1. @alexras
https://www.alexras.info/
https://www.bitsondisk.com/
Alex Rasmussen
!!Con West 2019

3. https://www.talking-time.net/showthread.php?t=13833&page=6

4. EarthBound’s
text system is part of
an interpreter.
It has registers, an ISA,
and a call stack.
People have been studying
it for almost 20 years.

5. the REGISTERS!
Working (4B): return values
Argumentary (4B): arguments
Secondary (4B): mostly counters
Two register sets: active + storage

6. the INSTRUCTION SET!
a.k.a.“ControlCodes”
[OP AA BB CC …]

7. the INSTRUCTION SET!
a.k.a.“ControlCodes”
[OP AA BB CC …]

8. the INSTRUCTION SET!
a.k.a.“ControlCodes”
[OP AA BB CC …]

9. CONTROLLING TEXT
[00] - Line Break
[02] - Stop Parsing
[03] - Halt w/ Prompt
[13] - Halt w/o Prompt

10. EXAMPLE
@Hello !!Con West![03][00]
@Look at this nifty box.[13][02]
http://billeager.com/ebtext/

11. BOOLEAN VARIABLES
[04 XX XX] - Event flag on
[05 XX XX] - Event flag off
[06 XX XX YY YY YY YY] -
Jump to $YYYYYYYY if
$XXXX == 1

12. BRANCHING
[0A XX XX XX XX] -
Jump to location $XXXXXXXX
[08 XX XX XX XX] -
Jump and return
[09 XX (..)] -
Multi-address jump

13. BATTLE CONTROL
[1E 00 XX YY] -
Member $XX HP up by YY%
[1E 08 XX YY] -
Member $XX now @ level YY
[1C 08 01] -

14. CUTSCENE CONTROL
[1F E5 FF] - Lock movement
[1F F1/F2 XX XX YY YY] -
Assign movement pattern
[1F E4 XX XX DD] -
Change sprite direction

15. MISCELLANEOUS
[1F F0 02] -
Summon bicycle
[1F D2 XX] -
Summon camera guy
[1F 21 XX] -
Teleport to $XX

16. http://starmen.net/pkhack/pk_docs/lexicon.txt

17. http://starmen.net/pkhack/hacks/

18. CCSCRIPT
if hasitem(1, 0x63) {
"@Hey, you have a magic truffle!" next
"@Would you be willing to sell it?" next
menu {
"Yes" : "@Cool beans. How does $2 sound?"
"No" : "@Not even if I sweetened the deal?"
}
}
end
https://starmen.net/pkhack/ccscript/
http://bit.ly/ccscript-lib

19. COILSNAKE
https://mrtenda.github.io/CoilSnake/
Edit just about anything
in EarthBound!
Includes a CCScript
dumper and editor

20. all done, boing!
THANK YOU, zoom!
@alexras
alexras.info
bitsondisk.com
Special thanks to EarthBound Central and starmen.net for the inspiration