Another solution is to add a cheat that sets location 7E0544 to the number of the level you want to test.Norbert wrote: What is currently the quickest way to playtest, for example, level 5? I think manually starting ZSNES (or a similar emulator) and entering the password for level 5?
But different emulators might have different formats for cheat files, so this is not easy to do from the editor.
On changing the ROM: I found where the starting level is stored in the ROM: search for A9 00 8D 79 05, replace 00 with the number of the level.
Probably the intro should also be skipped.
Or maybe there could be an option where users could select what emulator to use. (The location of the exe.)Norbert wrote: Can you include a menu option for this? I don't know much about Windows, but if ZSNES (or Snes9x or whatever) is in the $PATH, I guess it could work without including ZSNES in the package? Although zsnesw.exe is not that big (581K) and could be included.
Some emulators can apply IPS patches automatically. (Both ZSNES and Snes9x mentinon it in their docs.)Norbert wrote: How to quickly reach level 5? Maybe temporarily change some bytes to force the game to start in that level? What about the IPS patch, maybe have the program apply it, or include Floating IPS in the package (it's GPL'ed) and use that? It would be nice if playtesting were easier.
Therefore it's enough if the editor makes an IPS file.