Donkey Kong Land III/Notes

(Note: This all applies to the Japanese version only)

All color palettes, such as the sprite color palettes (0x0001BE60-0x0001BE67) and the level color palettes (0x00084FFB-0x000852FA) have four different colors (eight bytes) each and each color is a 15-bit value: 5 bits for red, 5 bits for green, and 5 for blue, in that order. Since each color has two bytes and there are 16 bits in two bytes, the first bit is unused. The bits for each color are then translated into a four-digit hex value, and the first two hex digits and the last two are switched because all Game Boy variants are little endian. Sprite palettes are constant and never change at all in the game, so each sprite can have one of eight different color palettes.

All sprite color values, from 0x0001BEA0-0x0001BF1E (?), is assigned a 3-bit value from 00-07. This number corresponds to the palette defined in the Sprite Color Palettes section (from 0x0001BE60-0x0001BE9F). Any number 08 or higher will cause the sprite to be invisible, which isn't used at all.

Most playable characters have different colors for various animations (such as jumping or swimming), especially Dixie and Kiddy (however, Ellie also has three and Squitter has two). Therefore, if you change the color of a character, it is important to change the color for every byte that relates to that character, otherwise a character can change color depending on his/her action.

When Kobble is defeated, his color becomes that of Skidda's. Therefore, if you make Skidda a different color from Kobble (Kobble's color is located in 0x0001BEA1, Skidda's is 0x0001BEA4), Kobble will turn into a different color when he is defeated.

For some reason, when trying to edit the color palette for cave levels (0x000851FB-0x0008523A), it completely screws up when playing the level Haunted Hollows (except the bonus stages in that level). It is likely because it is the only cave level with water in it. The same problem occurs with Ugly Ducting when trying to edit the color palette for tube levels.

(todo: add screenshots)