and that's no fun

the swap "d7 ring chest <- bombs, 10" played the ammo pickup sfx, did not bring up a text box nor item sprite, and did not unpause the game.

similarly, on Aug 19th, "d2 10-rupee chest <- compass" produced the crash but did draw the Compass. I forgot to report this when it happened.

A curiosity that happened to someone after updating their randomized ROM from 1.1.0 to 1.2.1. The seeds still work fine. I think they got a level 4 satchel after I hex edited one into their ROM to replace a Subrosian (meaning they could pick it up as many times as they wanted to, incrementing the level each time) because they had issue #15, and then the update shifted the capacity index up by one because of changes related to #9. This means that they can have a maximum of $F1 seeds, whatever the game thinks that means. In reality the ember and gale seed counts are >50.

As you'd expect, the season icons change with the seed counts.

Right now the randomizer relies on ranging over maps for some operations, which is completely unpredictable w/r/t the order you will get. It would be good to wrap this in a type of iteration that would be consistent given the same random seed, and implement a command-line option to go along with it.

The strange flute disappears from the Horon shop as soon as you enter the Natzu region (including the screen to the north of the north of Blaino's house), which could cause problems if the route the randomizer is working with requires you to have an animal and doesn't plan to give you Ricky's gloves.

The solution would either be to not consider the strange flute a valid way to get an animal, or to prevent the flute from disappearing.

I'm admittedly not too experienced with this game so I might just be missing something, but the completion log says that "mystery cave chest" has the Satchel and is accessible with Autumn, L2 Rang, and Magnets. I can't for the life of me find anything that would be a Mystery Cave with the tools given to me (including bombing multiple walls).

Red ore and blue ore are already randomized; leave hard ore vanilla; remove shield check from smithy and give a random item instead of the iron shield, which goes in some other random slot.

The randomizer was never intended to support linked games, but linked support has been requested and it might be satisfied by:

• Keeping Hero's Cave as the unlinked version
• Something about the Maku Tree doing a different script and not dropping an item
• Looking at the jewel chests that are different

In this seed, it was easily possible to get to hide and seek without getting shovel first: oos-randomizer_log_2018-08-07_191422.txt

It would be helpful if the graph were able to answer questions that the current routing and softlock-guarding logic can't. Currently its queries are limited to "can I reach node X?" and "what nodes can I reach from X?". Other questions that would be helpful to answer include:

• "If I can reach node B from node A, can I necessarily reach node C from node B?" (see #15, and most other softlock conditions)
• "If I can't necessarily reach node C from B from A right now, does there exist a future in which I can?" – For instance, after experiencing the problem in #15, if you were able to get ember seeds as D2's dungeon item, you'd be able to get back to Horon Village. But the ember seeds might not be slotted yet when the question is asked.

These questions can obviously be broken down into subproblems and generalized. I have notes on how to do these things but I haven't implemented them correctly yet. :~)

This is pretty easy since the way the game gives you seasons by giving you the rod with a different sub-ID. Leaving the normal rod in the game if the rods are randomized like this doesn't make much sense, but that's fine since fool's ore is there to fill the missing slot.

I was wondering how possible it was to remove the H&S cutscene. Given a pegasus + cape skip, it's very easy to get yourself softlocked, should you not get the shovel early on. While H&S is entirely avoidable on most seeds, it could still cause trouble for the careless. If it is possible, I don't expect any priority on it due to it being avoidable, but it would be a nice quality of life upgrade.

1. Having types of seeds locked until you get the right season is an interesting game mechanic.

2. Having to change the season to get seeds often necessitates some backtracking; minimizing backtracking is the heart of routing; routing is fun.

3. Most players won't initially know what seasons seeds grow in, since the vanilla game's seed seasons and default area seasons match.

4. Having earlier access to gale seeds and pegasus seeds cuts down on tedium.

5. The distance between the scent tree and its corresponding stump is just way too long.

As suggested by Drenn in #16, chosen by the majority in a poll, and preferred by myself, seeds will grow in all seasons in 1.3.

As requested from Herreteman.

When the player talks to the captain with the bell, the ship sails out of Subrosia / Samasa desert, meaning that the player can no longer talk to the ghost pirate, pick up his skull, or find the item that replaces the rusty bell (AFAIK).

The game continues to play the cave music even while at the Ember Tree.

An example is digging up the floodgate key, using it (which removes it from your inventory), and being able to dig it up again. This doesn't matter mechanically and it seems like it would be a pain to fix, so I'm not fixing it. 😛

e.g. -goal "winter, summer, spring, fall" will iterate forever.

I couldn't find the essence check for this, but that's because I didn't know you had to dance six times.

As in, don't place a feather in a slot that you can only reach using the cape, even if all the necessary items have been slotted and the rest of the slots just need to be filled with something or other. The four empty magic ring sub IDs might be useful for this.

Getting treasure $02 allows Link to throw punches as if he's wearing the fist ring. I need to test this a bit more, but I think the main problem will be that there are obviously no graphics, text, or equip screen information associated with the item, which would be confusing at the very least.

This is a step on the path to #6, and will be the big feature in 1.4. Overworld items that are not already randomized will remain untouched, but chests in all dungeons will be shuffled (as well as slots like the satchel in D1 and the boss key in D5). However, dungeon-specific items that are created by interactions like "kill enemies in room -> drop small key" are probably not practical to randomize.

The same logic used for the existing item placement can probably be applied equally well to dungeon chests.

A command-line flag should be added to disable this behavior so that ~2-hour races with only key items randomized are still possible.

Thought this would not be viable; it is viable.

Not sure why, since we do this with Ricky in any% and he stays right outside. Without a shovel, you can't remove the snow piles or reach Moosh, so you're softlocked.

Location:

Inventory:

Phoe and I were testing this yesterday—normal group transitions don't reset the outside season, only dungeons and Subrosia do. If this is possible, it would obviate three softlock checks.

In the latest randomized ROM I played, the poe skip room in D7 was lit up without having to fight the first poe sister. I haven't checked whether it was still possible to fight the poe sister anyway.

Edit: This didn't happen in either full playthrough I did of previous versions.

oos-randomizer_log_2018-08-11_080720.txt

I'll go through my completed vanilla game tonight to see which items can and can't wake up the Maku tree. The L-2 Boomerang is not one of them (or I'm doing something wrong).

E: Bombs do work but the timing isn't obvious so players could theoretically waste their ten "free" bombs trying to wake up the Maku Tree. Also not all casuals would think to try them (as I didn't).

Further Edit: Actually, it looks like the only items that can't wake up the Maku Tree are the bracelet, feather/cape, shovel, and the boomerangs, so maybe add a note to the readme file about using bombs to wake up the Maku tree?

Yet another edit: It looks like the Bracelet's locked behind itself again anyway (it's in the Square Jewel Chest) - I need the bracelet to leave town from the north (Blaino's got the flippers, which you can loop around the Moblin's Fortress to get there if you've got your animal companion (NOTE: or the Cape and Pegasus seeds if you have Moosh as your companion, or the Flippers if Ricky is your companion), but you still need to access Spool Swamp to activate animal companions, and you'd still need to have ember seeds and a feather) or to enter Spool from Subrosia, and I need ember seeds from the Spool Swamp tree to exit town from the east, and I need a feather to get into Subrosia from town anyway (which the nearest feather is... behind the ember seeds, which are growing in Spool Swamp)

At least a couple people expressed interest in having a mode for shuffling all chest/slots and items, and not just the key ones.

This could use the current key item sequencing implementation (but with more potential slots) and use the rest of the treasures (rupees, pieces of heart, gasha seeds) as the filler after the route is finished.

https://clips.twitch.tv/RealNastyTireArgieB8

Technically not a softlock since you can always s+q to the beginning of the dungeon. Maybe move the magnet ball one tile to the left.

Names like "mystery cave" (#45) aren't helpful to an end user; map them to more descriptive names for use in the log file.

I don't know if or when I'm getting around to this, but some people just aren't familiar with command lines at all and ask for help in order to figure out how to run the randomizer. IIRC go-astilectron was relatively painless to use so I'd probaly use that again.

I'm leaving the readme as is until I have any concrete plans.

Many people I know are able to read, write, and speak English, and a growing market exists for English-language videogames.

This is sort of a "wishlist" feature for now, probably coming immediately before or after #6 unless it turns out to be stupid hard for some reason.

Getting the flippers item might trigger Dimitri to disappear from Sunken City, meaning you wouldn't be able to come back for the master's plaque chest later.

(Edit: Also from dragonc0!)

An option like -maxlen, but instead, it requires a minimum number of slotted items to be included in the route.

From dragonc0 – you respawn inside a tree if you exit the Rosa portal from Subrosia, then die before setting another save point.

There's pretty much no reason to create that bridge (unless you have magical boomerang?) and doing it blocks the waterway that you can ordinary swim through.

Definitely the volcano cutscene, maybe parts of the Maku Seed / Onox / Twinrova cutscenes near the end of the game?

All the times when the Maku Tree contacts you could also be removed, since the dialogue isn't applicable to the randomizer anyway.

a solution I've seen to prevent softlocks (and to cut backtracking teduim) is to allow warping back to the starting screen (i.e. where Impa is)
link's awakening randomizer does this by adding extra cave entrances on some locations

but if it were possible, maybe some button combination (changing the soft reset to this? something in the map screen?) or some menu option could work better

this would allow logic to disregard needing to get out of places and open it up, and not need to adjust areas to let you escape them

In a casual playthrough, the way to enter D7 is usually by changing the season to summer, meaning that you don't have to clear snow piles to enter. But if you exit D7 without either shovel or gale seeds, then you're stuck.

It would be nice to have a mode that could require things like poe skip, HSS skip, D7 key without magnet glove, but only if there's also a mode that doesn't require tricks you have to spend a bunch of time practicing. IIRC the logic allows for those things right now but doesn't require any of them.

Some prenodes in the randomizer should be marked as "hard", meaning that the logic knows you can do them, but will never require you to do them. The former will be used for forbid nodes and softlock checks, and the latter will be used for item placement. Examples of "hard" nodes include poe skip, HSS skip, magnetless D7, and clearing Moosh pits with cape only.

This would probably take place in a setup step before the slotting algorithm runs, since I'm not sure if slotting seasons makes sense.

For convenience, the seasons in areas with seed trees could be synced to the season that the seeds grow in, like they are in the vanilla game.

Flutes let you do weird, mutually exclusive things with animals, like swim before flippers with Dimitri, jump before feather with Ricky and Moosh, punch bombable walls open with Ricky, remove snow piles before shovel with… all of them? Or just Ricky and Moosh? Currently the randomizer knows you can do these things, but only ever "requires" you to get a flute for traversing Spool Swamp and Natzu.

The main problem is that if you buy a flute, you're locking yourself out of an animal companion until you can reach southern Spool Swamp in the right season (spring is an absolute mess). Practically speaking, this is admittedly unlikely to be an issue with the stairway between Eastern Suburbs and Sunken City and the general restrictions on item placement.

What would probably be nicest for logic purposes is if each seed only had one flute, and the Subrosian dance hall, the Horon Village shop, and Ricky all give the same one. Possibly identified from the start.

You must have Ricky to navigate through Natzu Prairie if you don't get any other companion's flute first, due to the cliffs (though you can access Moblin's Keep with Feather + Flippers from the Sunken City side). Ricky is the default companion, and you get his flute if you have no flute when he takes you to Spool Swamp.

You can navigate Natzu Wasteland without Moosh using the Roc's Cape (and can explore it in total with Cape and Pegasus Seeds), and can access Moblin's Keep with Cape + Flippers. Moosh's flute is obtainable from the Horon village shop for 150 Rupees, and is the suggested flute when the Cape appears early.

You can navigate Natzu River without Dimitri using the Flippers, but you won't be able to access Moblin's Keep without him (due to the current). Dimitri has the secondary advantage of providing access to the Subrosian Lava Lake without flippers, allowing for acquiring Autumn with just Feather and Bracelet (and a 2-pit jump to cross from Great Furnace area to the southern Village area). Dimitri's flute is the flute obtained from Subrosian Dancing, and is the suggested flute when the Flippers appear early.

Activating the Animal Companion requires either Spool Swamp access (for Dmitri and Moosh) or taking Ricky to Spool Swamp after retrieving his gloves, depending on which animal companion you want. Moosh (or rather, Natzu Wasteland) provides the most freedom in movement, while Dimitri allows for more access overall. Both Ricky and Moosh can get you around snow piles.

Natzu's form does not become locked until you obtain one of the three flutes (so it's plausible to have a seed where the Roc's Cape is stashed away in Moblin's Keep and you get the Bracelet from Blaino, later on down the line when heart piece locations are shuffled in)

more in-depth: I used Pegasus + Cape to backdoor to Piratians and wandered into the H&S and did it, headed east and they took my Cape from me, went and did H&S again but only got a Gold Ore.

Diving with the Flippers into the one-way cave in southern sunken city (the one that has the pyramid jewel in a linked game) takes you to the northeast of woods of winter.
without the ability to make it winter to navigate them nor gale seeds to warp, you can't get out of the area the waterfalls take you

Sometimes the routing algorithm slots about 12 items that work, but it's possible that there's no way to reach the goal at that point and it will have to try something on the order of n^4 slots until it figures that out, where n is the number of remaining unslotted items.

An easy fix would just be to jump ship and retry from the beginning if no route is found after x iterations.

As encountered by Herreteman, who had 6 essences and the plaque: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/292657933

The room checks essences to spawn the master diver, and the master diver checks essences and flippers to give his item. He spawned fine, and the flippers check ID is changed to the ID of whatever item he gives. In my testing I can't even reproduce the text he says in the video:

「ホントに　ワシのでしに　ならんか？　ダメ?　ぜったいに？」

So I really have no clue what's going on.

This has been requested a couple of times, probably by people who aren't obsessive enough to be able to recite from memory the location and prerequisites for every key item in the game.