Introduction

Hi.

I’m Stan H. On the web, I am StanHash, StanH_, or just stan. I also go by nat5 (that’s just stan backwards) or just nat. I was born on August 1st 1997. I live in Britanny, France. I dropped out of college and never had a job. I have a mom, three siblings and a therapist. I don’t have a lot of money. I’m a bit of a nerd.

I like video games, programming and reverse-engineering.

I’m probably best known as a ROM Hacker for the GBA Fire Emblem games. I have spent multiple years researching and documenting the internals of these games’ engines, and as a result am probably one of the people that know the most about these games. I am proud of myself for that.

I want to share my thoughts and findings about my hobby more, but having direct conversations with people is hard. This is why I’m making this website.

This website is mostly going to contain guides and other articles that relate to programming and/or reverse engineering. Most likely involving video games in some way. That being said, if I feel like making something else I probably will.

My life

I like video games. My first video game was probably LEGO LOCO. I played it on our computer that ran Windows ME. Most of my early history with video games featured mostly strategy and simulation games for the PC, like Civilization III, Age of Empire II and Zoo Tycoon. It wasn’t until our then new neighbors moved in that I was properly introduced to Console games. They had a Playstation with Spyro the Dragon. It eventually became my favorite video game of all time.

I really like video games. Always have. I like them so much that when I was little I wanted to make them. I spent a lot of time drawing what they would look like in old notebooks. This, alongside the eventual introduction of the internet to our home, had me discovering Game Maker in 2010, a piece of software that allowed me to make my own games relatively easily. It led to me learning programming. Around then, I was also being introduced to Nintendo systems and games, both old and then-new. I was making a lot of bad Mario clones.

Eventually I would start learning a “real” programming language. Somehow I started with C. At some point I would switch to mainly C++. I thought I was good at it (I wasn’t) so I made a tutorial series on Youtube for learning C. It was bad, but it did get me more than 800 subscibers somehow.

I spent High School mostly only playing Minecraft with friends so I guess that part isn’t that interesting. I guess I had friends which is kind of nice.

More recently, in 2016, I “discovered” the Fire Emblem series of games. I was really into it. So much that I started ROM Hacking the games. I started by painfully following tutorials and screwing things up, but eventually I got better and also got involved in the community. This led to me learning ASM and reverse engineering methods. I am still doing that to that day.

That’s it for now.

List of games I’ve researched

I have also messed around with Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (SNES) as well as some Pokémon games (Crystal (GBC) and Emerald (GBA)), although it was via the work of other people.