Cheat Engine

[h3x1c]

I feel like I'm just on the cusp of understanding this stuff, but I need someone to help me connect a few dots.

So, I'm hacking HuniePop. Through other research in the game, I discovered that clothing for the girls is loaded in layers, each layer corresponding to a number 0 - 17 (or thereabouts). I found the instruction that writes those values to corresponding addresses, but it's a shared instruction that's basically used to load everything on the screen.

That's all fine and well, because each item that's loaded has a unique identifier in the same nearby offset. I wrote a script to check what that identifier is, and if it's one I'm interested in, then load the item to a layer number of my choosing.

The cheat works great.

Then it dawned on me just the other day that HuniePop is a prime candidate for using the Mono dissector with, so I thought I'd try to find my way to the same sort of data through that. I've never used it before, nor have I used any .NET-specific tools on games. I'm complete newbie, basically, but know enough about how this game works to try and draw inferences based on what I find.

The point I'm at now is finding structures with obvious references to things. I understand that "Fields" are offsets for related data, and what "Methods" are in principle, but I have no idea where to go from here. I don't know how to tie them together to make something happen.

I know that when I JIT a method, I'm being taken to its start in disassembly, but I'm confused about finding my way to something tangible from that point -- where/how to apply the information I see in "Fields" to corresponding methods, then calling those methods myself (without crashing the game, no less...lol).

Also, I'm not sure how to utilize the results I'm given when selecting "IL code" or "IL disassembly" when I right-click on a method. How do I use this information to help bring together the overall picture I'm looking to accomplish? (I only know what IL is by its definition. How to apply the results of "IL code" and "IL disassembly," I'm not sure.)

I can make this more tangible by providing screen shots of things if that would help clarify things. Thanks for any guidance!

EDIT: I looked at this guy's post (which was closed for obvious reasons), but if you just look at the picture, I'm kind of at the same point where he ended off and not sure where to go from there.