nesdev.org

I heard a story today that sometimes when you download a rom from somewhere, people hacked it to pop-up pictures of penis's or something inappropriate in the middle of the game. I've found no record of such things. Sounds made up to me. Anybody heard of this before?

It's technically doable (how realistic the penises will be will obviously depend on the console's graphical capabilities), but I doubt many people would waste their time just to troll random people for a few seconds. I don't know of any hacks with surprise inappropriate images, but there's the occasional "Naked Mario", where characters are drawn naked.

"Occasional" naked Mario?

tokumaru wrote:I doubt many people would waste their time just to troll random people for a few seconds. I don't know of any hacks with surprise inappropriate images

Perhaps the surprising part is the sheer quantity of hacks focused on NSFW content. But then perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising given a couple things. For one thing, it could be a backlash against Nintendo's track record for censorship prior to Mortal Kombat II, which is when Nintendo first allowed a game to go out with the equivalent to the modern M rating on the label. For another, recall rule 34 of user-generated content on the Internet: if you can think of it, there's pornography of it.

One interesting case is Nuts and Milk. The original version was safe for work, but the first version I saw was the hack where the characters were turned into penises. At first, I thought it was one of those pirate-original "H games" out of Asia. "Oh, I get it: 'nuts' and 'milk'."

As an NES homebrew game developer, I prefer safe-for-work ideas when I troll players:

• Body plan differences that are considered usual in-universe but which may fall into the uncanny valley for some players. This may include a race of people born with no legs, or a race of people with conjoined legs who live near beaches and are responsible for mermaid myths. How creepy would humans appear through alien eyes?
• Vague parallels to historic tragedies, such as winning your freedom from ethnic detainment through a game of mental skill (accused of Nazi overtones) or rescuing a kitten hiding from a bully who would later grow up to serve a life sentence for assassinating someone famous.
• Unsafe activities made safe, such as Russian roulette with a toy gun or a paintball marker.
• Cartoon characters acting wildly out of character for reasons that the ending justifies.

tepples wrote:"Occasional" naked Mario?

tokumaru wrote:I doubt many people would waste their time just to troll random people for a few seconds. I don't know of any hacks with surprise inappropriate images

Perhaps the surprising part is the sheer quantity of hacks focused on NSFW content. But then perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising given a couple things. For one thing, it could be a backlash ...

Pfft. You're over-analyzing something simple. It's adolescents discovering ROM editors for the first time.

Hell. I know I was "recoloring" pixels with the Duke Nukem 3D editors when I was an adolescent. You got that one right.

ccovell wrote:

tepples wrote:"Occasional" naked Mario?

tokumaru wrote:I doubt many people would waste their time just to troll random people for a few seconds. I don't know of any hacks with surprise inappropriate images

Perhaps the surprising part is the sheer quantity of hacks focused on NSFW content. But then perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising given a couple things. For one thing, it could be a backlash ...

Pfft. You're over-analyzing something simple. It's adolescents discovering ROM editors for the first time.

This. Though, who else would feel a "backlash" against a 1990s censorship policy is worth doing?