Make Sega Genesis Game Genie Codes

This was written by: Tony Hedstrom  t.hed@excite.com

 I've seen lots of documents (many from GGCCC)
that explain how to make GG codes for NES, SNES,
& GB. But I haven't seen too many for the Sega
Genesis. So I thought I'd write one. Please
don't pick it apart, I threw it together in
about 10 minutes. Most of this information isn't
in the Galoob code books.


 I'm writing this to help people that want to 
make there own Game Genie codes for Sega Genesis,
but don't know how. I know of several different
ways to make new GG codes for the Genesis. The 
easiest way is to just modify existing Galoob 
codes. But since they explain that method in the
GG code books, I won't go into that here.

 The second easiest way to find new codes is
to simply enter random letters (or numbers).
While this method is fairly easy, it is nearly
impossible to find a specific code this way.
Another drawback to this method, is that it
can take a very long time to find a code that
does anything worthwhile.

 I'm not going to go into every detail about
how to make codes this way. Instead, I'm going
to give you a few tips to help make the job a
little easier.

 First tip: ALWAYS write down the code you're 
entering before pressing the start button. 
(I found that it's best to try only one code 
at a time.)
Then, if the code doesn't do anything, write
down after the code that it doesn't do anything.
(I just write a "0" after it.) If the code does
do something, then write what it does after the
code. Once you find a code that does something
interesting, then it's usually a good idea to
try to modify the code using the method's shown
in the Galoob code book. If you write the codes
down, then you won't try the same ones twice,
plus you'll have an idea where to start from
after you've quit for a few days/weeks/months.

 Second tip: This second tip has to do with 
which letters or numbers you can and can't use
in certain slots. All Genesis GG codes use 8
slots, and each slot uses a letter or number
from the list on the GG code screen. The 8 
slots are numbered like this: 1234-5678. 
(In the code book, they call them characters,
but I prefer to call them slots.) There are
32 different letters and numbers that you
can chose from. The 4th slot, and the 8th 
slot both have restrictions on which letters
or numbers you can use. In the 4th slot, 95%
of the time, you should use "A", or "T". 
Other ones you can use are: B,C,D,V,W,X. If
you look in the code book, you will notice
that there is a definite pattern with these
letters, but I won't go into that now.

 The restriction for the 8th slot is that you 
can only use letters or numbers from table 1 
and table 3. In case you don't have a code
book, I'll show you which letters and numbers
are from tables 1 and 3. Table 1: AEJNTY26. 
Table 3: CGLRW048. In other words, if you
don't see it listed here in table 1 or 3, 
don't use it in the 8th slot.

 There are several other tips that I didn't
include here, but most of these you will
discover on your own as you go along.

 While the above tips don't tell you which
letters or numbers to use to make cool codes,
they do tell you some ones not to use, which
will make the job of finding new codes a 
little bit easier. Hope it helps.

   Thanks,  Tony Hedstrom  t.hed@excite.com

P.S. The methods I use to make specific GG
codes are a bit more involved than the method
described above. Hopefully, at a later date,
I will write and post something that explains how.