Minimap Editing Follies

Well let me tell you, this is certainly going a lot better than the last time.

I started off with a simple task: edit the graphics of the minimap. It seemed simple enough: there was a mention of it in linscape99's notes, and I figured it would be pretty easy. So I found the offset, edited a few numbers, and saw what happened.

Once the game loaded up, and I figured out the the backspace button on my laptop corresponds to select to open the minimap, I realized that in order to test my data, I would have to actually "defog" it to see the whole thing.

Luckily, I'm lazy. After twenty minutes of messing around with the SRAM editor in VBA, I managed to set the map to all defogged, and to spawn myself in the upper left corner. (I had messed around with the SRAM last time also, so it came back quickly.)

I change the first three bytes of the offset where the data is supposed to be, reload the ROM, and BANG!! IT CHANGED!! Needless to say, I did a huge fist pump.

See, this was really a big turning point for me, as I hadn't accomplished anything before this. This was the maiden hack, if you will.

Anyway. I copied 64 bytes from the hex code into notepad and formatted them into a map. I closed VBA and found an image of the minimap online. Then, I set off to write down all the codes for all the squares with a "YES! IT WORKED!!!!!! Time to document." (THAT is a direct quote from my personal notes.)

An hour later, and it was done. I copied the hex map I'd made in notepad and started editing away, and the image at the top of this post is what I have to show for twenty minutes worth. As you can see, I've added a second castle with another Windfish Egg at the top of it, as well as replaced the forest with a witch's hut, and vice versa. A working storyline? Link goes into the future, clones the Windfish and brings back another Egg, but only to find a society raging with civil war between the extremist policies of two conflicting monarchs? I THINK SO.

What I learned:
-Where the minimap data is in the ROM!
-How to make a hex map in notepad
-How long it takes to make a table file for tile graphics
-How frustrating it is to edit image files in MS Paint with a touchpad laptop.

Up next:
-Minimap behavior editing
-Hello World with Windows API

Time for bed after a successful day.