No label changes needed there.
Tested: patched parse_text_file() against a real pret/pokered
checkout (+11 labels, 0 removed, all clearly dialogue-shaped);
rebuilt pokered.gbc/pokeblue.gbc with RGBDS at current pret/pokered
HEAD (confirmed hashes to gen1recomp's own canonical SHA-1s) and
diffed a fresh make_rom_manifest.py run there against the committed
manifest to map out what a full regen at HEAD would need; re-checked
out the same pokered checkout at cf621a76 (POKERED_REVISION),
rebuilt both ROMs again (same canonical hashes); with
apply_known_nonreproducible_overrides() and the ensure_ascii fix in
place, ran both generators to a scratch path first and diffed
against the then-committed manifests -- empty -- before running them
again writing tools/rom_manifest.json/_blue.json directly, so both
files are now the generator's literal, unedited output (git diff on
that final write: 18 lines moved in rom_manifest.json, exactly the
pre-existing SILPH_CO_10F/11F ordering quirk; zero lines changed in
rom_manifest_blue.json); rebuilt pokeyellow.gbc the same way, confirmed its
canonical hash, and confirmed make_yellow_manifest.py's symbols/
text/trainerHeaders/trainerPartyOverrides also come out byte-for-
byte identical to the committed tools/rom_manifest_yellow.json; ran
the real build_rom_data.py --only text against all three rebuilt
ROMs and confirmed every added label decodes from real ROM bytes
matching the English fallback literals exactly; verified
check_pokered_revision() actually raises on a deliberate mismatch
before relying on it to gate the runs above; python3
tests/rom_manifest_generator_test.py: 9/9 pass; luajit
tests/run_engine.lua: 250/250 suites pass.
thibautbus
bryanthaboi