Do you want to make a Romhack of EarthBound? You're in luck! Since the early 2000s, programming enthusiasts in the community have gathered together to play around with EarthBound's game engine, creating custom music and dialogue, making translations for languages like Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese, and inventing whole new stories and cutscenes! With CoilSnake, the hacking tool the community uses and works on together, anyone can experiment with the game like this— Nothing is impossible, the only limiting factors being free time and imagination!

In the early days, the original program created for hacking EarthBound, in YEAR, was called PK Hack. "PK Hack" stuck as the name of our community as well, while the program was replaced by JHack in 2003. Both of these programs had a major flaw, however: since they edited ROMs directly, data would get corrupted, and it would be impossible to fix. In 2012, the program Coilsnake was created, which used a new approach of decompiling all of EarthBound assets and scripts to a "project", which hackers could edit however they wished, and simply recompile when they wanted to try it out. As of 2025, Coilsnake remains the premier hacking program, and gets constant updates!

So with that said, PLEASE do not use the programs called PK Hack or JHack. Only Coilsnake!

If you're ready to hop into the world of PK Hacking, then you'll need the following equipment:

• A copy of the EarthBound ROM. Due to legal issues, we can not provide this, and please don't ask where to find one. The best I can do is direct you to google.com. Please watch out for viruses and malware on shady sites! A proper EarthBound ROM should be only either a .sfc or .smc file, or a .zip containing a .sfc or .smc file. If you wind up with anything else, delete it!
• Coilsnake! Grab the latest release from the GitHub page!
• See the Resources page for more info!

hackers have created lots of stuff yada yada TODO: add a few images (like four probably) then links to the gallery: https://starmen.net/pkhack/gallery.php (also overhaul that page a bit), include a link to the hack list on forum, and maybe other stuff

this box is a big todo so in the meantime here's that info about Holiday Hex that's already been here since 2013:

January 2013:Holiday Hex by H.S and Mr. Tenda (with music by Reg)
Official Forum Thread

Holiday Hex is a collaborative project between Mr. Tenda and H.S, who are among the best hackers we have in the PK Hack community. This hack took forty days to complete, and even though it might be short, it stands as a testament to what exactly can be achieved with CoilSnake and a little effort. Holiday Hex has brand new maps, a cute story, dialogue with a sense of humor, and even new music in some places composed by Reg! Please be sure to check it out!

also I got rid of the "submission rules and guidlines box" so here's some stuff copy-pasted from there to here, cause in the future I wanna have a little "Want your own hack added to the showcase?"

• Hacks must make a significant change to the EarthBound ROM. This includes complete script overhauls, experimental hacks that change or add major gameplay elements, or completely new games. Simple graphic hacks will not be accepted. If you want to submit graphics to the site, submit them as a resource.
• Do not submit the actual ROM. Send an IPS patch instead, preferably in a .ZIP file.
• Keep your hack family-friendly. Keep your hack PG-13 or under (or to put it in ESRB terms, keep it rated T for Teen or under)
• Hacks must be finished. They don’t necessarily have to be in a final version, but if you can’t play a hack from start to finish then don’t submit it. Demos will NOT be added to the official hack database, but we will make mention of them in our news posts.
• Please tell us in the description (or in your PM) what you are submitting. Is it a story hack? Is it an entirely new game? Is it a sprite? Just tell us! :)

We have a very active community of folks who love hacking EarthBound just as much as you (hopefully) do! Here's where you can find us:

On the Forum!

TODO include proper link and probably a fancy image too!

You can make a thread on the forum to post updates about what you've been working on, but please keep in mind you need to have more than just ideas for the story you want to tell, or cool character designs! New threads should only be made when a project is being worked on, and with proof of it being worked on.

If you need some help with something you can't figure out, you can do so in the The Help and Troubleshooting Topic!

On Discord!

yeah there's folks who love talking here, about earthbound or general programming or even other random things like "start truck" whatever that may be. you may even meet a few celebrities here

In case it isn't evident, this box is also a big TODO