Recent Posts

I keep getting the message about an "unintended exception" and "Index was outside the bounds of the array" for my files. I just lost the most recent version of my hack New Awakening due to fiddling with Kanalet Castle warps (I had no trouble adding extra ones, but changing the existing ones caused crashes) and when I used the patch on a new copy of the rom to get the second-most recent version back, it gave the "unintended exception" message right when I opened up LALE. I've had the message come up on other copies of the Link's Awakening rom, like on Hard Awakening and the unaltered rom, but never my own hack. I tried saving the hack after that message came up--without making any changes--but when I opened it in VisualBoy and tried to move down a screen, it went into an endless loop of scrolling down, screen after screen, to the south. I then pasted over that rom with a duplicate I created before, before opening and saving it on LALE, and it ran in VisualBoy fine.

So, the message never came up on the original hack, but when I tried to use it on a patched rom, it did come up, and I was unable to save anything on it with LALE without inducing that infinite scrolling bug. If I can't change this, I will not be able to modify that version of the hack, the version that came from the patch. I have earlier copies due to some paranoia after losing all my progress on level 6 due to tweaking Wind Fish's Egg warps, but ostensibly I should be able to create a patch from a hacked rom, use it to patch a different rom, and then tweak that second rom with LALE and eventually produce another patch. Otherwise I can only make patches from the original rom files, and if I ever lose those, I will hit a dead end and will not be able to modify my hack any further. I shouldn't have lost much progress, but I don't know what changes there are between the latest (and only) patch file, which dates back to the 8th, and the latest rom file, which dates back to the 6th.

Nice initiative!

I've witnessed a playthrough of the first dungeon of this hack. It looks very promising. It is without a doubt the best Oracles hack in development! Though that isn't saying much since it's the only Oracles hack in development...

[first ever]

Once upon a time, there was a new ROMhacking tool released.  It's name was ZOLE 4.  It allowed production of a custom Oracle of Ages game.  It was popular.  Many hacks were started, many had good intentions and good plans, many were getting along great.  The forums were booming, many questions were asked, many questions were answered, many releases were made, and much good was happening.  Then, all of a sudden, everything kinda... died.  Hacks were dropped, people were no longer heard from, and so many good intentions... disappeared.  And the only thing ever put in the Finished Hacks section was a beta demo of a game that was originally going to be released by Nintendo, and there's no way to even download it.  And here we are today, wondering what happened.  But that was before a zeldahacking administrator guy came along.  A guy whose dream was to make his own Zelda dungeon for years.  A guy who put all possible effort into learning and sticking with ZOLE 4, even after failed attempts.  A guy whose sole intention was to bring that popularity back into ZOLE 4 and keep it there forever.  A guy whose goal was to get people excited about OoA hacking for the release of ZOHS.  A guy whose goal is to put together the first ever hack of Oracle of Ages, completely original, with 8 new dungeons, new events, new overworlds, new and original everything, and to stick with it, no matter how long it takes.  That was before... BigTarantula99.

My hack is entitled "MISICS" for some reason.  It just kind of describes the game - fun, mystical, original.  It is making great progress and I'm currently working on the overworld after Level 1.  For completion info, see my signature.  For more info, join me in the IRC or just read any posts below this.  (Or create your own post.)

[Video 01]

I know that one of the first things I did when I downloaded ZOLE 4 is go look on YouTube for some tutorials, because let's face it - text tutorials can be hard to follow, even with pictures.  So I'm letting you all know that I started a series of ZOLE 4, ZOTE, ZOCF, and ZOSE video tutorials on my YouTube channel that I hope you guys might find useful until ZOHS is released.

Video 01
    -What you get and how to extract it
    -Opening and saving your ROM
    -ZeldaHacking.NET
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osMTxZrCFvQ

Video 02
    -Map Editing
    -Music Editing
    -Area IDs and Palettes
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKP__Dks3Pw

Video 03
    -Chest Editing
    -The 30 Chests Per Overworld Patch
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kqCmtj4Dm4

Might as well just mention on this thread, since it kinda has to do with ZOHS production, that beta 0.05 is now out!  I'm too lazy to go find the link, though.

I found the hack elsewhere--I forget where--but there were some game-breaking errors in it. It must be an old version; Marin and the walrus were still present. Since it's not posted here anymore and the one hack I found is outdated, I fixed what I found and made a patch.
These are the changes I remember making:

Changed the wall in the caves west of Goponga Swamp so the player could not get stuck there if he or she went through Crazy Tracy’s wall before getting the Feather.
Replaced a flower in Goponga Swamp with a bush that looks like a bombable wall so the player can get in without Bow-wow. Added a bomb in Bottle Grotto so the player would not miss the one hiding in Kanalet Castle.
Added a ladder tile to Bottle Grotto so the player could not get stuck in a spike pit before getting the feather, which resulted in an unavoidable death if the player fell into it.
Changed a warp in Angler’s Tunnel that got the player stuck every time (the coordinates were 0,0 before).
Removed one Thwomp and moved another Thwomp in Angler’s Tunnel so the player could not get stuck in either one.
Changed a tile in a side-scrolling screen in Angler’s Tunnel so the player could not get stuck in a wall.
Changed two tile puzzles in Angler’s Tunnel that would not respond to the player stepping on one or more tiles.
Moved a key in Angler’s Tunnel that wouldn’t spawn if you opened the chest in the same room.
Removed some sprites in map 94 of Catfish’s Maw because they could not be killed using any means and completely blocked the player from using the Hookshot to cross a gap.
Removed a wall in the miniboss section of Catfish’s Maw because the miniboss would get stuck in it and never open its eye.
Changed a trigger in Catfish’s Maw so a door would open; previously the trigger was a movable block that did not exist.
Deleted Marin from the beach and deleted the walrus.

Marin vanishes from Mabe Village at some point, so it's possible to miss the first song if you delay getting the Ocarina. But I don't know how to fix that. There are some graphical problems I did not correct, either. Otherwise I left the hack unchanged.

Wow, impressive. You're the first person to release two separate hacks within a week. The reason there are so many errors/bugs is because this was made with Nephi, the first LA editor. It only edited dungeons, so there aren't any overworld changes.

I found the hack elsewhere--I forget where--but there were some game-breaking errors in it. It must be an old version; Marin and the walrus were still present. Since it's not posted here anymore and the one hack I found is outdated, I fixed what I found and made a patch.
These are the changes I remember making:

Changed the wall in the caves west of Goponga Swamp so the player could not get stuck there if he or she went through Crazy Tracy’s wall before getting the Feather.
Replaced a flower in Goponga Swamp with a bush that looks like a bombable wall so the player can get in without Bow-wow. Added a bomb in Bottle Grotto so the player would not miss the one hiding in Kanalet Castle.
Added a ladder tile to Bottle Grotto so the player could not get stuck in a spike pit before getting the feather, which resulted in an unavoidable death if the player fell into it.
Changed a warp in Angler’s Tunnel that got the player stuck every time (the coordinates were 0,0 before).
Removed one Thwomp and moved another Thwomp in Angler’s Tunnel so the player could not get stuck in either one.
Changed a tile in a side-scrolling screen in Angler’s Tunnel so the player could not get stuck in a wall.
Changed two tile puzzles in Angler’s Tunnel that would not respond to the player stepping on one or more tiles.
Moved a key in Angler’s Tunnel that wouldn’t spawn if you opened the chest in the same room.
Removed some sprites in map 94 of Catfish’s Maw because they could not be killed using any means and completely blocked the player from using the Hookshot to cross a gap.
Removed a wall in the miniboss section of Catfish’s Maw because the miniboss would get stuck in it and never open its eye.
Changed a trigger in Catfish’s Maw so a door would open; previously the trigger was a movable block that did not exist.
Deleted Marin from the beach and deleted the walrus.

Marin vanishes from Mabe Village at some point, so it's possible to miss the first song if you delay getting the Ocarina. But I don't know how to fix that. There are some graphical problems I did not correct, either. Otherwise I left the hack unchanged.

I've updated the topic to contain a .zip file that has an IPS patch in it.

I didn't realize that. How do I remove this thread and how do I create a patch so I can repost the thing? I'm new here and I'm not sure how the process works.