AwesomeREA.org

Case study

pokered: a matching Pokémon Red and Blue disassembly

Reconstructs the Game Boy games Pokémon Red and Blue as RGBDS assembly, with graphics and data kept as editable source files. One tree builds the USA/Europe Red and Blue ROMs, a Blue debug build and patches for the Virtual Console releases, each checked against a recorded SHA-1. It is a full disassembly rather than a decompilation into a higher-level language.

Requirements and limitations

  • README says the disassembly builds Pokemon Red (UE), Pokemon Blue (UE), the BLUEMONS.GB debug build and two Virtual Console patch files, listing a SHA-1 for each. Code, text, maps and audio are RGBDS assembly, and graphics are PNG files converted during the build; Virtual Console patches come from separate VC builds and patch templates.
  • The build reads no original ROM: every input is in the repository, so the outputs are rebuilt from source rather than combined with extracted assets. The repository therefore carries the game's text, graphics and data in source form.
  • INSTALL.md covers Linux distributions, macOS with Homebrew, Windows through WSL (or Cygwin on older Windows) and Termux. The build needs make, gcc or clang, git and rgbds 1.0.4, which the repository pins; helper tools under tools/ handle graphics conversion, compression and patch generation.
  • make compare builds every target and runs sha1sum against roms.sha1. pret's CI does this on Linux and macOS with rgbds 1.0.4 and fails when the build leaves uncommitted changes, while forks only build. Matching hashes show identical output bytes, not that labels and documentation are complete or that modified builds behave correctly. This collection did not build the ROMs.
  • The repository has no license file, so reuse terms for the disassembly are unstated, and the original game's content remains its rights holders'. rgbds is a separate project with its own terms. The reviewed sources establish no AI or REA attribution.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
Game

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  2. INSTALL.md GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  3. Makefile GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  4. roms.sha1 GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  5. .rgbds-version GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  6. .github/workflows/main.yml GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  7. .github/checkdiff.sh GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989
  8. vc GitHub · pret/pokered · Revision af51989