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cookieplmonster.bsky.social
Game developer, modder, reverse engineer, legacy code specialist. I port games for a living and patch them as a hobby. Also known as CookiePLMonster. https://cookieplmonster.github.io/
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I was right about this bug too - zeroing one character after the name in the opponent description structure fixes the name, but breaks Samantha's custom car build. This confirms that they allocated 8 characters for the name, which is not enough. Seems to be fixed on PC!

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Solved - not only it's an ONE LINER fix in the game's code, but I also found a way to "outsmart" this bug and get the proper scoring without any patches. Just run a 1-lap drift event, and you only need to beat the average lap score of the record instead of being inhumanely good!

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Final boss of NFS Underground fixes: Fix the drift track record magazine requirements so the record does NOT have to be beat in a single lap. Due to this bug the game requires you to essentially be 4x as good.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Sometimes you look at the bug and just immediately know what's up - SAMANTHA is 8 characters, and the UI is displaying garbage after. Conclusion - somewhere in the code 8 bytes are likely allocated for a driver name, leaving no space for a null terminator with a long enough name.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

February Status Update has been published on Patreon and GitHub Sponsors! This month, I released mods for TXR2025 and the PS2 version of NFS Underground, and did plenty of "janitorial" work. Available for all Patrons and Sponsors, starting from $1/month. www.patreon.com/posts/status...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Sneak peek of some upcoming changes to the blog - a new, much more usable mobile navigation bar backported (with improvements) from upstream Type on Strap. Before/after:

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Have you ever noticed this easter egg in the SilentPatch release post from October?

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

#SilentPatchIt youtu.be/o6PhNKxCIFA

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

POV: You scroll down the comments section in a YouTube video covering Gran Turismo 2 patches/upscaling/PGXP/overclocking in an emulator:

submitted 7 days ago • 10 comments

As of PCSX2 v2.3.174, my fixes to loyalty bonuses in NFS Carbon and ProStreet are shipped with the emulator and can be enabled in the Patches tab for each respective game!

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Curiosity - over the years my blog grew in size so much I gathered assets for over a hundred games and game series for the Mods and Portfolio pages. Not all of them are used, but they exist and are ready to be placed on the website

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

PAL releases of NFS Carbon were even worse than the NTSC releases. Instead of checking for a wrong serial of MW Black Edition, they had no serial at all! Thankfully, the function checking for MW BE had *just about* enough space to fit in a proper serial check.

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

I spent some time diving into the PS2 Black Box-era NFS games and documented the "loyalty" career bonuses granted when saves from the previous NFS games are found. Also includes a fix to make NFS Carbon detect Most Wanted Black Edition saves properly! cookieplmonster.github.io/2025/02/22/n...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

#GTA San Andreas turned 20 years old last year, so let's take a look at 6 more technical details about one of our favourite games! This time in thread form! 🧵

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

It is known that Need for Speed Carbon gives you a cash bonus if you have a NFS Most Wanted save, but *not* when you have a MW Black Edition save. Looking at the code it appears to be a bug, as they check for a wrong version MW BE - an obscure Asian release that is not even on Redump!

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Notice how EA can re-license tracks for The Sims, but Rockstar consistently can't do it for GTA.

submitted 12 days ago • 6 comments

I've worked as a Gameplay Programmer on Dune: Awakening for quite a while and we finally have a release date and a benchmark/character creator demo! If you want to see what I've been working on in my day job, check it out 🍪

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Trigger Control Mappings for the PS2 version of Need for Speed: Underground are now out! Much like I previously did for HP2, I upgraded the Type 3 mapping with a better range of trigger inputs, and added a new Type 6 mapping, mirroring the Xbox mappings. cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/need-fo...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Everyone says Rockstar is bad, but seems like they're even worse than people give them (dis)credit for. I have never seen this level of corporate pettiness before.

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Apparently my Hot Pursuit 2 trigger controls cheat had this typo for a year

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

Cruising in rainy Rockport

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

This bug was supposed to be fixed

submitted 23 days ago • 6 comments

I caved in, time to revisit The Sims 2 and feel like I'm 9 again.

submitted 25 days ago • 3 comments

Psychic debugging never fails after all.

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Physic debugging of The Sims 2 Legacy Collection, in 3 messages. Diagnosis - likely mis-detecting >= 2TB drives?

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

It genuinely makes me happy to see The Sims 2 running this well

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

Dynamic Day/Night Cycle Mod for Tokyo Xtreme Racer is now out! Features a full 24-hour cycle mirroring the sun in real-life Tokyo, random cloud coverage/fog each night, and more configuration options. Have fun racing at sunrise! cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/tokyo-x...

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

Testing a System Time option in TXR's sky plugin, and it works fine with both date and time syncing. However, instead of getting a local time, I am getting... Tokyo time! This is cool, but won't be too clear for users so I need to make it use the local time.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

I'm speedrunning bug reports in UE4SS, currently they have like 5 PRs pending that all target bugs TXR uncovered.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

My current gaming interests may not imply that but I played a ton of TS1/TS2 back in the day too

submitted 29 days ago • 1 comment

An excellent writeup that shows TS Legacy Collection was given much more attention than it seems at the first glance!

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Working on custom rival modding for Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025): seems my AI settings have led to them learning the ultimate racing technique of uh... bump drafting. youtu.be/c_z5sMsy1xk

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

That's Lost Judgment completed!

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

Definitely need to add a chance of fog in my Dynamic Time of Day mod (and not just clouds), a fully foggy night looks excellent.

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

January Status Update has been published on Patreon and GitHub Sponsors! This month, I submitted more Y2038 fixes to projects, and focused my attention on the new Tokyo Xtreme Racer. Available for all Patrons and Sponsors, starting from $1/month. www.patreon.com/posts/status...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

Dynamic time of day in Tokyo Xtreme Racer that persists in the parking areas seems to work well! Timelapse is sped up here so 1 second = 5 IG minutes to show the dynamic changes. Time of day persists in PAs but resets to a random nighttime hour when you return to the garage.

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments