Creating e-Reader Villagers in Animal Crossing

[@Hunter-R.]

Happy FlexiSpot Black Friday Sale now, up to 65% OFF! You also have the chance to win free orders during this period. Use my code 'YTE7P50' to get an extra $50 off the E7 Plus, E7 Pro or E7L standing desk! Check it out now: bit.ly/3UO42On

[@mhfsilver_]

W

[@Cliffordlonghead]

hiii

[@theredlumas2]

standing desk! standing desk.

[@yoisakikanade_]

congrats on the sponsor man

[@johnklay1]

No hate if this is an intentional decision -- didn't you say in a previous video that you would not take sponsorships? Regardless I don't mind at all and I'm really happy you're profiting off this channel!! Glad it gives you motivation to keep making videos. I want it to last forever :')

[@Ben79k]

the fact that piplup wasnt even theorized when this game came out, and yet is "in the game" on original hardware with no "modifications" is kind of spectacular.

[@momoapples]

Piplup in AC is actually such a cute idea

[@Hunter-R.]

I was debating which character to go with, but I figured a Pokémon would be the most recognizable and easiest. The Sanrio villagers from New Leaf were another option I considered... but I'll leave that to better texture artists than me.

[@Pearlthesquid]

I agree! Maybe in the next game they’ll do a crossover like in new leaf

[@velvetbutterfly]

@@Hunter-R. if you want to do a part 2 or something for fun you could try something like Koromaru or Teddie from the Persona series or probably find some kind of famous animal companion from some anime people love Yoshi is iconic too, Okami would probably draw in fans... Actually a series of shorts showing off various popular characters would probably be good at growing your audience.

[@Loki-]

Makes me think of doing Prinny from Disgaea

[@abeltrame0000]

This!!!! There's a criminally underrated artist who's been making animations with custom models and textures of pokemon in animal crossing! youtube.com/@spicybeefu They look absolutely adorable, and they deserve so much more recognition, hype them up!

[@CannedWolfMeat]

It's wild how the e-reader was basically just a Nintendo-approved code injection tool. I guess they just never anticipated people would ever learn how to reverse engineer the dotcode system and use it to write their own game code to make their own patch updates.

[@InnocentGuillotine]

Tbh at the time even if you did reverse-engineer it, it would have been extremely expensive and very difficult to make and print new cards at a quality that functioned. It's a bit like how the unusual size of the GCN discs were the primary deterrent of piracy in the system.

[@ducky_vt3982]

​@@InnocentGuillotineIt's kind of crazy to think that, at the time, e-reader cards would have been more expensive and complex to reproduce for the average consumer than amiibo nfcs are now.

[@JamesTDG]

Now if only we could abuse it to do ACE, then we could provide a native way to patch the game via save data to do the same bit of magic in NTSC/PAL versions

[@zdelrod829]

@@JamesTDG That's theoretically possible, but extremely difficult, because not every gba game with ereader support has an ACE exploit currently known about.

[@SweetestToast]

Hunter: I’m not too great at pixel art… Also Hunter with the Piplup model: 👨‍🍳👌🔥🔥🍳🥘

[@GoJibson]

Mans can make pixel art, code in multiple languages, do graphic design, create technical documentation, and edit videos. He can't be stopped!

[@willoux_]

i like how this channel went from "heres some funny and interesting glitches in animal crossing gc!!" to now "what horrors can we implant into the game"

[@HKlink]

I love that you correctly use the extremely rare but adorable computer science term nybble.

[@smellyghost]

As someone with a comp sci degree and working as a developer (and a huge animal crossing fan), I love the super in depth deep dives into technical details.

[@Haux49]

True

[@Totavier]

1:03 Alright, that Pikachu is fuel nightmare...

[@Hunter-R.]

The textures are unfortunately super low resolution and tend to wrap strangely around all the models... I was debating which model to use for a Pikachu-like villager, but it's kinda hard to actually create decent looking villagers without unintentionally making them super scary!

[@Totavier]

No I get you!, I remember when I tried so many times to do a cute face to Blanca the cat and everytime ends in nightmare fuel too. 😂 Actually design pixel art is not that easy how it sounds because it depends mostly in how much space you are allowed to draw. Piplup in other hand is easier to do since it not require too much pixels to draw, that one end up quite good in the design!.

[@fuseegelee]

Nightmare fuel*

[@CPU3pt14159]

This is INSANE. The work you and the folks you worked with did to figure out all of those check sums sounds monumental. Thank you for the tools and analysis, this is such an incredible expression of fandom.

[@choccymilk8491]

Mr. The Hunter R, I just wanted to let you know my friend and I now have a tradition where I instantly text him “New Hunter R video just dropped” the millisecond I get a notification for a new video. Genuinely we both just enjoy your content so much!!! KZbinr of all time

[@drgabi18]

Hunter should delete the video and reupload so your friend can win too

[@thewowo]

Same here! I usually text my partner something along the lines of "babe wake up new hunter R video just dropped" Interesting to know im not the only one

[@SniperOnSunday]

It never ceases to amaze me that Animal Crossing essentially has official modding software.

[@ohhadivist]

The feeds are so full of stressful nonsense today I breathed an actual sigh of relief when I saw this aha. Very cool work here

[@jackmartin6502]

That's so awesome! Also - I'm a fan of the sponsorship. Feels non obtrusive and like something you'd actually use. Glad to see you're finally getting sponsors!

[@Hunter-R.]

Appreciate you saying that! I've made it a priority of mine to only really accept sponsorships that I would feel comfortable promoting, so I'm glad it feels natural.

[@pikmin_79]

Imagine this was added back today. Think of all the nice villagers could be made

[@creative_leafeonpony_fan1545]

12:29 "We can find Piplup waiting for us as a new resident!" *attempts to push Piplup off the cliff*

[@BEAR-3-]

The piplup is soso cute!! I'm excited to see what type of custom villagers people will make now that this process is becoming more readily available!

[@histrionix]

what could go wrong

[@mrlaz9011]

I would take guts from berserk and turn him into a very cranky wolf. But I don't feel like getting a bunch of old hardware to do it.

[@JamesMoney]

I love the creativity here. Being able to add new data to a game, almost in a similar fashion to a mod, on unmodified hardware is really cool. The documentation and explaination is much appreciated, and I'm sure people will be able to build off of this and share creations when your tool launches!

[@JamesTDG]

13:14 Seriously, please do make sure to get that texture editor to provide a live preview, since IDK what I am doing in the current tool available.

[@stishstash166]

you can go to Textures Resource and download textures of existing villagers to work off of, you should be able to load them into the program to draw over

[@LilyBloomVee]

It's so mind blowing how easy it is to import custom villagers without really modifying the games data. Really makes me want to get my hands on the game and eReader itself to try this out.

[@MayorMori]

Amazing, and super interesting as always! I love the e-reader cards so am excited to try and create my own! Thanks for working so hard on your videos. Keep it up.

[@NataliasClips]

Hi mori! Never though i would see you here.

[@EeveeEuphoria]

i hope that one translation patch for this version of the game comes out some time in my lifetime, i remember it being worked on for a good while til development just suddenly stopped, i think cuz a decomp is needed to progress further

[@jojosbizarretransgenderism]

There’s actually translation patches that are roughly 80% done, enough to play just fine while not speaking Japanese.

[@konodanshi]

So happy to see you getting sponsor deals! Watching your channel grow has been a delight, it's so cool getting to learn all these details in depth. It really scratches a specific itch for me lol.

[@anightatrosies]

love that the desk flexispot sent you has an E and a Plus, very fitting for the topic of the video

[@thewowo]

These videos scratch a very specific itch for me. I really enjoy seeing the binary layouts of these obscure video game formats. There's something about giving meaning to a stream of data and making a program that's able to parse it that i find quite satisfying. Data types, bitwise manipulation, endianness, bit masks, enumerations, indexed bitmaps, and so many other things that come to mind. I've tried to make tools for parsing video game formats myself (only 1 is somewhat usable) and it's a pretty good learning experience, however there's a lot of pain involved, specially if the format isn't well documented.

[@Cloud67TR]

thank you for linux support (old verison wasn't working on wine)

[@TFD_Animations]

Man, now i wish we can edit their dialogue and then we effectively got a more sandboxy animal crossing. Creating our own villagers and stuff with their own personality and stuff to make them unique, endless possibilities for actually making a more story-moded animal crossing.

[@Scorbunnyear]

Nice. I have a custom Scorbunny villager in my town in Doubutsu no Mori e+. I've been wanting to make an actual card for him for a while. I'll be patiently awaiting the day I can get Scorbunny as an actual e-reader card

[@realdonutking123]

YOU WERE ON MY TOP FIVE CREATORS I WATCHED ON KZbin THIS YEAR

[@l3layze]

This is REALLY freaking cool! people are about to come up with some CRAZY villagers to add into Animal Crossing... too bad it only works on the japanese version

[@MrBuiznessMan]

Imagine having this technology in the game's hayday. You could release real life Creepypasta Cards into the unsuspecting masses.

[@echowoods7977]

aww, your piplup is really cute!

[@thatcloveplant]

crazy just how easy it is to create a custom villager, this is so cool!!

[@robbiekincaid5448]

As an aspiring software engineer that loves classic Nintendo titles (including AC), your content is incredible. Please continue the great work!

[@S0ULESSB0NES]

Hey there! I tagged you a while back on Twitter with a custom villager I made based off of your older video bringing it up! ^_^ Can't wait to see even more people try this out now and make their own villagers!!

[@Bolt505]

Huge respect for contributing the in depth documentation for everything.

[@flupahboy]

Animal Crossing e+ is really one of the best in the series. Hopefully with the Switch 2 we can get gamecube games in there and MAYBE a translated version of e+.

[@catholiccontriversy]

I'm glad that this is for an unsupported offline game. This would be exploited in all the worst ways if this was available in an online game.

[@officalcassiopeia]

The most broken animal crossing game, covered by the best animal crossing youtuber in my opinion.

[@PurpleLPikmin]

The more I learn about the E-Reader and the its cards the more impressed I am by the amount of work that went into them and how efficiently the tiny amount of data each card can hold was used. It's just too bad all that went into an pretty bad accessory that had 0 chance of ever being successful.

[@asra-5180]

They're just proto amiibos. Which needed an accessory too until new 3ds.

[@kgpz100]

My man, you are doing the lord's work. Not only are your videos extremely educational, but your dedication to AC and ease of approachability for noobs is practically unparalleled.

[@REM27]

I love how you combine reverse engineering and creativity to revive forgotten features like the e-Reader cards. Your passion for customizing Animal Crossing is truly inspiring, and it’s fascinating to see how modern tools can push the boundaries of older games. Big props for choosing Piplup as a custom villager such an adorable choice! 😊 I’m curious: you mentioned working on a tool to simplify this process do you think it could eventually make these kinds of mods accessible to people without advanced technical skills? It would be amazing to see the community grow even more!

[@okurej99]

I did recently create Mac (the dog villager, who I reset 300 times for in NH) in e+ using Cuyler's program. I barely touch my town though so he's just kinda hanging out on my hard drive right now

[@ShupperDupper]

ever since they did that crossover with zelda and monster hunter ive been wanting them to add custom villagers as a feature. this is so cool!

[@mionomori]

It is so so SO COOL you're making this project available to public! I really don't understand much about coding but I enjoy the way you explain everything :D

[@JomasterTheSecond]

Finally, Sonichu in Animal Crossing.

[@darthgamer9861]

finally, we can inject culture into this game

[@EricBarkman]

This is fascinating, and I'm surprised that the cards include so much info, especially the character textures, as they were (as far as I know) just used for already existing villagers, so I'd have thought they would just call that information from the game itself.

[@nomakewan]

6:34 Hah, nice Kamen Rider reference on that villager.

[@pancake2700]

I like your funny words magic man No but seriously despite the technicalities of this going over my head, this is so cool. I’ve been obsessed with AC since the very first game, and WAY back around the time of CF I remember seeing some things online about people hacking their games to make custom villagers (I don’t remember if it was in CF or one of the earlier renditions) and just being baffled by it cuz I was like 12 and that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard of, but even then it was never in depth explanations, rather just pictures of like “here’s Snoopy in my game”. Really cool seeing this, and now I think I’m gonna have to go watch all your other videos cuz it looks like you’ve dived into some really neat stuff that my AC geek brain would love to know more about

[@errorkh]

really cool to learn about, was hoping for something like this last time you mentioned this fact in a previous video, so its nice to have a dedicated video!

[@timfitz96]

This is literally magic!!! I cheered when I saw piplup in game. So amazing. You never cease to amaze me

[@TheRarenth]

It's been really cool watching this project grow in scope and come to fruition like this

[@iamsushi1056]

I know next to nothing about Animal Crossing, but I love seeing people do the data science for old games. Glad YT recommended your channel, because I’ve learned a lot of fascinating stuff

[@__yu495__]

12:49 ｢ワオ！あなたがこの文章を読んで翻訳するのに本当に時間を割いてくれたことに驚いている。ご褒美に、ちょっとだけ秘密を教えてあげよう：来年から『どうぶつの森』以外のゲームも取り上げることになったんだ！｣

[@ikeneats]

The Auto-Translate is a little inaccurate 😉

[@__yu495__]

@ Yeah, maybe that’s because the Japanese text is also translated

[@vexilanimous]

shame that the little secret is the only part that the auto-translate seems to make unclear... but it's still super cool that it's a fully custom description, i kinda figured he'd copy/paste one of piplup's jpn pokedex entries

[@amandasays]

I LOVE BEING EARLY i LOVE learning obscure animal crossing lore life is good and nothing hurts

[@Knosek]

Man, you're my comfort youtuber, I just love your videos, I've started watching them when I had a really bad stomach ache and watching you helped take my mind a little from the pain.

[@NikiPaprika]

this is utterly insane! the work you and cuyler have done to make this even possible is so crazy, yous have done amazing work here! so happy it all came together!

[@Hoggogo]

If only we could do something like this in new games to get Ganon and the squid sisters back

[@qqueenquartz]

If that’s the actual @japaneat I’m going to lose it. If so, small world. ☺️ Always wonderful to see your uploads! Cheers Hunter! 😊

[@Hunter-R.]

It is! Super nice guy that's supported this channel for awhile. 😄

[@Bupboy]

8:13 tcnick3 hasnt been the same after that mario party jamboree marathon...

[@myreque999]

Mr. R. I think you should know that your videos have made me want to buy my own copy of the original animal crossing!

[@starffruit]

huge fan of the prowler sfx & zoom in on the custom pikachu villager

[@quitsie]

babe wake up, hunter r just uploaded

[@gferrol118]

I can definitely see someone making custom villagers for people on etsy or something

[@kysorensen3201]

This is actually amazing

[@AmeHart]

Oh wow, the villager creator stuff has really taken off since I last used it ages ago when it was still in testing. Thanks for this awesome video !

[@MetroAndroid]

You've done so much good work for Animal Crossing fans! Thanks!

[@IspywithmylittlePSI]

8:53 The GBA Villager sprites are super charming. Would be perfect for a GBA-style demake/'port' of Animal Crossing.

[@WatermelonJiki]

Hey Hunter! Awesome OG animal crossing upload as always! If anyone is ever unwilling to help watch your videos, offer them a plate of delicious char siu pork and roast duck. I have used this method twice in the past. Go to a good Chinese place and pick up a plate of half roast pork and half roast duck, with fried rice. Give it to someone you trust in trade for watching your videos and subscribing to your channel. Goodluck! -WatermelonJiki 🍉

[@Temac000]

It is amazing how you can make me watch 10-20 minutes long video about a game series I actually dislike. Been watching you since paper airplane video and never skipped an upload

[@bunnybitchh]

Dislike is interesting

[@Lunascaped]

I love the piplup so much, the stuff you've been doing with the dotcode system is nothing short of incredible. Great video as always!

[@HarmonyOmega]

This is cool, too bad e+ wasn't done in the US

[@ShadyHero]

its always a great day when you upload!

[@theclasscalico]

This reminds me of hexing in the PF.Magic Petz games.

[@Nintendogs08]

with such power like this, brutus could be truly added into the game for real

[@thedonrak]

Hey, I just found you videos this week and find them amazing. I'm not sure if you've already covered this in a video, but I was wondering if you could give some insights on how villagers react to letters? Especially, if writing something specific improves your chance to get a foreign fruit in their response letter back?

[@keldmore]

This is genuinely insane

[@fresas_king.]

I'm flipping colors. Nice work as always

[@RealClassixX]

It worked on the first try? Oh, that's gotta feel good.

[@GREYanimationofficial]

THANK YOU SO MUCH HUNTER! 13:12 LETS GO MAC!

[@duffnstuff4552]

Being able to read Japanese is such fun for these videos. Nice custom description on the Piplup card ;)

[@velvetbutterfly]

If I had a nickel for every time Flexispot sponsored a youtuber I started watching in 2024 that is entirely about a single game released on the gamecube within the month of November I'd have 2 nickels.

[@Schwarzorn]

Your next sponsor'd better be one that makes pencil holders, cuz DAMN; what happened?

[@Borti_Ovi]

I can’t wait for you to continue this project! I’ve tried adding custom villagers to my E+ game through save editing; however, interfering too much with the game itself makes my game real buggy and my villagers suddenly nameless and homeless. Also, using Cuyler’s villager editor, it also crashes at certain points if I pick certain animals: unfortunately, I come to believe that editor hasn’t been updated in years.

[@alexstuf3]

now we need to figure out how to do this on the international animal crossing /j

[@Rdb1289]

I don't always get everything u say on your videos, but i gotta say it truly amazes me all the love you have for these games to put so much effort into covering them and creating all this custom mods that actually work on Vanilla consols! You're such an underrated channel, I hope you keep growing!!

[@acousticeel9695]

I’ve done some modding for animal crossing new horizons and I think it’s super interesting just how similar it is to this. ACNH stores basically all of the villager data in one massive file, and small edits in there can change a villager entirely because it has things like species and personality in it. I had to go through some reverse engineering nightmare when I was working with it to find some of the smaller details that weren’t documented online like which bits were responsible for favorite color and phone case lol

[@Dreaming-Void]

I CAN FINALLY LIVE IN A VILLAGE WITH HATSUNE MIKU

[@moonr1lo]

when i watch your videos i try so hard to understand what the hell you're saying in the coding/decoding sections and i usually just give up but still i love it and it's so entertaining seeing you talk about it

[@Hunter-R.]

I try to strike a decent balance of technical videos like this and more relaxed trivia/obscurity videos. I have playlists separating my content into both sections, but I'm glad that my explanations are entertaining even if they're a bit hard to follow!

[@moonr1lo]

@ honestly it's a topic i really don't have much knowledge about and seeing it brought up alongside a topic i do love (animal crossing) it just makes me want to learn more and more lol thank u for the interesting and original content! it's a rare sight these days

[@bat_zupper]

So in theory, since you can make custom villagers it's theoretically modding with a vanilla game and console

[@Hercules_Flexing]

Amazing. Simply amazing. My 9 year old self would have his mind blown right now.

[@aetheralmeowstic2392]

I want someone to add a custom Neytiri villager this way. She'd be a Snooty cat villager, with her catchphrase being _skxawng._

[@faimynth6030]

To date it still bewilders me that Nintendo has never done an ac collab with pokemon yet has done an ac collab with LOZ & Splatoon....like don't get me wrong I love those collabs but pokemon JUST makes soooo much more sense??

[@Hunter-R.]

I think the closest we ever got to a collaboration with Pokémon was with Let's Go Eevee in Pocket Camp, which gave some Eevee-related items in-game. But, that was a one-time event in 2018 and I don't think we've seen anything like it since.

[@faimynth6030]

@Hunter-R. Man what I would DO for official pokemon villagers 😭

[@iveurne]

​​​@@Hunter-R.and guess what's going eos soon....!

[@lpfan4491]

@@iveurne I don't even have New Horizons and still quickly started playing Pocket Camp to get the hidden DLC before it's gone forever.

[@abbiedoobie]

If this had been available in the US when I was all in on AC I would have gone nuts tracking down all the cards.

[@EeveeGamer64]

Hunter-r u are the best KZbinr istg

[@Hobo_Ivan]

You always have great videos on a game lots of people don’t really talk about much. Thank you

[@Hanz_M]

I'd make the Kamineko. (Maybe even Maya or Chiyo's father.)

[@rafaeldoraguille9169]

Super cool!

[@safebox36]

Finally, I can add a Korok, Obama, and Hunter-R to the game!