Crystal boots from a user-supplied ROM, imports a full cache and is playable:
copyright, the Crystal intro movie, the animated title, gender select, Oak,
and out into Johto. 122 of the cart's 169 script specials are implemented.
Import and data
- tools/make_crystal_manifest.py derives the manifest by importing
make_gold_manifest as a library, with three additive keyword seams. Gold and
Silver still regenerate byte-identical, which is the standing requirement for
touching that generator.
- crystal_symbol_deltas.py and crystal_movie_symbols.py carry the symbol delta:
Crystal renames the credits mons, splits the trainer card, Pokegear and
pack-pal blocks by gender, and replaces the intro and title outright.
- Crystal-only manifest keys: engineFlagOrder (162 flags to Gold's 93, so the
badge block sits one higher) and unownCharmap (the main charmap parser stops
at the first newcharmap so the two cannot contaminate each other).
Extractor
- RomExtractorGen2 becomes three-edition. Crystal corrections: PAL_MAP_BANK
0x13, a flat PICS_FIX pic bank, audio bank 0x5e, the mapSongs id-100 hole,
seven NPC trades, a TradeTexts stride of 8, the five Crystal tileset anim
steps with per-row degrade, and the column-major trainer card portraits.
- New: animated front sprites (frames, bitmasks, play and idle scripts), the
Battle Tower roster, Kris assets, Mobile System GB art, and the Crystal
intro and title via src/import/CrystalMovie.lua.
Engine
- GameVersion gains engine(id) and fixes(id). Gold and Silver keep their
original bugs where the bug is not hardware dependent; Crystal gets the fixes
Crystal shipped: Lucky Number boxes 10-14, surfing onto an NPC, and the
Reflect and Light Screen defence overflow.
- Crystal story: Suicune and Eusine, Celebi behind the GS Ball flag, the Ruins
of Alph chambers, Buena, the Move Tutor, the Poke Seer, and the Battle Tower
including the wInBattleTowerBattle badge-boost guard.
- Kris and the gender flag, animated fronts in battle and the summary screen,
and mon caught data.
Verification
- Every extracted asset is pixel-compared against pret's own source PNGs.
- Gold caches are byte-identical before and after, file for file.
- New Crystal suites plus a T2 Gen 2 tier; the full suite passes.
battle.exp_award hands a mod ctx.applyShare(mon, split, announce) on both
generations, and on Gen 1 the third argument decides whether the mon's
GainedText box is printed -- which is how a mod paying the whole party
prints ONE summary line instead of a box per recipient. Gold accepted
the argument and ignored it, so the same mod source printed one line on
Red and one per party member on Gold.
The Exp Share mod is the live case: it declares games gen1+gen2 and its
description promises "a single shared-exp line instead of one message per
Pokemon", passing true for the fighters and nil for the bench exactly as
the Gen 1 seam asks. On Gold every nil call announced anyway, so a
five-mon party turned every KO into six boxes. There was no mod-side
fix: the emit sits behind no hook, and the argument meaning "quietly" was
discarded.
Gold now reads it, and ONLY when it is actually passed -- by argument
count, not by value. select("#", ...) counts an explicit nil, so
applyShare(mon, split) is distinguishable from applyShare(mon, split,
nil); the first is a Gen 2-era call written against a seam that always
announced and keeps announcing, the second is a deliberate "pay this one
quietly" and is now silent on both games. No mod that exists today
changes behaviour, and a mod that passes the argument gets parity.
Only the { kind = "experience" } event is affected. A silent award is
still a whole award: exp, stat exp, battle.exp_gained, "grew to level",
learned moves and the forget prompt are untouched, in the same order.
giveExperiencePass takes a sixth `silent` parameter that defaults to
announcing, so both of the cart's own passes are unchanged.
RFC: docs/rfcs/0012-gen2-exp-award-announce.md
Docs: docs/mod-api-gen2-compat.md gains the reading and the residual
omitted-argument difference beside the existing payload note.
Tests: tests/gen2_exp_share_test.lua grows the two Route B tests -- the
no-mod parity case and the seam driven through hooks:wrap -- and
its 23 existing checks are unchanged.
Silver: derived import manifest (tools/make_silver_manifest.py re-resolves
the Gold manifest's symbols from pokesilver.sym), silver GameVersion row,
generation-keyed extractor routing, required-files override, edition save
stamping (a Silver playthrough no longer writes into the Gold save),
checkver-driven edition data, SILVER/KAMON/OSCAR/MAX presets, GOLD rival
default, edition credits banner, Lugia title screen (OAM layouts, bob,
trail, palettes as title.lua data keys with Gold defaults so old caches
need no re-import), packaging for every build target, docs, and tests.
Launcher: the installed-mods list is one continuous scroll (rows culled to
the viewport) instead of a pager with an inner scroll viewport; the pad
cursor's edge-scroll no longer runs it to the bottom. The game dropdown
shows just the initial and caret. Find-tab behavior unchanged.
Title tempo: a sprite-anim frame shows duration+1 ticks
(engine/sprite_anims/core.asm GetSpriteAnimFrame), which locks both
editions' 64-tick wing beat to the 64-tick sine bob; the title screens no
longer run fast and out of phase.
bryanthaboi
MaxTomahawk
jramiresbrito
AverageConsumer
1jamie