Donkey Kong Land III/RAM map

The following article is a RAM map for Donkey Kong Land III.

Some notes:

• Most, if not all, of these addresses apply to both the English and Japanese versions.
• Many (but not all) of these addresses may also apply to Donkey Kong Land 2, as they run off the same game engine.

• C5EE = Bonus timer
• DF00 = Current character
  • 00 = Kiddy Kong
  • 01 = Dixie Kong
  • 02 = Ellie
  • 03 = Squawks
  • 04 = Enguarde
  • 05 = Squitter
  • 06 = Rattly (glitched, simply leftover from DKL2)
  • 07 = Toboggan
• DF30 = Invincibility timer
• DAF7 = Current music tempo
• DE9E = Frame counter to determine Bear's and Wrinkly's random dialogues
• DF05-DF06 = Kong's X position (big endian)
• DF07-DF08 = Kong's Y position (big endian)
• DEA1 = Current buttons pressed (Down, Up, Left, Right, Start, Select, B, A)
• DEA2 = Most recent buttons pressed

Stage data

Data	English	Japanese
Current stage type 00 = Find the Token! 01 = Collect the Stars! 02 = Bash the Baddies! 03 = Warp FE = Regular stage (after exiting bonus stage) FF = Regular stage (from world map screen)	C5EC	C5ED
Bonus stage timer counter (remaining seconds)	C5ED	C5EE
Bonus stage counter (remaining stars/Kremlings)	C5EE	C5EF

HRAM

Data	English	Japanese
DMA transfer code (for sprites)	FF80-FF8D	FF80-FF8D
Super Game Boy flag	FFA1	---
Current level	FFA6	FFA5
Lives	FFAA	FFA9
Bananas	FFAB	FFAA
Current Kong 00 = Kiddy 01 = Dixie	FFAC	FFAB
Number of hits remaining	FFAD	FFAC
Current world in world map screen 00 = Cape Codswallop 01 = Primate Plains 02 = Blackforest Plateau 03 = Great Ape Lakes 04 = Tin Can Valley 05 = The Lost World 06 = Northern Kremisphere	FFAE	FFAD
Current level in world map screen	FFAF	FFAE
Total hours played	FFB0	FFAF
Total minutes played (Total minutes in Time Attack mode)	FFB1	FFB0
Total seconds played (Total seconds in Time Attack mode)	FFB2	FFB1
Bear Coins	FFB3	FFB2
Bonus Coins	FFB4	FFB3
DK Coins	FFB5	FFB4
Watches	FFB6	FFB5
Most recent sprite data	FFD7-FFDE	FFD6-FFDD
Boss stage flag 00 = Regular stage 01 = Boss stage	FFDF	FFDE
Big-endian pointer for next button to be used in demo (Bank 0x14)	FFE2-FFE3	FFE1-FFE2
Frames remaining for current button in demo	FFE4	FFE3
Current button press in demo This is a bitflag, where the buttons are arranged like this (from left to right): Down, Up, Left, Right, Start, Select, B, A	FFE5	FFE4
Current level bitflag 0x80 = Cleared with Dixie for the first time 0x40 = Both Bonus Coins have been found 0x10 = Bonus Coin #2 collected 0x08 = Bonus Coin #1 collected 0x02 = DK Coin collected 0x01 = Level cleared	FFE9	FFE8
Cheat code bitflag 0x01 = Play the card game after the title screen 0x02 = Start with 50 lives 0x04 = All levels unlocked	FFF9	FFF8
On title screen: Demo to be played Pressing Up, Left, Down, or Select increments this counter. Only the rightmost three bits are used to determine the demo. On Time Attack screen: Current cursor position	FFFC	FFFB

Saved data

Miscellaneous data

• A000-A04F = File 1
• A050-A0BF = File 2
• A0A0-A0EF = File 3

File 1	File 2	File 3	Description
A000-A001	A050-A051	A0A0-A0A1	16-bit big endian checksum of 4E bytes afterwards (e.g. A002-A04F for File 1)
A002	A052	A0A2	Current Kong (00=Kiddy, 01=Dixie) (This data is apparently not used -- Dixie is always the active Kong when loading a save file. This is probably a bug, and this did not occur in DKL2.)
A003	A053	A0A3	Number of hits remaining
A004	A054	A0A4	Last world visited
A005	A055	A0A5	Last submap location visited (typically Wrinkly Refuge) (Unused, because the game always starts you on the overworld map when loading a saved game.)
A006-A008	A056-A058	A0A6-A0A8	Time played (hours, minutes, seconds)
A009	A059	A0A9	Bear Coins (Unlike in DKC3, this data is not used. Upon loading a save file, after the game reads the Bear Coin count and stores it into RAM, it is then reset to 0. It is unclear whether or not this is a bug.)
A00A	A05A	A0AA	Bonus Coins collected
A00B	A05B	A0AB	DK Coins collected
A00C	A05C	A0AC	Watches collected
A00D-A014	A05D-A064	A0AD-A0B4	??? (Seems to be 42 for each completed world, but doesn't appear to have an effect. Possibly a leftover from DKL2, which used this space for world data.)
A015	A065	A0B5	Card Game record (starts out at 31 seconds in a new file)
A016-A01B	A066-A06B	A0B6-A0BB	Bear data Bit 6: 1 if DK Coin is collected, 0 if not Bit 1: 1 if Watch is collected, 0 if not Bit 0: 1 if attempted at least once, 0 if not
A01C-A03F	A06C-A08F	A0BC-A0DF	Level data Bit 7: 0 if cleared with Kiddy the first time, 1 if cleared with Dixie for the first time Bit 6: 0 if missing at least one Bonus Coin, 1 if both Bonus Coins have been found Bit 5: Unused? Bit 4: 0 if Bonus Coin #2 is missing, 1 if Bonus Coin #2 is collected Bit 3: 0 if Bonus Coin #1 is missing, 1 if Bonus Coin #1 is collected Bit 2: Unused? Bit 1: 0 if DK Coin is not collected, 1 if DK Coin is collected Bit 0: 0 if not cleared, 1 if cleared
A040-A045	A090-A095	A0E0-A0E5	Boss level data Bit 7: ??? Bit 6: 1 if Bonus Coin is collected Bit 2: ??? Bit 0: 1 if cleared
A100-A14F A200-A24F	A150-A19F A250-A29F	A1A0-A1EF A2A0-A2EF	Backup copies of given file, intended to be used if previous checksum fails, but bug makes this unused (see below)

Checksum

For each 50-byte block, a 16-bit, big endian checksum is stored in the first two bytes. This is a sum of each 8-bit value in the rest of the 4E bytes. If the checksum fails, the checksum in the file's first backup copy is checked. If this also fails, the checksum in the file's second and final backup copy is checked. If they all fail, the file is erased. If any of them pass, the game always uses the data in the first block. This occurs even if the checksum failed in this block, but passed in either of the two backup blocks. This is a bug; the intended behavior is that the game would copy a valid backup block to the first block in this situation. Since the game always uses the data in the first block, this can cause glitches if the first block is corrupted, but the other two are intact.

Time Attack data

• A350-A382: File 1
• A383-A3B5: File 2
• A3B6-A3E8: File 3

File 1	File 2	File 3	Description
A350-A373	A383-A3A6	A3B6-A3D9	Time Attack level records Format: minutes, seconds, 1/100 seconds
A374-A37F	A3A7-A3B2	A3DA-A3E5	Time Attack clear flags 01 = Cleared; 00 = Not cleared
A380	A3B3	A3E6	Seems to be number of Time Attack records completed
A381	A3B4	A3E7	Time Attack unlocked? 01 = Unlocked; 00 = Not unlocked
A382	A3B5	A3E8	Time Attack checksum

Time Attack checksum

• The Time Attack checksum works as follows:
  • Take the values from the following RAM offsets (depending on the file) and add them all up, one byte at a time. (These contain time records, flags to determine whether a level is passed, etc.)
    • File 1: A350-A381
    • File 2: A383-A3B4
    • File 3: A3B6-A3E7
  • Next, take only the last 8 bits of the sum.
  • Flip all the bits of this sum (essentially, the sum is subtracted from FF; alternately, the sum is XORed with FF.)
  • Add 58 to this result (Note: in the prototype, add 50 instead), and store it in one of these offsets depending on the file:
    • File 1: A382
    • File 2: A3B5
    • File 3: A3E8
  • If this checksum fails, all Time Attack data is erased.

Velocity

• DF10 = Horizontal velocity
  • Some common values:

Action	Value(s)		Notes
Walking	19	E7
Running	23	DD	This is also Squitter's walking speed.
Attacking (while standing still)	0F	F1
Attacking (while walking or running)	23	DD
Jumping (while walking)	23	DD
Jumping (while running)	28	D8
Dixie's helicopter spin	23	DD
Jumping on enemy	1E	E2	Holding B does not seem to affect speed.
Attacking an enemy	2D	D3
	37	C9	If attacking two or more enemies in a row.
Holding a barrel while moving	1E	E2
Swimming (slow speed -- without holding B)	0F	F1
	15	EB	If pressing A to ascend.
Swimming (fast speed -- while holding B)	14	EC
	1A	E6	If pressing A to ascend.
Swimming (with Enguarde)	1E	E2
Stabbing (with Enguarde)	23	DD
Climbing	0F	F1	When not holding B.
	1E	E2	When holding B.
Toboggan	32
Jumping on enemy in Toboggan	2B		Does not decrease to 2B right away; gradually decreases. Afterwards, gradually increases back to 32.

• DF11 = Vertical velocity
  • Some common values:

Action	Value	Notes
Gravity	46	This value remains at 46 even when standing on ground.
Jumping	B3	After jumping, this value slowly increases (which causes downward acceleration) until it reaches the gravity value of 46. However, when this value reaches BB, it can remain at BB for up to 7 frames, depending on how long A is held down.
Dixie's helicopter spin	0A
Jumping on enemy	9F	Like normal jumping, this value slowly increases (causing downward acceleration) until it reaches 46.
	95	If A is held down while hitting the enemy.
Descending while swimming	0A
	14	If Down is pressed.
Ascending while swimming	F1	Every time A is pressed, this slowly decreases to F1, then slowly increases back to normal swimming speed
	F7	If Down is pressed.
	E8	If Up is pressed.
Swimming with Enguarde	1E	While descending.
	E2	While ascending.
Climbing	0F/F1	When not holding B.
	19/E7	When holding B.
Toboggan	6E
Jumping in Toboggan	C3	As is always the case with jumping, this value increases until it reaches gravity speed.
Jumping on enemy in Toboggan	9F

Note: For both vertical and horizontal velocity, both of these bytes are signed integers. Anything less than 00 (i.e. 80-FF) will be negative; for horizontal velocity, this will be to the left, and for vertical velocity, this will be up. Anything more than 00 (i.e. 01-7F) will be positive; for horizontal velocity, this will be to the right, and for vertical velocity, this will be down. 00 is stationary.

80 is the fastest speed for left or upward movement; 7F is the fastest speed for right or downward movement.