Spyro: AHT 0.5 ‐ Introduction - PhoenixAki/PhoenixAP GitHub Wiki

Welcome

This is the top-level homepage for Spyro: A Hero's Tail (AHT) Archipelago (AP). As a whole, I will refer to this as AHT AP frequently for simplicity. This wiki contains a lot of information, mostly because I'm someone who values transparency and thoroughness in contexts like this. It is not required to read all of it to be able to use and play AHT AP, to be absolutely clear. If you do, I appreciate you for putting some value into all these ramblings, but you can absolutely get away with figuring things out for yourself and through the descriptions in the YAML if you prefer that.

AHT AP is a result of many contributions on the .apworld side and game modding side.

  • Game modding is done by Ebbe.
  • .apworld development was initially done by XuaThaGrate, and has since switched hands to being primarily developed by me (as of v1.0.9).

Wiki Table of Contents

Supported Game Versions

AHT AP supports only the GameCube version of AHT. As of v2.2, both the NTSC (ID G5SE74) and PAL (ID G5SP7D) regions are supported.

AHT AP Overview & Terminology 101

AHT AP supports randomizing every major aspect of AHT. For those new to Archipelago, "randomizing" in this context means changing the reward for various in-game things to be not what it normally would be. For example, if you break a Dark Gem while playing AHT AP, you may get a Dark Gem back, but you could instead get a Light Gem, you could unlock the ability to glide, or if you're randomizing multiple games together, you could get an item for a different game. Archipelago uses the term "location" to refer to things you can do in-game that result in an item being rewarded. A list of definitions for other common AP terms can be found here.

AHT AP supports the following as locations:

  • The 3 major collectibles (Dark Gems, Dragon Eggs, and Light Gems, including those from minigames)
  • Bosses
  • Locked chests
  • Buying shop items, if you opt in to randomizing the shop
  • Flaming fireworks, if you opt in to enabling them

AHT AP supports the following as randomizable items:

  • The 4 Elder abilities (Double Jump, Pole Spin, Wing Shield, and Wall Kick)
  • Dark Gems & Light Gems
  • The 4 breaths (Fire, Electric, Water, and Ice)
  • The 3 base movement abilities (Swim, Glide, and Charge)
  • Lockpicks or "key rings", custom items which unlock all chests in a level.
  • Butterfly Jar, Double Gems, +1 Sparx health, and Shockwave, if the shop is randomized.
  • Access Cards, which each grant access to one of the 4 realms.
  • A variety of options for "junk" which are items that don't help with overall game progression. This comes in 2 forms:
    • "Filler" items (neutral-to-positive effects): Dragon Eggs, Fire/Electric/Water/Ice bombs, Gem Packs (gain random amount of gems), and "shinies" which do nothing but have humorous names.
    • "Trap" items (neutral-to-negative effects): Spam Call (temporarily forces Moneybags dialogue + music over the game), Reverse Controls (reverses X and Y axis of control sticks), Gem Tax (lose random amount of gems), and Damage Sparx.

The above lists are not necessarily exhaustive, and some locations/items are only randomized when certain settings are enabled.

Client Features

Each Archipelago randomizer has a program that acts as a middleman between the Archipelago servers and the game, called its "client". The AHT client waits for things to happen in-game and reports that to Archipelago, so that as locations are completed, Archipelago knows about it. Similarly, when Archipelago says "the AHT player was sent a lockpick", the client is what tells the AHT game to give the player +1 lockpick.

The AHT client has a few additional features bundled with it.

Universal Tracker Support

Universal Tracker (UT) is a very popular tool that lets you see which locations are currently completable with the items you have (called being "in logic"). The AHT client directly integrates UT, meaning you don't need to open UT in a separate window to get the benefits of its tracker page tab. However, you do need UT installed for this to work - the AHT client will load up without tracker features if you don't have UT installed.

Beyond the tracker page, the UT integration is also used for 2 in-game features:

Map Icons

If UT is installed, in-game maps will have small square icons on them that visualize where each location is, and their status. Locations you can not complete yet are red, locations that you can complete but haven't yet are yellow, and locations that are already done are green with a checkmark.

Pause Menu Gem Data

If UT is installed, and you have the shop randomized, the pause menu will include information about how many gems are available to you currently, and how many you need to be on pace with your settings.

Custom Client Commands

/check_goal

Details current progress towards all enabled goal(s).

/reset_client

Forcibly reconnects the client.

/add_item

A debugging and file recovery command which lets you cheat in a number of dark gems, light gems, lockpicks, or gems to your game.

/list_options

Lists all settings for this seed, based on the data you provided when generating it.