BACKYARD BASEBALL 1997 SEASON PLAY HACKING GUIDE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ZZZZZZZZ? ZZZ, ZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZ ???? ~ZZ , , ZZZ ZZZ ZZZZ $ZZZZZZ~ ,ZZZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZZZ,ZZZZ =ZZZZZZ ZZZ~ZZZ: $ZZZZZZ ZZZ ZZZZ ZZ ZZZ 7ZZZZZZZ ZZ ZZ ,ZZ ZZZI ZZZZ$ZZZ ZZZZZZZZZ ZZZ$ZZZZ ZZZ~ZZZZ ::ZZZ 7ZZ ,ZZ ZZ ZI ZZ~ ZZZ ,ZZ ZZZ $ZZZ ZZZ ZZ, ZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZ 7ZZ ZZZZ ZZ$ ZZ ZZZZZZ, ZZZ ZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZ Z $Z, ZZ:ZZ ZZZ:ZZZ ZZZ ZZ ZZ $ZZ ,ZZZ $ZZZZZZ, ZZ ZZ Z $Z, ZZZZI $ZZ,ZZZ IZZ ZZ ZZ ,ZZZZZZZZ ZZZZ?ZZ ZZZZZZ ZZZ,ZZZ ZZZ ZZZZZZZ ZZZ ,ZZZZZZZ ,ZZZZZZ? ,ZZZZI $ZZ, ZZ$ ??~??? ,ZZZ +ZZZZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZZZZZZ, ZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZ$ ,ZZ ????, ZZZ =ZZZ ZZZ,:ZZZZ +ZZZZZZ ZZZZZZ$ ZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZ ZZZ ,ZZZ ZZZ ZZZZ ZZ+ ,ZZZ $ZZZZZZZ ZZZ$ZZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ,ZZ ?ZZ, ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ,,ZZZ? :ZZ $ZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ ::ZZZ $ZZ ZZZ :ZZZZZZ, ,ZZZZZZ ,ZZZZZZ ZZ$ZZZ$ ZZZ ZZZ ZZZZZZ= ,ZZ ZZZ :ZZ ZZZ ZZZ ?ZZ ZZ, ZZ ZZZ ZZZ ZZ? ZZ= ZZ ZZ :ZZ ZZZ =ZZZZZZ ZZ ZZ, ZZ ZZZ ZZ ZZZ ZZZZZZ+, ZZ ZZ ZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZ, ZZZZZZZ ,ZZZZZZZ ZZZ+ZZ, ZZZZ ZZZZ ,ZZZZZZ$ ,ZZ ZZ~ ZZZZ (TM) !. Contact Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (5/31/2010) I am willing to answer whatever questions you may have about BB97 or the contents of this guide. You can reach me at the following email: eszettg AT gmail DOT com (C) Compiled entirely by Andrew Marchetta for use ONLY at GameFAQs and my personal webspaces for PRIVATE, NON-PROFIT use. Any copies not from these sources or any copies which have changed hands alongside money have been fraudulently distributed from these official sources and should be reported to me immediately. Please include any identifying information on the perpetrators when possible. 0. Table of Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ !. Contact Information 0. Table of Contents I. Introduction II. The Tools You Need III. Locating the Files IV. The Coach File - IVA. General - IVB. Player - IVC. Season -- IVCi. Schedule -- IVCii. Roster --- IVCiia. Defensive Positions --- IVCiib. Team Information --- IVCiic. Batting Order - IVD. Roster Quirks -- IVDi. Clone Players and Eighteen-Player Teams -- IVDii. The Generic Players V. Team Info Appendix - VA. Adjectives - VB. Nouns - VC. Colors VI. Player Appendix - VIA. Backyard Kids - VIB. Generic Kids - VIC. Special Cases VII. Acknowledgements VIII. Version Info IX. Answers Guide I. Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was delighted to discover that this game still existed thirteen years after I played it as a kid. Now that I have become more knowledgeable about the way computers work, this game was simply begging for my 21-year-old self to take it to the next level of understanding. Aside from merely learning the specifics of the game and the strengths of each players, I wanted to play God and crack the code of the game. I decided this fine May evening would be the best time to discover this art. There is a bad part to this story, but the rest has been nothing but good. The bad part is that apparently nobody has bothered to do this before me. Google comes up completely empty-handed for any real resources on hacking this ancient game. The good part is that the process has proven to be mind-bogglingly easy. I'm surprised I didn't discover this as a kid. This repository will grow as I learn more and more about the game, but no matter what I write here, it will be novel information. You will not able to find this out anywhere else. Before you begin reading this guide, it would be good to know the limitations of what I am covering. This guide will not allow you to artificially inflate the stats of your players, instantly strike out every player, or make every hit a home run. If you're interested in these things, start purchasing some literature on reverse engineering. These things are hard-coded into the game and need to be changed on a software level. This guide will allow you to manipulate the settings of the game and is focused entirely on season play. You can have the same player come up to bat every time (and yes, the game will duplicate the player as much as necessary). You can also put the same nine players on the field when playing defense, though as you will find out later this is not a good idea. You can also change who is on the opposing teams, their mascots, who you will play next, and plenty of other settings. Consider this scope before you consult this guide for advice. It is not my fault if you set yourself up for disappointment because my guide won't let you do so-and-so. If you're ready to have some fun, read on. II. The Tools You Need ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Luckily, the process of hacking BB97 season play only requires a copy of the game (very easily obtainable in this modern Internet age, I needn't explain how you can get it) and a text editor. For this purpose, I naturally recommend the no-frills, no-nonsense Notepad for the job. Since you'll be accessing your .BBL file very often in the process of hacking, you might want to associate these files with your program of choice so you have double-click access to editing them from Windows Explorer. III. Locating the Files ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No matter what Windows system you play this game on, there should be a file in your C:\Windows\ directory called hegames.ini which is automatically created upon initializing the game. For our purposes, there is only one entry you need from this, and it is called SaveGamePath. By default, this should be C:\hegames\. You can change this if you want, but there's no need to unless you're doing some heavy experimentation (keep in mind being a Windows 3.1 compatible game that 8.3 file naming conventions are in effect). Go to Windows Explorer and point to the save game path. Depending on what you have done in the game, there should be a variety of files here: baseball.ini - associates BBL/BBT files with coach names baseball.sg0 - indicates games saved via the Save Game feature from the dugout screen baseball.sg1 - contains the actual data represented by baseball.sg0, this file is relatively speaking very large and completely pointless for humans to manipulate and so will not be covered by this manual coach#.bbl - contains all of the vitals about your team, changing this file is the meat of this guide coach#.bbt - stat data for the associated .BBL file, it is not necessary to change this by hand fame.bbl - hall of fame information, can be changed but is not an especially important file, so this will be covered in a later version of the guide records.bbl - records file, also can be changed but again this is a second priority for me Notice that there are multiple copies of coach files, a pair for each coach in the game. You might be asking which one of thees files should I be changing? Here, you need to use the baseball.ini file for its only purpose. Open up the file. You should see two variables underneath a header called [Baseball], one containing a list of numbers and the other a list of coach names. An example from my own file will make this easy to understand: [Baseball] _CoachFiles=2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27 ,28,29,30,1,4 _CoachNames=ANDREW,SANCHEZ,FUBARSTAN _CoachFiles is simply a running list of the numbers used for coach files. The game manages this internally and so there is no need to touch it. Obviously it can be changed, but since the only useful effect is changing the order of the coaches in the selection list, I will not cover it. It does have some use by just observing it, though. Notice that numbers 1 and 4 are at the end of the list. These were accounts which were previously created but were lated deleted. _CoachNames associates these numbers with the name of the coaches on a one-to- one basis. Just match the coach name with the number that's in the same position. Since we have three coaches here, take the first three numbers and pair them up. ANDREW's files are marked with 2, SANCHEZ with 3, and FUBARSTAN with 5. It's that simple. Later on, you can become more proficient and create coach files completely from scratch. I won't be covering the details on that in this guide, but a read- through should make this process intuitive to the skilled hacker. This is the file that lets the game recognize those coaches. Just add a comma to the end of the _CoachNames list and insert in the name of your new coach, using only capital letters and non-leading spaces. You have a ten-character limit. Make sure your files correspond to the next number in the _CoachFiles list. Now let's move on to the coach files themselves. Here, I'll be working with FUBARSTAN's account, so I want to open the file coach5.bbl. IV. The Coach File ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the big kahuna. All of the important information about your season comes from this file. I will break this down into sub-chapters based on the sections of the coach file itself, which is structurally no different than an INI file. IVA. General ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The [General] Header contains several bits of information for all files. Many of them seem to be just for show, but nevertheless I will cover them all. complete, as far as I can tell, should always be some positive number. Any other value generates an error message that instructs you to erase the file because it is corrupted. Changing it back to 1 (or any other positive value) removes this error message. I have yet to find out if this actually does something. The game only seems to put a 1 for this value. game simply says which game of the season you are currently on. This number can range in value from 1 to 25. You will need to refer back to this value frequently when manipulating the scheduling data, which will come in the next section on rosters. field should logically affect which field you play on, but it seems like a dead variable to me. Perhaps it does something I'm not yet aware of. I have seen the game save 5 and 8 into this value. innings is either 12 or 18 and represents double the number of innings you have selected in-game (6 or 9). Strangely, changing this seems to have no effect on the gameplay. ID seems to have something to do with when you created the team. It follows the format: MMDDYYHHNN where MM is the month without leading zeros, DD is the day, YY is the last two digits of the year, HH is the military-time hour and NN are the minutes. There are some oddities in this system, though (right now I'm staring at an ID which says it's the 32nd of May). It does not seem to have any effect on gameplay. skill is 1, 2, or 3 which correspond to Easy, Medium, and Hard. Nothing complicated here. coach is the name of the coach. Yes, you can have a different coach name in your dugout than the one on the sign-in sheet. This is rendered wherever your coach name appears in the dugout or tournament schedule. It will only take the first ten letters from this string and capitalize them all, so be warned. Aside from A-Z, only hyphens, periods, and spaces will appear. Spaces sub out any other characters. pso seems to be the length of the current series for post-season games. This would be 3 for the all star series and the super entire nation tournament, and 5 for the ultra grand championship. This value is 0 otherwise. Since all games you will actually play are already saved into the schedule variables, I'm pretty sure this is a dead variable. Nevertheless, the game saves it. The following three data only show up on certain postseason triggers. tot was 20 for my completed file. I suppose this might represents the total number of wins, but I'll need to complete a season to be sure. This will come out in the next edition of the guide, because right now I'm just trying to get this science off the ground. totcoach was 50 for my completed file. Again, no idea on this one until I complete a season. over is either absent (equals zero) or equals one. If it equals one, the season is complete and the game will not allow you to play any more matches. IVB. Player ~~~~~~~~~~~ The player header seems to affect some purely cosmetic attributes about the game which are only visible on the sign-in list. TEAM-NAME-1 changes value depending on the leading adjective you pick for your team when you first create the file, but does not seem to affect anything else within the game. As such, I will not bother making a list of corresponding adjectives. I suspect they are arranged alphabetically, though. TEAM-NAME-2 is the noun name of your team, which merely affects the display icon in the coach list: 1 All-Stars 2 Bombers 3 Fishes 4 Giants 5 Hornets 6 Melonheads 7 Monsters 8 Rockets 9 Socks 10 Wombats Any higher value seems to crash the game. Any lower value defaults to 1. COLOR affects the color of the display icon: 1 Red 2 Blue 3 Yellow 4 Green 5 Purple 6 Orange 7 Pink 8 White 9 Black 10 and beyond yield some very strange color combinations. There seems to be no limit to these, so knock yourself out and discover one that suits you. I certainly won't list them since there are more important things to handle. IVC. Season ~~~~~~~~~~~ The [Season] section is the meat of the file. This is where you can make the most impressive and groundbreaking alterations to the game, all the way down to the positions and batting orders of every team in the season and the ability to use any character in the game (yes, even the generic-looking opponents). When you first look at this file, you'll see a strange garble of letters. Perhaps you might think there are a few patterns, but you can't quite put your thumb on them. Rest assured that you're absolutely correct: these letters determine practically everything about the specifics of your coaching experience. Before we can cover any ground, you need to start thinking like a computer program yourself and realize that these letters are not letters at all. They are numbers. Every important piece of information signified here is a pair of two letters which represents some value. In fact, the letters are actually digits just like 0-9. Except here, the digits are A-P, and we're not in base 10. The game makers decided for whatever reason that base 17 would be the most logical solution to store the game's season data. This may sound confusing, but it's really not that hard to get. Since we're dealing with data in pairs of digits, the range of possible values stretches from AA to PP. If we add one to AA, we end up with AB. Add one more and we get AC. Eventually, we work our way up to AP, and adding one more gives us BA. We can keep going and get BB, BC, BD, etc. If this doesn't make things crystal- clear, I can't possibly explain this concept to you. Except for the player data and possibly game scores, values in the file will rarely go much higher than AM, so don't be scared. IVCi. Schedule ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With this explained, I can begin with an exploration of the schedule variables. These contain all of the data for particular match-ups. The game variable from the [General] section tells the game which match-up it should be invoking and filling in data for, and since this value is never 0 the first entry here is merely a placeholder. It's a row of seven AAs; just leave them be. The rest, however, are vital to the game. Let me take an entry from a game I just recently completed next to the shorthand: schedule1=AAAGABAMABAAAA With the knowledge I have given you on base 17 numerical representation, we can proceed to break this down into pairs and analyze it. AA|AG|AB|AM|AB|AC|AA ZZ|Ma|Cm|PR|CR|Ca|Ho This is very simple to understand, there are only seven values here. ZZ: The first pair (AA), as far as I can tell, doesn't serve any purpose. No matter what it always seems to remain the same value too. We'll just ignore it and move on. Ma: The second pair (AG) indicates the [Ma]tch-up this particular schedule string represents. As I'll explain to you later, each season file has ten teams saved into it. One of these teams is yours, seven of these teams are your league opponents, and the other two are rival championship teams. This variable tells the game which roster to face off against you, and since AG in decimal is 6, this game will be against the sixth roster. There are some special factors to consider here when interpreting this value. AA is used for the all-city playoffs match and represents the highest-ranked team in the league besides you at the end of the regular season. (Obviously if you don't make 1st or 2nd, the game ends and the over variable will be set to 1). AB-AH are all regular league teams. AI is always your rival in the super entire nation tournament, and AJ is always your rival in the ultra grand championship. Yes, you will only ever face off against one of these teams. The victor of the other match-up in that bracket is predetermined from the moment you create your file. Cm: This is a very simple flag. AA means the game hasn't been played yet, AB means it has. Any other value is assumed by the game to be AA (and it will never save another value into this spot). Since this is AB, I've already played this game, and it will be grayed out in the calendar schedule. PR and CR: This is the score of the game, represented in very-easy-to- comprehend base 17 digits. If you're still having trouble getting them, feel free to fiddle around with these values. PR is your score and CR is the computer's. Don't hesitate to make the computer's higher than yours - the game will make it seem like you lost, but that's purely cosmetic and has no bearing on the actual standings. As you will see, those are saved in the rosters section of the file. Ca: This indicates where on the calendar the game will show up. AA is the first day, AB is the second, AC the third, BA the seventeenth, etc. Of course, like all logically designed systems, the location of the games has absolutely nothing to do with the order you will play it in. That is dictated entirely by the order of these values themselves, from schedule1 to schedule25. A few more pointers: This is useless for the post-season games not represented on the calendar, for which the game defaults AA in this position. Secondly, nothing stops the game from displaying matches beyond the physical calendar itself. Try putting CD in for this value and watch where the game ends up. The fun never ends! Ho: Another very simple flag. AA is a home game, AB is an away game. No reason to put anything else here (but it won't hurt the game if you do, higher values are simply assumed to be away games). Along with the match-up indicator, this is the only value here that actually affects gameplay. IVCii. Roster ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the meat of the section. All of the teams, the positions, their batting orders, and everything in between is represented in this section. Because this section has by far the most expandability, I'll be putting the specific values for the variables in the appendices to reduce clutter. First of all, roster0 is your team. Everything that makes it what it is comes from this crazy string of values. Here's the roster0 string from one of my crash-test files: AKBJAMBBBEBFAEANADAAAEAIACABACAMAEBJAKBEBFADANBB Talk about a mouthful! We're not going anywhere without some organization to this section, so I'm going to break it down into three convenient sections for ease of human understanding. Remember that this all must return to this original state before we put it back in the file. Throughout this section, I'm going to quiz you to test your understanding of the data contained in this string. Questions will be marked with the symbol (Q#), where # is just a number. The answers are at the very end of this guide, but don't check them until you're finished since they're all bundled together. Grab a Notepad and start jotting. IVCiia. Defensive Positions ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AK|BJ|AM|BB|BE|BF|AE|AN|AD LF|CF|RF|3B|2B|1B|SS|Ca|Pi At last, we can begin to talk substance. The first eighteen digits contain all of the team's defensive information. Each pair of digits refers to a specific player (there's a whole bunch of them you aren't using, so look at the appendix). The position of the player data in the string tells the game which position they will play on the field. With the exception of the last two very obvious positions, I've used standard baseball abbreviations here to signify the arrangement the game looks for when reading this file. The game uses them too, so no excuses here for not knowing them. Keep in mind the implications of maintaining this arrangement. Every time you switch up the positions in the strategy there is a file I/O operation which actively updates this orientation. Remember this when toying around with your files. In fact, it is generally a good idea to always go back to the main menu of the program before tampering with any of the data in this file. It won't be disastrous if you don't since the file isn't constantly in access, but again it's just good practice. (Q1) Before moving on, see if you can use the player list appendix to determine who's playing each position in this example. IVCbii. Team Information ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AA|AE|AI|AC|AB|AC ZZ|Ad|No|Co|Wi|Lo The next twelve digits contain data about the team itself. ZZ: Again, no idea what this does. It seems to vary wildly between teams. I've seen values from AA to LI. Once I complete a season and save each file variation, I will report back on this guy if I notice he's doing anything. Ad: This describes the adjective used to describe the team. It's alphabetically organized from the list of available adjectives, but for your convenience I've included it in the appendix. No: This contains the noun for the given team. This is also alphabetically arranged, but this one is a bit more involved since there are some hidden values this can possess which are only relevant to season play. Again, check out the appendix for details. Wi/Lo: Here's where the vaunted win/loss record is saved. These values are simply pure numbers in base 17 format and affect the gameplay by determining which teams make the playoffs. When created naturally by the game, they will always total the number of games played for each team, but when altered by a human they can both be anywhere from AA to PP. Knock your socks off with this one. (Q2) You know the drill. Tell me the name of the team, its color, and its record. IVCiic. Batting Order ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AM|AE|BJ|AK|BE|BF|AD|AN|BB 1H|2H|3H|4H|5H|6H|7H|8H|9H The last eighteen digits are the most self-explanatory part of the string. It's the batting order, from one to nine. (Q3) Now tell me who the batters are. I made it easy for you since it's from the same team. You can check your answers to all three questions now. IVD. Roster Quirks ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Given the extreme amount of control this method possesses over the aspects of the game, a few special cases emerge where the possibilities of file manipulation lead you to do things which would otherwise be impossible. I'll cover the two biggest ones my research has presented to me. IVDi. Clone Players and Eighteen-Player Teams ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now you might be asking yourself that since the offensive and defensive information are saved in different parts of the roster strings, there is nothing stopping you from having different players on offense and defense. You would be wise to ask this question since this is 100% the case. The offense and defense of a given team are entirely independent from each other. Even the players you select are completely divorced from each other and so can (yes!) be repeated any number of times. This presents a whole bunch of curious and interesting combinations that would probably make the bloods of the game designers boil. Now I will delve a little bit into the strategy of the game itself, but only because this very strange and unique situation is generated only from the file manipulation I've described in this guide. First of all, I highly recommend against putting the same player in more than one position on defense. The reason I say this comes from experience, but also realizing what putting the same player in several positions actually means to the game. The game will multiply the player without a hitch, but it will not duplicate them. This is to say that no matter how many copies of a single player you put out there, he is still a single player who is governed by all the rules of being one person. Let's take Ernie Steele as an example. He's a great fielder who's really tall, and so I really want nine copies of him. I've just completed my supposedly killer defense, writing in my roster0 string to equal BNBNBNBNBN... I play a home game, so I'm on the mound. Ernie pitches a slowball in the corner to (let's say) Pete Wheeler, who manages to hit an annoying grounder which rolls unstopped all the way to the back wall right between the fielders. Center Field Ernie passes the ball to Short Stop Ernie who is playing cutoff, who then passes it to Second Base Ernie to return it to the pitcher. Fast ol' Pete got a double on the play. I'm about to pitch to Achmed Khan, but I notice Ernie is absolutely pooped now! His juice meter is completely depleted, and herein lies the problem of using nine of the same defender. Let me repeat that again: the same defender. Since the game doesn't consider the Ernie any different from each other, each one of them helps to deplete Ernie's energy meter, allowing him to go from fully charged to fully exhausted in a single play. Having nine copies of the same defensive player in particular is a self- destructive habit since this effectively shatters the concept of relief pitching. It's a no-win situation for you (though if you want to have a cakewalk through the game, it wouldn't hurt to make the other teams have nine of the same defender). Because energy meters are shared among all copies of the same player, I hesitate to even double the same defender since it will only help perpetuate this tragedy of the commons. There is, however, one exception to this rule, and just one: Mr. Clanky. He is unique by virtue of never tiring, and makes an awesome pitcher to boot (all of his standard pitches are as accurate as they can be). He is rather slow for an outfielder, but if you're willing to put up with that he would make an excellent defensive player for practically every position. His player code is ID, which is the last one defined in the list. You know what to do now. On the offensive end, however, I would absolutely recommend in favor of putting anywhere from two to nine of the same batter on your roster, just so long as you can ensure he will not get tired. Actually, I suspect this isn't hard at all precisely because you're multiplying him. Let's take Pablo Sanchez as an example. You've just stuffed your batting order with nine Pablo, and the first one is up to bat. We'll even say the nine Pablo just played a hell of a defensive game and have absolutely no juice left. Here's the catch: as your bummed-out Pablo steps up to home plate, he has eight copies of himself just chilling in the dugout. Eight Secret Weapons means eight times the recovery! Offense is not very strenuous on the body, so he'll be recovering energy faster than he can deplete it. Once his third or fourth version readies his bat for the kill, he'll be fully rested and ready to hit sluggers and clear around the bases in no time. Multiplying players on offense actually helps them maintain their stamina. If BB ever had a multiplayer version, this would be a very, very banned tactic. Since it never was, alas, this remains an interesting curiosity to try out against unsuspecting computers. One last oddity about offensive player duplicates is that the way the game handles these doppelgangers becomes clear with the summary of that player's performance. The second at-bat will already have data about that player's first at bat. The game sees them as one and the same. Expect some weird numbers for your hits (and errors for defensive players if you have them on your team), since they are also being multiplied by the number of copies you have of that player. Based on these observations, the best teams statistically would have nine different fielders and the same extremely powerful, very fast offensive batter, perhaps one lefty and one righty. This subject certainly deserves more experimentation from intrepid season file manipulators. Game mechanics aside, it is interesting to note where the game uses each order in representing your team. The defensive lineup is also used to generate the team photo in the dugout, which also happens to change in stride with your defensive switches. The offensive lineup is used in the player statistics for all teams and your Meet the Players subsection of the strategy dialog. IVDii. The Generic Players ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another interesting variable to consider is the massive number of “generic” kids the computer uses to fill up the opponent's teams. There are in total one -hundred of these strange players who were, until the Great BB97 Hack of May 2010, available only for the computer to use. That's over three times the number of official Backyard kids available for use. And, despite looking so similar to each other, they all serve very different functions based on their stats. Yes, they have different stats. That is about one of the only things that's clear about them. Another thing that's clear is that the designers never intended the user to have access to them. When they are placed on a defensive lineup, Tony Delvecchio is used as a substitute for them in the team photo. The Strategy menu goes bonkers when you invoke it with these generics in tow, rendering up a confusing mix of background images and scrap sprites to represent their heads on the field and in the batting order (but it shouldn't crash the game). Yet, like many other strange things in the game, this is purely cosmetic and their positions can be shuffled around at will once you find the clickable part of their unwieldy “icons”. They're in the same position you'd expect them to be. Manipulating them on a file level might end up being the best solution, which would only force you to use the Strategy menu to put in a relief pitcher mid-game. In addition, the generics also tend to make the Meet the Players section spaz out, but it is possible to see the stats of a few of them when this section acts at its tamest. Unfortunately, this only happens a few lucky times, and the glitches they induce have the potential to even crash the game when this dialog is pulled up. Could these kids be even better than the Backyard kids themselves? Sometimes I get that feeling myself. I see certain ones among them regularly belt my pitches out of the park or scramble onto first base after a disorienting bunt. Others among them never seem to be able to get a hit or serve up easy pitches for me. Whatever can be said about them now, the future will surely hold more answers with the assistance of more devoted testers. I will certainly keep this section updated if I can manage to wade through the glitches that currently block access to viewing their stats. V. Team Info Appendix ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This appendix contains all of the information you can change about the teams. VA. Adjectives ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AB Blue AC Crazy AD Green AE Humongous AF Junior AG Little AH Mighty AI Red AJ Super-Duper AK White Other combinations will either crash the game or cause glitches, including making Vinnie the Gooch announce teams in unpredictable manners and the typical graphical ones you should be familiar with by now. VB. Nouns ~~~~~~~~~ AB All-Stars AC Bombers AD Fishes AE Giants AF Hornets AG Melonheads AH Monsters AI Rockets AJ Socks AK Wombats AL Bananas* AM Cheeses* AN Cookies* AO Duckies* AP Gravies* BA Mammoths* BB Oysters* BC Pansies* BD Pickles* BE Squids* BF Turtles* Everything else results in a crash when you try to play. Viewing stats will not crash the game, but may be unpredictably glitchy. Entries marked with stars will crash the program if you choose it as your team (crashes in dugout) or you make it a non-playoff team during the regular season and try to view the calendar. Starred teams also ignore the adjective in favor of their own built- in ones and, when generated by the game, will reflect this by having AA as the adjective. A true shame, since many of those mascots are really awesome. VC. Colors ~~~~~~~~~~ AA Teal* AB Red AC Blue AD Yellow AE Green AF Purple AG Orange AH Pink AI White AJ Black AK Cyan* AL Light Green* AM Brown* All other combinations produce AA teal. Combinations marked with an asterisk are not normally accessible. No combinations seem to crash the game outright. VI. Player Appendix ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here are all of the players you can use in the game. VIA. Backyard Kids ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AB Kimmy Eckman AC Maria Luna AD Angela Delvecchio AE Vicki Kawaguchi AF Gretchen Hasselhoff AG Sally Dobbs AH Billy Jean Blackwood AI Ashley Webber AJ Sidney Webber AK Kiesha Phillips AL Stephanie Morgan AM Luanne Lui AN Annie Frazier AO Jocinda Smith AP Lisa Crockett BA Ronny Dobbs BB Achmed Khan BC Amir Khan BD Kenny Kawaguchi BE Pete Wheeler BF Dmitri Petrovich BG Ricky Johnson BH Marky Dubois BI Reese Worthington BJ Pablo Sanchez BK Tony Delvecchio BL Jorge Garcia BM Dante Robinson BN Ernie Steele BO Mikey Thomas VIB. Generic Kids ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BP Amy Bostwick CA Arlene Perez CB Betty Houstan CC Cindy Chang CD Clarice Reid CE Colleen Klinker CF Debby Nagasawa CG Diana Hayes CH Esther French CI Francis Blewer CJ Gail Weinman CK Grace Tipton CL Hannah Peavy CM Heather Quinn CN Holly Franklin CO Isabelle Marelli CP Jane Davis DA Joella Minotti DB Judy Abwunza DC Julie Dunkel DD Karen Donato DE Katie Shankar DF Krissy Mulligan DG Lara Nunez DH Leah Wayne DI Lena Ng DJ Linda Potter DK Liz Kinghorn DL Marianna Rauf DM Mary Reilly DN Michiko Adachi DO Molly May DP Nancy Chin EA Olga Tollefson EB Olive Hussein EC Petra Chekov ED Ramona Bennett EE Randi Uno EF Serena Damonte EG Sheila Basanti EH Sonja Hagen EI Stacy Gordon EJ Star Moonbeam EK Tanya Uchida EL Tiffany Bosworth EM Tina Herrara EN Vanna Steinman EO Veronica Lee EP Whitney Singh FA Zena Fromm FB Andres Ibsen FC Artie Pimbleton FD Bobby Bulgrien FE Bret Olson FF Carlos Ocampo FG Chad Koppel FH Chico Papas FI Chris Milton FJ Chucky Flinder FK Davy Marian FL Dominique Lowell FM Earl Abbot FN Eric Lebeaux FO Felix Grant FP Fernando Diaz GA Franky Holly GB Fred Benson GC Gary Allen GD George Coleman GE Henri Deschenes GF Horace Young GG Ibrahim Mohamed GH Isaac Drummond GI Jack Joseph GJ Jay Green GK Jim Kylie GL Johnny Omar GM Jordan Thorner GN Mickey O'Connor GO Murray Goldman GP Nate Powalski HA Nicky Winston HB Omar Stephano HC Paco Kaufman HD PJ Shareef HE Rafael Hendrix HF Ray Tran HG Robby Bocko HH Ryan Vanderhoek HI Shane Smith HJ Stan Olafson HK Stevie Lynch HL Stuart Sullivan HM Timmy Unger HN Todd Xavier HO Vic Soufle HP Vladimir Womak IA Wally Evans IB Wing Kwan IC Zenon Estrada VIC. Special Cases ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AA “Worker Drone” * makes strange honking noises when in the field in the place of hey batter sneers * represented on the field as an off-center mugshot of a random generic player * cannot catch balls at all, if he is targeted they will just fly straight through him * crashes the game in several positions, including as pitcher and at-bats * probably not too important to investigate, but I'll include it for the hell of it ID Mr. Clanky VII. Acknowledgements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Humongous Entertainment c. 1997 - for making such an incredible game that held amazing secrets (and still continues to hold them) Atari - I'll throw them in since they now own Humongous. Props to them for keeping the Backyard line alive. I won't comment on their performance, though, since I have barely played any of the new games. Microsoft - for Notepad. No, seriously. I love the program to death. GlassGiant.com - for the sweet ASCII art image I generated from the intro screen. me - for cracking the code of the coach files VIII. Version Info ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1.00 (5/31/10) - First edition of the guide. IX. Answers Guide ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Q1: LF Kiesha Phillips CF Pablo Sanchez RF Luanne Lui 3B Achmed Khan 2B Pete Wheeler 1B Dmitri Petrovich SS Vicki Kawaguchi C Annie Frazier P Angela Delvecchio Q2: Humongous Rockets, color Blue, 1W-2L Q3: Luanne Lui Vicki Kawaguchi Pablo Sanchez Kiesha Phillips Pete Wheeler Dmitri Petrovich Angela Delvecchio Annie Frazier Achmed Khan