Giovanni

Giovanni Battaglia, more simply known as Giovanni, or giovanni.gen, is a Sonic ROM hacker from Italy. He joined the Sonic ROM hacking scene in 2015, by first registering an account on SSRG, then eventually joining Sonic Retro. According to his account, he joined Sonic Retro in 2017.

Aliases

• giovanni.gen/giovannidotgen - Main username. The latter is used where the dot is not an available character.
• Geeovanni - Previous alias that was initially used to embrace the frequent mispronounciation of his name, as plenty of English speakers tend to put more emphasis on the "G" than what would normally be expected from the Italian pronounciation of "Giovanni".
• Giova - Previous name on Sonic ROM Hacking forums.
• VeryCoolGiova - First known name on the Sonic ROM Hacking scene. Normally not used, unless absolutely necessary.

Works

His early years mostly involved the creation of level layout ROM hacks of Sonic 1, ranging in quality from mediocre to bad. Nowadays, he is mostly known for the creation of Sonic 1 - Score Rush, winner of two trophies at the Sonic Hacking Contest 2022, as well as its followup, Sonic 2 - Score Rush, also winner of awards at the Sonic Hacking Contest. To this day, he still experiments with Sonic level design, however, in more elaborate ways, such as with Large Levels Tech Demo, a ROM hack that expands the level layout's size by a significant degree, allowing for levels eight times the size featured in Sonic 1.

Collaborations

At present, Giovanni collaborates with the RadiantNexus collective on the creation of Sonic 1: South Island Definitive, formerly known as Sonic 1 Definitive, as a programmer. He's also provided programming and level design assistance for plenty other unannounced works across the Sonic ROM Hacking scene.

Other released projects in which he collaborated include Brutal Sonic, by Team Brutality, as well as Sonic Maxidrive, by Speems.

Presence

Giovanni is the co-host of the Sonic Hacking Contest, and, starting 2024, will be judging entries of the Retro category. He can also be found on many Sonic ROM hacking forums, as well as several Discord servers centered around Sonic.