Giovanni
From Sonic Retro
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.
Contents
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
Giovanni occasionally offers programming contributions to the RadiantNexus collective towards the creation of Sonic 1: South Island Definitive, formerly known as Sonic 1 Definitive. He's also provided programming, level design, playtesting, and debugging assistance for plenty other works across the Sonic ROM Hacking scene, publically available or not.
Other released projects for 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 has been a Judge of the ROM Hack category since 2024. He can also be found on many Sonic ROM hacking forums, as well as several Discord servers centered around Sonic.