Primary Zelda Hacking

I've been working on a hack for the past two weeks.  It's something I feel is a good introduction to the hacking software and a good way to learn the system.  Mostly, I've worked on the overworld map only.  I have a plot in my head and some general ideas for item placement and order, but nothing is set in stone.  Also, the northern half of my map is pretty much staffed with enemies and the like, but no warps currently work and I haven't really messed with the tree warps yet (though I do have two trees at this point).

Here is the completed Koholint Island in the present.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/ShadowOwnsAll/PresentOverworld_zps54006f99.png)

Here is the completed Koholint Island in the past.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/ShadowOwnsAll/PastOverworld_zps82df0cdb.png)

Here is a taste of the underwater portion of the past map.  This is of Martha's Bay to be specific.  I will not be including an image of the full underwater map because it is, frankly, ugly due to the excessive unused space and I don't want to be bothered with cleaning it up and there are also a few little secrets underwater I'd rather not give away.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/ShadowOwnsAll/2095d89c-571c-4d53-8ace-777f6832935a_zps0abd385e.jpg)

Here is a large portion of the underwater in the present.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/ShadowOwnsAll/PresentUnderwater_zpse88fcf61.png)

For context, this is several years after the events of Link's Awakening.  Once again, the Triforce summons Link and sends him back to Koholint Island.  Turns out the island didn't disappear when he and the Wind Fish woke up after all.  All those years ago, Link was rescued eventually without ever discovering the disturbing truth that Koholint was more than just a dream after all.  In those years without a hero, the Island has fallen into ruin with monsters running amok and multiple people have vanished from the island completely...including Marin and Tarin!

I will now work on the past overworld which will take a bit longer since most of the present time island's southern portion is underwater (water is sort of a major player in making the island feel familiar but ruined as you can probably notice).  The past time is prior to Link's Awakening and the Oracle games.  It is still fairly close to the events of Link's Awakening though as you will see certain building under construction (such as the camera shop), but it will take place entirely prior to Link's accident and arrival on the island.

Wait a minute.  It is that past version of Link's Awakening?  I can't wait to see this hack complete.   Good job, bro.  Look forward to complete or demo release.

It's actually the present, but yes, it is indeed Koholint Island.

Oh.  So that mean this is future of Koholint Island or Link is looking for Koholint Island and he find out that the island is completely ruined.  I can't wait to see storyline and cut-scene.  Oh by the way, can I be beta-tester?

Probably.  I'm going to have my brothers and some local friends alpha test, but once it gets past them, I'll release for beta testing.

EDIT:  I just updated the initial post with the now completed Koholint Island present as well as a little context in terms of when this takes place relative to Link's Awakening and the Oracle series as well as a little plot teaser...a back of the box description as it were. ;)

EDIT 2:  I also just noticed a mistake in the castle.  I'll fix that, but I am not uploading a new picture right now though.

Just so you know you don't have to edit posts - double posting is acceptable here.

Looking pretty... Rad... 8) 8) 8) 8) But seriously, that's awesome. I can't wait to see what you do in terms of plot and events, but that's great mapping. Few people have actually been able to do a good job placing tiles together, especially around mountain areas, but you nailed it. I'm looking forward to the present map! Let me or Fatories know if you need any help.

That is awesome.  Keep it up for update.

Well, it helps that I'm essentially modding the original Koholint Island.  There were a few parts where some major modifications have been made that required a reworking of the mapping (the former rapids and the expanded moat around Castle Kanalet), but in general it was tile for tile a copy of the original source.

Another thing about the map, you might notice a distinct lack of time portals in the southern half of the island.  That's because I'm not 100% on the progression through the game and time periods so those will need to be adjusted as those become more concrete. 

I can for certain say that you start in the present and depending on what the final design is, could remain in the present for a decent amount of time.  I can also say that songs will function exactly as they do in Ages and appropriately so given the story and context that this game will take place in.  My game will address certain aspects of both Oracles and Ages that were sort of just swept under the rug.

When I am looking at the picture on overworld map, that mean in the past version, same as normal in Link's Awakening?

By and large, yes, it will be much closer to what we saw in Link's Awakening, but it is at least a year prior to Link's Awakening or even the Oracle series, so some things are going to be different.  Many holes will be missing from the prairie (as you can see in the present, those have only gotten worse over the years...dang sinkholes...) and Richard will only have his villa and the pothole field will be free of plant life as it hasn't been planted yet.

One of the biggest differences would again be the rapids area.  Where the present it has dried up due to the volcanic cutting of the supply of water from Tal Tal Mountains, the past is arguably worse since the rapids do not really exist at all.  In the story, the rapids are actually the result of the quarry where Richards castle materials were obtained being flooded once they were no longer needed.  Because of this, you'll notice that not only is the water level in Tal Tal Heights where it was in the original game, it is actually higher due to the fact that water flows through the rapids much faster than the original river that flows around the quarry.

Now, I did have to make tweaks to the present overworld you see now.  Originally, there were going to be multiple places to go up and down into the Tal Tal Mountains as in the original game, but due to the limit of (essentially) 3 palette transitions, I used some lava flows to block those entrances and cut back on some of my original plans for lava actually flowing down and into the Tal Tal Heights due to area ID glitches as well as the fact that they would not have a smooth color transition.

A few areas are still up in the air in terms of what I keep and what I change about them to reflect the time difference.  I can say that certain things and places will be different, but not necessarily because of the time difference.  I won't spoil that little tidbit for you, but keep that in mind.  The past will definitely have hints in plain sight regarding the who, what, and where of Link's original appearance on Koholint and how his arrival affected the island.

All in all, I'm really excited about this and I'm glad the mapping is done for at least one time period.  I had been putting in enemies as I went along, but I finally decided I wanted something I could really show off and something that (if I have a line of chests with items for debugging purposes) I could at least wander around and let others wander around.

I was going to have my local friends do the alpha testing, but I may actually consider releasing an overworld only build for you guys to take a look at and experience once they're both mapped (and I'll have to map the underwater portions too).

Lin pretty much sums up what I have to say about the map. I am impressed and am also excited to see what direction this hack takes. Keep up the good work.

Uploaded a new picture with some tile corrections.  As I inspected the blown up map as a whole, I noticed as I said before that the castle was not lining up properly between the front entrance and the second floor balcony.  Upon further inspection though, I noticed that I had multiple instances of half trees around the flooded sign maze.  They would have looked fine in the original since you cannot transition between the relevant screens, but since I can swim around it would be obvious...and I just like having that continuity anyhow.  Can't believe Lin complimented my mapping when I so many obvious errors. :001_tt2:

In all seriousness, I appreciate the interest and enthusiasm I am getting from you guys.  It's nice to have some people who are really interested in what I'm doing.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure if I want to work on scripting the ghini to rise from the tombstones (that's a lot of tombstones now...) or if I want to finish mapping the past or perhaps start on the present underwater to kind of break things up a bit since I haven't done any of those yet.

Dungeons are going to be interesting.  The dungeon in Ages have larger rooms than Link's Awakening so I am going to have to do something with that...perhaps simply enlarge the single rooms of dungeons to make them seem more grandiose and merge the broken up larger rooms where possible.  Suggestions for how to handle that issue are welcome.

If you would like I can look into that script for you. To be honest I'll probably try to replicate it myself whether you like it or not :P

Oh wow.  This might look fun.  Can't wait.  :D

Uploaded a picture of Koholint Island from the past.  You can see that the swamp from Link's Awakening is a lake in this time period and dries up over time.  Also, you can see where they are building up the moat around what will become Kanalet Castle and as I mentioned the quarry where the stone was mined for Kanalet Castle.

Wowie.  When I look at the picture, my mind got hit me.  Like light blub lit on.  Since you show the past version, seem they are waiting for Link to return but he never did.   So that mean he need use Flute (Harp of Age) to travel back to time.  Also he need to find where is Malon and Tarin in the past and make successful in the present.  I feel like this might will be storyline. 

When he arrive the island, everything is changing and he need to find out how to fix the time.  Only one way he can use is find the flute.  He went to check the dream house but find out the rock is still blocking same last time he came first time.  In order to get flute, he need go to first dungeon, but in his thought.  "What if the level and boss are same as before in my dream?"   (I am not going say what is look like in level 1.)  After he get item, Power Bracelet to allow pick up the rock.  He went back to the Dream House and he get in the bed...but nothing happen.  Suddenly, the floor start open as floor door and there is stair.  Link heard the voice.  "Come and receive your needs.  Complete the challenge of dungeon."  (My small idea of level 2.) He went go down-stair and complete the level.  He have only one song he is remember that Nayru gave his first song of time travel, Tune of Echoes. 

And the rest of level require time travel or up to you.   So I hope you like idea of mine for beginning part.  You can give some support of my idea for your hack in story line.

No story spoilers (other than introductory information like would be found in the manual of a full game).  I can say that I'm batting around some ideas regarding Link and how to give him his sword.  I have one idea I just came up with and I think it will work really well and will give you that sense of mystery that Link's Awakening had.

What's really going on and who or what can you trust?

Aww ok.  I do want really know what kind mystery and secret.

Hmm...I agree with that.

Can I PM you for some idea for storyline?

Any suggestions from anyone are welcome whether they be story or mapping related.

...but I cannot make any promises about whether I will use said suggestions.  If you point out something with my mapping that makes sense, yeah, I'll probably take that suggestion and roll with it.  If something you suggest expressly goes against the intent of the game (i.e. it would cause a sequence break...which I have noticed I've allowed for an inescapable trap in the present I will need to fix), it might influence me to make a change while still maintaining the sequence I intended but it may just not happen.

That being said, it is pretty set in stone in regards to the sequence and location of the first three dungeons and the necessary bits between them.  I might still dabble in some cryptic messages here and there as filler between those points, but the points are set.

Also, the ultimate goal and story are decided on.  I know where I am starting and where I am going, but the details along the way are still somewhat fluid.

Wow, you map really fast. Looking pretty sweet.

Oh ok.  But I don't know anything about mapping and stuff.  Only I can do is storyline and add some idea.

To be fair, I had been working on both maps simultaneously for the first two weeks doing the present screen and then the past of the same screen.  I decided I wanted a completed work though so decided to forgo the past for a while.  This is what I had as of starting this topic a couple days ago.  Though I did finish Mabe Village, portions of the prairie, and the signpost maze (which isn't a maze yet in the past).

OMG!  TEH FOREMZ ES BAK!

Well, in the interim I finished very little work on Return to Koholint actually.  I blame it on the long Memorial Day weekend.

I did however finish the past overworld Tuesday, but I had stuff come up today that kept me from working today.  I also do not have an image update since I don't have access to my assets currently, but I'll upload the finished product tomorrow.  Now to work on the underwater portions.

Here is my basic triage plan for Return to Koholint:
1. Overworld (done aside from minor changes that might be necessary after testing)
2. Underwater
3. Underground areas which connect two places on the overworld (I plan to do this to make the overworld playable as a standalone demo/test build)
4. All remaining underground areas
5. Dungeons
6. Interaction placement (including enemies, NPCs, and things like time portals as well as any necessary scripting)

Now, technically, any of these could change places, but currently that's what I'm looking at.  Frankly, I much prefer mapping to dealing with interaction placement.  I do not mind the scripting that much, but since I program for a living, being limited to such a small toolset is a less than ideal way of doing things for me. :001_tongue:

I am just hoping I can regain and then maintain the momentum I had prior to the long weekend and really hammer some mapping out and then maybe start drudging through the interaction adding process.

You're going to have underwater too? I don't necessarily like the idea of that because I personally didn't like those sections in the original game :P Sounds good nonetheless though. Keep up the good work.

I've been lurking these forums and came across this project. It certainly looks promising judging from the maps you have there and that story looks really good.

What program did you use to make the maps? ZOLE or a different program? They look surprisingly like official Nintendo maps.

I simply used ZOLE.  They look like official Nintendo maps because they essentially are.  I took the basic layout of Koholint Island from Link's Awakening and then tweaked it to show what it might look like before Link showed up and after several years of disaster. 

You can see in the past, the island is generally more forested, green, and overall safer, but you can also see some areas of development like Kanalent Castle, the quarry (which becomes the rapids), and the picture shop.  The swamp is still a lake, Eagle Tower has yet to be built, Turtle Rock has no turtle features yet, and there is even a small (man-made) island in the bay that hasn't been made yet and the bay has not been closed off yet either. 

In the future on the other hand, most of the plant life has suffered, the Tal Tal Mountains have become volcanically active which has in turn dried up the springs of water that fed the river system of the island.  The swamp has completely dried up, the rapids have become little more than a trickle, and the entire island is sinking into the ocean.  The graveyard has overflowed into the Koholint Prairie, the lakes and ponds are dry, and the sinkholes have only gotten larger over time.

New update!

Uploaded a picture of a small portion of the underwater map to signify that I am now done with the past underwater (which is obviously the easier one since most of the map is not water).  I can copy/paste certain portions of the past underwater to the present, but I will have to do a lot more mapping from scratch relative to the past time period.

Honestly, I love the story creation and the mapping portion of hacking, but I am getting more and more worried as I get closer to the point where the only thing left is interactions, scripting, and text editing.  I'm a programmer, but the way things are structured in the ROM are not exactly how I would have done it if I coded from scratch so I'm not thrilled at the prospect of learning that system. :blink:

Well, I'd like to tell you not to worry, but the truth of the matter is if you don't have experience messing around with VBA, memory addresses, and various data in the ROM, you might struggle a bit. Nature abuses ZOSE's power in which it hardcodes a lot of memory values and does what should be done using assembly or something already built into the game. There are a few assembly hacks here and there as well, but those are really only needed if you want pure quality and really custom things (eg. tiles being set because of a flag before the map transitions vs afterwards if you were to use a script, or how I copied Pokemon Red's third gym garbage bin puzzle in our level 3 :P). Text editing is really easy, but it's really messy as well. Before ZOTE 1.2 I think, there was no auto-compressing. It made text editing really difficult. Basically the method we go by is to place a random NPC with text and search for that text using ZOTE and edit that. It's pretty rigged.

But anyway, it always helps to be able to hack games without tools. ZOLE and the other tools are only so powerful, so you're limited by what they can do and what's documented. Nature was done using mostly the tools, but like I said, it had a couple of assembly hacks (actually like 3 or 4 in the 3rd dungeon) and regular hex edits for some overworld stuff. Remember, you can always ask me or Fatories for help. ZOHS will also be a lot better in terms of power and documentation, so you can count on that in the future as well.

Yeah, it's really a trial-and-error thing with the text editing and the interactions are mostly just tedious.  There are a few minor things, but I imagine aside from story related things there really won't be a lot of scripting (aside from all the ghini I still have to script for...though I noticed they did what I'm looking for in Seasons...likely a script unique to Seasons, but I am going to look into it to be sure) or memory hacking (though I've already created a startup script to fix issues with some flags for animals, linked games, etc.).

I don't really see a lot of opportunities to change things based on one time period or another.  I will be checking for essences of course to trigger certain events, but I don't think I'll be doing any "change the past to advance in the future" gimmicks.  Return to Koholint is a time travel story, but the game is really almost a game of two worlds rather than a linked and changing one.  Am I making any sense? :001_huh:

Anyhow, I've completed a large chunk of the present underwater and will probably start working on the cave system next just so I can get an overworld alpha build ready for local and open testing.

Decided that I am going to update the first post as well as include pictures in new posts so that you can see any new material without sorting through the main post.

Here is what I have completed of the present underwater.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a204/ShadowOwnsAll/PresentUnderwater_zpse88fcf61.png)

As you can see, the ruins of the island are still down there along with some new aquatic houses.  Obviously, as I completed the underwater portions, I've had to update the overworld map as well in order to prevent diving into a solid wall and things like that, but I am keeping the original overworld image on the main post because that is the conceptual map I intended and the debris has been added simply due to gameplay necessity.

I have roughly another 20-25 screens of underwater areas to create.  Next, I'll start work on the cavern system and then I will start on the updated and time changed dungeons.  I'm going to have to figure out a way to get the different sized dungeon rooms to translate without wasting a lot of space or having a lot of hallways.

Wow, that's really neat! I didn't even think about the ruins actually being underwater. That's new and actually really cool. Can't wait to see it fully complete!

And yeah, when I was remaking LA's level 1 in Ages, I mostly expanded the space between the walls and other objects. You'll probably end up doing the same.

Oh wow, that's brilliant. I'm eager to play this. Keep the updates coming!

I'd love to see how this plays out in the actual game.

You've got me hyped!