Endless Winters

Endless Winters is a hack/mod for the SNES game EarthBound. To play it using an emulator, you must acquire a ROM image of EarthBound and apply the IPS file as a patch.

Inspired by lo-fi study beats and driven by my desire for peaceful winter ambience, Endless Winters is a nostalgic hack of EarthBound that perpetually pans over a snowy landscape. Designed to be loaded on a cartridge and played on original hardware, it functions as a simple installation piece that can be quickly installed using a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and a CRT.

The hack works by hijacking the game's introductory flyover sequence. By erasing introductory text, editing the game's map, and looping the flyover code indefinitely, EarthBound is rendered into something akin to a cozy screensaver.

I chose winter scenery for this hack for a few reasons. First, I have been attempting to find more joy in Montreal winters, during which I often retreat indoors to avoid the heavy snowfalls. Second, EarthBound was one of my favourite videogames growing up, and this flyover showcases an area I would try to reach when I rented the game for a weekend.

Endless Winters was created using an EarthBound ROM, Coil Snake, and EBME. The hack represents about 8-12 hours of work, including bug-testing, and will likely not be updated barring the discovery of catastrophic errors. Special thanks to phoenixbound for helping with the coding.

Endless Winters was recently featured as an installation piece at the Frames of Reference festival in Montreal.