Ocarina of Time Level Hacking has officially begun.

[The Teej]

Ocarina of Time Level Hacking has officially begun. I know, it sounds crazy. But while a lot of people out there have been concentrating on the latest next-gen games, a collection of people from a forum called ZSO have created development tools to modify Ocarina of Time to a great extent.

Some may recall a pair of hackers known as Jaytheham and Cendamos, who found an Arwing deep within Ocarina of Time, brought into the game using an Actor Hack Gameshark Code. Ever since then, the scene has been developing tools to take that idea and expand on it. Remember such codes like "Green Fog" or "Get Multiple Links", but then remember how they always shut off after you took out the gameshark? Imagine that, but the Green Fog stays. There always Multiple Links. There's always going to an arwing when you enter that specific room.

Remember such hoaxes like "The Light Temple" or "Get the Triforce"? Imagine if you really could get the Triforce, or enter The Light Temple? With the tools in place, it's now possible to create such things. A programmer called cooliscool has created an OoT-Modification tool now called Utility of Time (once called ZAVAP, which stood for Zelda Actor Viewer and Actor Positioner). It allows you to move actors, change actors, view maps, view actors change the colour and thickness of fog and more. In future releases, it will also add the ability to add actors to maps and even edit the map itself!

There's another tool, called Zelda Level Editor, which does what it says on the tin. It's developed by a person called JSA. It's somewhat more basic looking then Utility of Time, however it already has the functionality to add actors and edit the maps themselves using a landscape editor.

But, what good are tools if there's no mods that emerge from them? A hacker called DL77 is working on a project called Project MM OoT, which will bring a lot of elements from MM over to Ocarina of Time. So far, it's going along quite smoothly and much like the new version of Utility of Time, it is scheduled for a beta release soon.

Then there's another on going project, by another ZSO Member called Xu Yuan, who feels that the Master Quest version of Ocarina of Time wasn't quite hard enough to be considered a Quest for Masters, which I'm sure most of you will agree! His plan is to remake the game with an altered story, new quests and much harder fights. I myself still haven't completed the Great Deku Tree yet! This game is so epic and feature filled you get sucked into the game right from the get go. It's like playing through Ocarina of Time for the first time again.

On top of epic remakes, there are also enhancements in standalone hacking too. A Member called Bloodmoon was successfully able to put the Triforce cutscene into another room (the example used was putting the triforce cutscene into a beta testing room called #120. As well as this, we have found the ability to bring up any animation at will in Link, which has found some rather interesting and beta animations. This, coupled with a certain texture found using the Utility of Time, a mini-project has started to try and bring back the Beam Blade attack.

These are just some of the mods and hacks that have come recently to the scene, there are plenty more on the forums. Even if you're slightly interested, come take a look! It's breathing new life into a game that a lot of Nintendo gamers hold close to their hearts.

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Links to Utility of Time, Zelda Level Editor and other such utilities

Project MM OoT Release Thread - Contains download links, pictures, updates, etc

Xu Yuan's Projects Release Thread - Contains his True Master's Quest Mod as well as other earlier mods.

ZSO Forums

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I've been part of this community for a while, trust me, a lot of work has been put into this. Enjoy it! By the way, there are no links to the actual ROMs there, only PPF Patches! You'll have to dig out the ROM yourself...

[trix]

omg, leet.

^ says enough.

[whYeNQue]

that looks freakishly difficult, on your toes all the time! so when's the release onto the VC :p

[stanley porkchop]

The "true" Master Quest looks like a ridiculous challenge and would probably be a terrific game... but that new dialogue is atrocious :p

[The Teej]

Xu Yuan is actually chinese :p So the english is actually pretty damn good!

[SubjectDelta]

Any news on the same thing for other Zelda games, the older ones rather?

[The Teej]

Well the same editors for OoT can be used for MM, although bar Project MM OoT no mods have involved Majora's Mask yet.

There's Zelda Classic for Zelda 1, although that doesn't use the actual ROM. No major hacks are in development for Zelda II as far as I know. There's Parallel worlds, which is a completely overhaul of Link to the Past. No big LA mods (they're all just really crappy sprite hacks like "Play as moblin" or whatever, no actual proper mods). Wind Waker and Twilight Princess modding won't start for quite a while, for the simple reason that it isn't as accessible yet.

The ISOs for both are easily obtainable, (modem speed depending) but emulators are still not running stuff at full speed (even with a machine that doesn't exist like an epic quad core 4.0 GHZ machine) and quite simply there aren't enough game hackers that want to stream the ISO of a game which they've already purchased (these game hackers are major fans of the games, so they'll buy at least one copy). I doubt if Wind Waker will get any major loving when mods do come around, it'll most likely be directed to TP (which I'm sure will receive an OoT mod).

[thedude4]

God bless everyone involved in creating the development software for OoT and MM. I've been wanting to mod both of those games for years and haven't had access to the resources for doing so. My idea is "freakishly hard" aswell, but here goes: I'm wanting to use the basic OoT storyline (rescue Hyrule by awakening the sages), but I thought the game was way too short, so what I wanted to do was take the maps, characters, and items from MM, and incorporate them into OoT. Not only that, but I wanted to add in many more dungeons (especially elemental temples such as the fabled Sky, Wind, Ice, and Light Temples). New characters (and species) would be necessary for such an increase in gameplay. I would want to add in many extra items, such as a speed item (probably boots), that would open the door to further expansion through bonus quests and trading sequences (beat the running man). This project would be spread across a few years, so feel free to make any suggestions that concern new materials that you want to see put in the game. I'll elaborate on specific plans later on.

God bless everyone involved in creating the development software for OoT and MM. I've been wanting to mod both of those games for years and haven't had access to the resources for doing so. My idea is "freakishly hard" aswell, but here goes: I'm wanting to use the basic OoT storyline (rescue Hyrule by awakening the sages), but I thought the game was way too short, so what I wanted to do was take the maps, characters, and items from MM, and incorporate them into OoT. Not only that, but I wanted to add in many more dungeons (especially elemental temples such as the fabled Sky, Wind, Ice, and Light Temples). New characters (and species) would be necessary for such an increase in gameplay. I would want to add in many extra items, such as a speed item (probably boots), that would open the door to further expansion through bonus quests and trading sequences (beat the running man). This project would be spread across a few years, so feel free to make any suggestions that concern new materials that you want to see put in the game. I'll elaborate on specific plans later on.

[medium_pimpin]

Best game EVER!

[The Teej]

God bless everyone involved in creating the development software for OoT and MM. I've been wanting to mod both of those games for years and haven't had access to the resources for doing so. My idea is "freakishly hard" aswell, but here goes: I'm wanting to use the basic OoT storyline (rescue Hyrule by awakening the sages), but I thought the game was way too short, so what I wanted to do was take the maps, characters, and items from MM, and incorporate them into OoT. Not only that, but I wanted to add in many more dungeons (especially elemental temples such as the fabled Sky, Wind, Ice, and Light Temples). New characters (and species) would be necessary for such an increase in gameplay. I would want to add in many extra items, such as a speed item (probably boots), that would open the door to further expansion through bonus quests and trading sequences (beat the running man). This project would be spread across a few years, so feel free to make any suggestions that concern new materials that you want to see put in the game. I'll elaborate on specific plans later on.

The only issue here would be is that we can't add in new models yet. Oh, and we can't have more maps then we have currently. Well, we can (just add them to the end of the ROM), but editing the table to literally include this extra map (while keeping the original ones) I don't think we've done yet.

[Mordkanin]

Wouldn't it have been easier to recreate the game from scratch?

[forster]

Holy thread revival Batman.

[The Teej]

Wouldn't it have been easier to recreate the game from scratch?

Maybe, but, it's just been a snowball of events. This all started from "Hey, let's get that levitation code on Ocarina of Time" all the way back in 1998. It's not like someone in 1998 said "Hey, I want to create custom maps. Let's recreate the game for PC!"

[madd-hatter]

No one else is tired of OoT hacking?

I mean... Old, old, old ass news? (That never had any reason to interest in the first place.)

[The Teej]

No one else is tired of OoT hacking?

I mean... Old, old, old ass news? (That never had any reason to interest in the first place.)

No, of course they aren't. People even to this very day are still hacking. Hell, only a week or so ago a Play as Wolfos WIP came out.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnxi3Q_UBRo

[videogamer555]

I'm sorry but I need a link to download Utility Of Time. The link in the first post doesn't work. Could someone please post a link that still works?

[The Teej]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9V9N0R2F

[Michael1406]

OoT is awesome, and it deserves to have its life prolonged. I've not done anything past the texture replacements (Celda) but this looks very interesting, and I'm assuming since this was revived (LOL @ forster) more work has been done. I'll look into it.

[The Teej]

Unfortunately ZSO forums aren't permanently up at the moment, but work is still going into various hacks. Cooliscool is still working on Utility of Time too, and he'll be coming back within a month (if what that little birdie told me is true). I'm amazed at how many times this thread keeps coming back from the dead :laugh:

[videogamer555]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9V9N0R2F

Thanks for the link. I'll have to try it out soon. By the way, it is just an install program. Do you know where I can get a help file, some documentation, or even better maybe a tutorial on how to use it? I'm guessing it's really complicated.

[Matrix XII]

Ahh the memories, I've beat that game well over 20 times :)

[The Teej]

Thanks for the link. I'll have to try it out soon. By the way, it is just an install program. Do you know where I can get a help file, some documentation, or even better maybe a tutorial on how to use it? I'm guessing it's really complicated.

There was a tutorial around somewhere on the old forum. With the new release, apparently there will actually be proper documentation, but obviously that's not really helpful right now. I'll try and find that tutorial.

[Xeta]

Ahh the memories, I've beat that game well over 20 times :)

Great game! I couldn't tell you how many times I played through it. But I went through the whole game once with 3 hearts and no deaths. I played it through THAT many times.

I really enjoyed the Master Quest revision of OoT. It was a bit harder with some new puzzles and it gave me an excuse to go through the game a few more times. :)

[videogamer555]

Ok. I got Utility of Time. I set the default locations for Project 64 emulator and the Zelda 64 ROM, in the settings of Utility of Time. But everything I try to do, it says it can't because it needs to load some map file or object file or some actor file, etc. So could someone help me out? I thought it could extract that stuff right out of the ROM image itself. Or if not, I thought any extra files needed would come with the program Utility of Time. But they don't, nor can I see any way to extract these files the ROM using either Project 64, nor can I see a way to do it from Utility of Time. Can someone help me with this please?

[The Teej]

Ok. I got Utility of Time. I set the default locations for Project 64 emulator and the Zelda 64 ROM, in the settings of Utility of Time. But everything I try to do, it says it can't because it needs to load some map file or object file or some actor file, etc. So could someone help me out? I thought it could extract that stuff right out of the ROM image itself. Or if not, I thought any extra files needed would come with the program Utility of Time. But they don't, nor can I see any way to extract these files the ROM using either Project 64, nor can I see a way to do it from Utility of Time. Can someone help me with this please?

No, UoT does not do this for you. You need Zelda Resource Extractor (no idea where a link is, you'll have to google it). Only then can you get the files.