TheZZAZZGlitch April Fools 2019

Is it a CTF? Is it a ROM hack? No, it’s both! It’s Fools2019!

YouTuber and fellow glitch researcher TheZZAZZGlitch has had a tradition since 2016 to make special events for April Fools, revolving around small challenges focused on knowledge of the Pokémon series, especially of the games’ glitches.

This year built off previous year’s idea, but worked differently – instead of constantly hooking the Game Boy to the Internet and downloading data from there, there are instead several self-contained “kingdoms”, which you can traverse freely, only needing to “save” (the process works a little bit differently) when changing kingdoms.

Background: last year had a large amount of requests putting ZZAZZ’s server on its knees due to the frequent data downloads. This is also why rate limiting was much more ominous.

<TheZZAZZGlitch> I already have some crazy ideas
<TheZZAZZGlitch> the real problem is, my fanbase is growing
<TheZZAZZGlitch> a $5 VPS for an online event does not suffice anymore
<TheZZAZZGlitch> so whatever I make next will probably be offline

Each year, achievements are included as small extra challenges, but also some achievements are especially tuned towards hackers and expert glitchers. It’s also a tradition that some people who completed these challenges write up on how they did it.

Before the list of what I have to say, here is a list of credits where credit is due, in no particular order: TheZZAZZGlitch, pfero, Darkshadows, Runea, Stranck, Ganix, Riley/RoL.

Also check out the writeups from jfb1337 (the pastebin expired 😪), Stranck, and pfero (not really a writeup, but still).