Getting started tutorial

This tutorial will cover the basic steps necessary to get started using Necrofy to create your own custom Zombies Ate My Neighbors levels.

Things to download

1. The Necrofy level editor. This is the main tool that can be used to edit levels and other things inside of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. https://github.com/Piranhaplant/Necrofy/releases
2. A USA version Zombies Ate My Neighbors ROM. The No-Intro SNES ROM set is a good place to find this. https://archive.org/download/nointro.snes (click "View Contents" on the game to get directly to the .sfc file)
3. An SNES emulator. If you don't already have an SNES emulator, it will be useful to have one if you want to run SNES games on your PC. BSNES is recommended for its high accuracy. https://github.com/bsnes-emu/bsnes/releases

Creating a project

Once you have all the necessary files, you can begin by making a Necrofy project. Instead of editing ROMs directly like many other level editors, Necrofy uses a project system. You first create a project from a ROM. This will extract all the levels, graphics, etc. from the ROM that you may want to edit. Then when you are done editing, you can build the project to get a playable ROM file with all of your changes.

1. Start Necrofy. If you haven't already, you will need to extract the .zip file you downloaded above.
2. Go to the "File" menu at the top left and click "New Project...". This will open a dialog where you can setup your project.
3. Click the top "Browse..." button, then select your Zombies Ate My Neighbors ROM file.
4. Click the second "Browse..." button, navigate to the folder you want to save your project in, and enter a name for the project.
5. Click "Create" to create the project.

Modifying files in a project

When you create a project, Necrofy will automatically open it, and you can start making changes. The list of files in a project is displayed in the project panel, on the right by default. The "Levels" folder will be expanded, and this is where you can find the files for all the game's levels. Double click on one to open it.

Now you have a level opened and can modify it however you want. Start by selecting a tile from the objects panel on the left side, then clicking on the level to paint over the background. Try messing around with the other tools (accessible from the tool strip or the "Tools" menu) and make some changes to the level.

Building and running a project

Now that you've made changes to your project, it's time to build the project and see the changes in-game. If you don't already have an emulator associated with SNES ROM files, you can specify one for Necrofy to use.

1. Go to the "Edit" menu and click "Preferences..."
2. Uncheck the box for "Use system default" in the "Emulator" section.
3. Click "Browse..." and select the executable for the desired emulator.
4. Click "OK" to save your preferences.

With an emulator setup, you can now launch your game directly from Necrofy. With a level open, go to the "Project" menu and click "Run From Level". This will launch your emulator, and the game will begin playing immediately from the opened level, with all changes you made. If you want to start the game from the main menu as normal, select "Run Project" instead. You can also select "Build Project" to build the ROM file, but not run it. This will create a file called "build.sfc" in the "build" folder of your project. You can create a patch from this file to share your ROM hack with others.