Primary Zelda Hacking

I know a number of us are working on our own projects.

However, I'm thinking of perhaps doing a collaborative hack. A complete Zelda hack, in part to show off what ZOLE, ZOSE, and the rest can do.

Now, I'm going to try and be a bit more active over the next while, but the main issue would be figuring out how to go about this.

I'm thinking that a story-heavy game with difficult puzzles would be interesting to do. We'd just have to write a good story.

So, your thoughts?

I think a story would be kind of difficult to do, technically; however, with ZOSE's abilities, we could make our own cutscenes. I'd be willing to help with a story, and some overworld stuff.

Well, yeah, we'd definitely have to put some effort into it.

Which ROM would we base it off of, though? If we went with Seasons, we would encounter more technical issues but have a large single overworld and the Rod of Seasons; Or we could go with Ages, with the double world mechanic and a lot less issues. Dungeons don't really matter; we can completely redesign them.

I'm personally thinking Seasons. If it's a community project type thing, any major issues should be able to get ironed out. It also gives us the RC Boomerang and Roc's Cape.

I just thought of something- If we did Seasons, we'd have two times as much work as Ages. With Ages, we'd only have to make two overworlds. Seasons has four versions of each overworld, depending on the season, plus Subrosia.

...however, I would absolutely LOVE to create a dungeon using the Temple of Seasons' tileset...

How about a change in the map switch mechanics?  Does the game have to revolve around seasons?  What if instead it was the 4 elements, and you cycled between earth, air, fire and water?  Furthermore, I was thinking of perhaps a cloud dungeon.  You could have a dungeon, like level 6 that takes place in a small tower.  When you reach the top, you have to use a trapoline to reach the clouds.  Also the overworld needs not have every screen have 4 varients.  The desert in Seasons is the same for all 4 seasons, and in some areas in the mountains, there only exists maps in the winter set.  All others have empty screens where the maps would be.  You could design some areas to be one season(or in my suggestion's case, one element), and just not permit map changing there.

Yeah, I was thinking about things other than seasons that we could do, similar to how in my Ages hack, you aren't traveling through time. Elements would be pretty cool, too. Also, going above the clouds sounds pretty cool.

And also, Gamma, yes, we have the Temple of Seasons tileset without having to import it. Which is really, really cool.

How would the four elements work? What differ about them from seasons?

Well, water element would have water, fire would give us lava, earth would probably be more desert or just plants in general, and wind would bring all the things that might connotate.

For example, take an area which under earth your way is blocked by, say, a tree. Changing the areas elemental affinity to Fire might turn the tree to lava, and now you can jump across.

Ah... I see...

Well, is anyone actually interested in this community project? I think we should see if anyone wants to do this before we start thinking of anything.

I was thinking like elemental planes of existance(sort of a Dungeons and Dragons thing).  For example, the fire element area would be like Subrosia, but the same area could then be turned into somthing with water, or clouds.  Earth would be the base area, and it would look like normal.  A good example would be if you took the village, and you entered the fire plane.  There you would see volcanos and seas of magma, rather than trees and flowers.  Enter the dimention of air, and suddenly you are on top of clouds and might even be able to catch a gust of wind to jump further.  The dimention of water would have rivers and oceans.  How it could all tie together is somthing done in one dimention is carried over to the other 3, except in different ways.  Also this means that the dungeons could be themed, 2 based off of each element.  There are some other things too you can use, like how earth is often associated with the undead(so a crypt could be an earth based level).  You could even create a forest dungeon, complete with trees and stuff.  Of course it all would be a massive undertaking.

OH! I understand now! I was thinking you meant different version of each map, like the seasons.  ;)  Now I see that you mean each overworld map would become a different 'realm.' OK.

Yeah, it would take a big effort to actually come up with a story, make dungeons, make overworlds with puzzless...

It's not like we're running on a schedule, though.

Well the first thing we should try to do is make a proof of concept.  I would start by taking an area and making it have a fire relm couterpart(since Subrosia is already in the game).

I can do that. I'm not busy, so I could do that right now.


What if we made it so that the Temple of Seasons (Temple of Dimensions? Temple of Elements?) was something like the Spirit Tower in Spirit Tracks? After a certain amoun of dungeons, you have to return there to get another power for the Rod of Seasons (Rod of Elements? Wand of Elements?) to progress through the game.

How about Din being the Queen of Realms, and Onox is a traitor who took her hostage?

Interesting ideas.  Seasons already sort of has the "go back to get new powers" thing.  Perhaps all of Subrosia could be refitted as the entire temple, with each area governed by a different power.

Right now I'm in the process of seeing how seasons work.  The game seems to use a means by which tilesets are changed based on which season is active.  That could actually be done away with if we refit it so that each season, or dimention, has it's own areas, rather than have changing tilesets.

Yeah. We'd HAVE to do that, actually, as I don't think there's a way to have lava be in the same map as a tree stump.

Don't forget that Lin has programed it so each season can have it's own unique map.  By the looks of things, the first few area ID's cycle between 4 different seasons.  This is good because then it's not nessicary to have 4 sets of 256 bytes to represent all the seasons.  Furthermore, it might even be possible to make dungeons have multiple dimentions.  Don't forget too that it's possible to add in scripts that excecute only in certain dimentions, and map overlays also upon the same conditions.

Okay I just tried it, and yes, it's possible.  Now granted, what I tried was using 4 different level areas, but the concept should work.

Alright, then...

What would the story be? Like I said, with ZOSE, we could make our own cutscenes (Making Link walk, unable to be controled, showtext, ect.) The only thing I could see is moving sprites- is there a way to call only sprites? Then we could just have it so that the inhabitants of the land can teleport  :001_tt2:

I would assume there is. After all, when Nayru is singing in Ages, aren't the musical notes called?

Also, just a thought I had, what if we made this Oracle of Secrets? And involved Farore, rather than Din?

We'd need a name for the country this takes place in, as well. Off the top of my head, places named in Zelda games but never visited are pretty much "x of place" items, so we could call it Byrna, Pacci, Somaria, etc. just for a canon name.

I just had an idea off the top of my head, hence the double post. A ring as a dungeon item? The idea would be the ___ holy rings. You'd need them to get past certain areas. I think personally we should include the rings as part of the game, a necessity, as opposed to just an extra.

We could... I don't really like that idea, honestly. I like the actual items more.

Well, the thing is we don't have to make it the only dungeon item. Plenty of dungeons throughout the series have multiple dungeon items.

Well the only thing about the rings is that you have to go back to Vasu and either get them appraised, or at least go back and equip them.  Hmm, idea.  What if we made the rod of seasons, or in this case, rod of elements, also summon the ring select screen?

A thought- would it be possible to give the Rod the effect of Vasu? If it is, maybe we could make the Rod a sort of house for a partner spirit? Then we could make it so that there are four Elemental Rings that allow transit between the four Realms, and you need the partner spirit to identify them before you can use them. IDK.

Rings would work, but they would still need a transition tile for it to activate.  Right now I'm researching how Vasu works(he actually could still be there, but he gives the companion spirit).  I found the script that I believe activates when you talk to him.  In there should be a spot that calls the ring list.  The rod of Seasons could easily be refitted to activate certain events on certain tiles.

Maybe we could make a custom tile for that? We could use a differently colored Season Spirit sprite for the companion.

I am thinking there would be one tile for changing elements, which basically acts like a warp with the approprate ring equipped, and a tile that calls forth the spirit.  Sor far I haven't had luck with the Rod of Seasons calling the ring list, but I'll keep trying.

Yeah... I like that. He/She/It could give you advice if you use the Rod on tha specific spot.

Also, characters... Are we making the Oracle of Secrets with Farore, or are we going to make a different fan game?

Okay I did it.  The only issue seems to be that if you call up the ring list after entering a screen normally, the text box looks a bit off.  My guess is that's a game limitation, since Vasu's house is entered into by a an entrance.  What I used was E1 27 49 01 BE.  That calls the ASM procedure in bank 15, plus the 01 which I don't know what it does.  The BE allows you to move after you exit the list.  I think that's all that's nessicary, unless we could perhaps change it so that one square does offer advice and select ring, sort of like a modified Vasu.  Advice would be a simple dungeon hint, and could even take the place of owl statues.  In fact, the owl statues themselves could be refitted to handle this information.

Does OoS have Owl Statues?

...Oh, yeah, the ones that need Mystery seeds... right...

Anyway, cool! Wait, I lost track... what's the point of being able to call the Ring List from the Rod?

This makes it so we can have rings be integrated smoothly into the gameplay.

OK... Could we have Link's ring transformations actually be able to attack? Like, Octoroc Link can shoot rocks, Moblin Link can shoot arrows...

That would take alot of extra work since only entries that appear on the weapons list are capable of hurting monsters.  I always felt like the transformations should have had extra benefits.

Actually, that wouldn't be useful...

If we are going to ue Holodrum as our overworld, will the entire Earth overworld be lush and green? Or are there going to be places (desert, ocean, volcanoes) where the different Realms bleed through?

I would love the throw my hand in to help this project. In specific working with dungeons, side scrolling maps and mapping the insides of houses. Anything I could add to this project sounds great and I like the ideas being thrown around here.

Well how I envision it is that the element of Earth is the base element.  Consider it the "real world".  Indeed the world would have as varied a geogrphy as we desire.  Just like how different areas in Seasons have a "native" season, areas would have a native "element", though most would be Earth.  A volcano area would be in the fire relm, since it's kind of hard to add MORE volcanos.  However, the water relm would replace the volcanos with somthing like whirlpools, and earth with trees and stuff.  It's not entire nessicary to flood each screen with secrets or even have areas that showcase all 4 elements.  The desert in Seasons had only one season, Summer.  Even if you were to change seasons, it would still look like summer.  One point though that could be taken into account would be the same as Seasons where different elements invade areas.  A volcano area could be iced over, or a water area could be parched and dry.  We are still using the same basic concept of Seasons, but in this case it gives us more freedom to bend the laws of nature.  The different elemental areas could have various aspects that are either scaled back or emphasised.  For example, Earth would have have trees and plants, but an area not default would have trees and plants in places where there one might have been a path.  Fire would have rivers of magma and volcanos in places where water might be, and there would be less plants and more stones(so a bush could become a stone).  Water would have raging torrents of water where before it might have been a simple pond.  Air can inplement both clouds and ice, since ice is considered to be a product of air element having power over water.  Liquids could freeze over, some areas might be elevated extensivly and almost out of place(like some plains could become a rocky mountain).  The best part is that since it's contained, imaginations can run wild and emphasis would not nessicarly be on making things connect 100% of the time.

I see...

So, would the invading Realms be the result of the villan doing something?

Yes, in the way the Seasons were thown out of order.  So far I got a fresh rom and deleted the entire overworld for all 4 seasons(that was a simple task, no I am not joking).  That's just to mess about with.

+ interactions and musics + room propeties and room scrolling effect between two rooms with different tilesets?

Not, just the map data.  It was easier than just going about all 1024 screens and just pasting empty screens to them.

Also, unintended benefits of rom corruptors.

Courruption FTW! Any way that idea of changing landscape to perfectly fit each season sounds fitting and like jiggly said, It would be better to work with a blank ow then having to create each screen one by one and losing track.

OK i want to add ideas im all talk so you might like my suggestions even though its impossible
More dungeons in linked game to get room of rites
Soul Tower
Activate portals through switch
Animals in dungeon
Lvl 3 items biggoron swords in dungeon
Custom bosses
Mystery seeds better use
Treasure hunts what should i do next like jewels in oos
Have boss every 100 kills like maple
Water element under water
Dont be cheap please i absolute hate paralel worlds and im sure a lot of people agree with me

I will never release my rom hack because i have no asm + programing skills for digging deeper in zelda oracle of ages.
The zelda oracle games is not 100% reverse engineered with all tools from both my and your mind.
If something is impossible with gameboy. Then decompile it to c++ and make the best zelda fan game in this world.

No you will know what i mean when u have 7 beamos in one room  which is dark and you cant see where your going

Listen your hack is good as long as you havent over powered enemies and shoved 18 enemies on 1 screen

I can't change the life and damage and defence on different enemies including miniboses and bigboses :(
+ what attacks and magics they use with their ai behavior + their weak points.


Sorry if offtopic.


Too many things impossible :(

Is it not possible to expand room of rites???
Animal dungeon could be lvl 4
Season dungeon like mermaid cave
Mystery seed new use (stun, invincible, trigger chest, reveal path by sprinkling) just ideas most likely impossible
Underwater like zora place in ooa

Replacing mermaid suit with zora flippers.
Dive with zora flippers instead of mermaid suit.
Swim faster in the sea than mermaid suit.

Dimitri has an advantage on waterfalls and tides - So a dungeon full of water everywhere and water enemies
Moosh has an advantage of holes so a dungeon full of holes and enemies which can be killed easily with moosh slam
Ricky has an advantage on slopes and has power attack so a dungeon on those advantages
Or all animals in one dungeon thinking of which one to use

Hmm, I actually like that.

I like that too.

Unfortunately im all talk and could only think of ideas :(
oh and when i went soul tower i got the idea from this thread but a really good one lol
http://zeldahacking.ulmb.com/index.php?topic=223.0
This tower could contain 8 floors instead of nine with a lot of bosses and and 2 fairy rooms to get the lvl 3 sword or biggoron sword it could bbe an optional dungeon

I would like to add more atm but unfortunatly any ideas I have have either been said before or I haven thought of yet. I will try to find some more ideas to add to this in a bit because its hard to think of ideas between classes. :(

I'm down with adding a beach area as long as this rom hack is organized.

First off you should be discouraged from trying to make a hack because you know know asm, I dont know much of it yet I still have ended up fine with my progress. Ya the cool stuff is the stuff which can be done with asm of extensive hex editing but it is possible if you know what your doing.

Fist off there is an enemy editor for that, also everything is pososible if you put time and effort into it :P.