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Getting Started with the FireRed Decompilation

 Many years ago, I was a ROM hacker. I never finished a project, not because of the classic "I've started, so I'll not finish" trap that many home projects fall into, but because the ROM is so fragile that doing anything can completely break it and you need to constantly be creating back-ups if you want to progress at all. I've had my eye on the Pokémon FireRed decompilation project for a while, and a few months ago I decided to get started with it. Unlike ROM hacking which edits the actual game file, the decompilation project is a reverse-engineered code base which can be edited and then built into an actual game. It generally means that there's no need to be constantly creating back-ups (unless, for some reason, source control isn't being used), and it's much easier to change or add completely new features to the game.
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Now You're Speaking My Language

When writing about the dialogue system a few weeks ago, I mentioned that it was important to consider how translations would work at the beginning of the project. If every string has been hardcoded in English and there is now a demand to support a different language, then all of those strings need to be found, extracted and replaced with an ID before the translation can even begin. Depending on the size of the project, this can take weeks or even months to do it properly. So the best way to avoid that scenario is to setup the project as if it is going to be translated, even if it isn't.
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Krampus

Krampus is a movie that I have been meaning to watch for years. It's been patiently waiting in the My List section on Netflix for the coinciding of December where it is acceptable to watch Christmas movies, and me actually being able to find the My List section because it's never in the same place. All I knew was that it was a Christmas movie that featured a monster called Krampus. My favourite Christmas movie features lots of tiny monsters, but unlike Gremlins, I'm not going to be rewatching Krampus every year.
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