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Spyro: AHT 0.5 ‐ Introduction

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Phoenix edited this page Aug 7, 2026 · 10 revisions

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 the 1.0.9 update hosted on XuaThaGrate's repository), with the 2.0 update series being the first since the hand-off.

Wiki Table of Contents

Overview & Terminology 101

AHT AP supports only the NTSC-U GameCube version of AHT (specifically, game ID G5SE7D). In following the rules of the main Archipelago Discord server, you will only be able to receive support for AHT AP if you have a legally-obtained copy of the game that you have dumped for use in an emulator. Proof of this will not be demanded in most situations, but it is an important note to make as discussion of and advocacy of piracy is very strictly moderated in the Archipelago Discord server. Assuming this is the case, please refer to the setup guide wiki page for further setup steps.

AHT AP supports randomizing every major aspect of AHT. For those reading this who are new to Archipelago, "randomizing" in this context means "when you do a thing in AHT, you will get a random/shuffled item back instead of what the vanilla game would give". For example, if I say "Dark Gems are randomized", that means when you break a Dark Gem while playing AHT AP, you may or may not get a Dark Gem back. It could be randomized into being a Light Gem, a movement ability (like swim/glide/double jump), or even an item from someone else's game, if you are playing a random seed with other people's games randomized alongside AHT. Things that you can do in-game that trigger a randomized item to be given to you are called "locations". They are often also called "checks" because the act of completing a location is "checking it off" so to speak, so the terms are generally interchangeable. A list of definitions for other common AP terms can be found here.

AHT supports the following as locations:

  • Breaking Dark Gems
  • Collecting Dragon Eggs (including ones from minigames)
  • Collecting Light Gems (including ones from minigames)
  • Defeating bosses & getting breaths as rewards for doing so
  • Opening locked chests
  • Buying shop items, if you opt in to randomizing shop items
  • Flaming fireworks, if you opt in to fireworks as locations

Items that have a chance to be sent to AHT when playing it in AP include:

  • 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 you can opt in to a re-imagining of "key rings" which take the form of an item that unlocks every chest in a given level
  • Double Gems, Butterfly Jar, 1 hit point for Sparx, and Shockwave, each enabled if opt in to randomizing shop items
  • Access Cards, which each grant access to one of the 4 realms
  • A variety of options for "filler" which are items that fill into locations once all of the required items are placed. Currently supported as filler are Dragon Eggs, Fire/Electric/Water/Ice bombs, Gem Packs (a random amount of gems), and generic "empty" items that have humorous names.

These lists are just an overview of what AHT AP supports as far as locations and items go, and the lists are not necessarily exhaustive given there are additional locations and items that come into play only under specific combinations of settings in the randomizer. Read up on the other pages of this wiki for more information, or if you feel comfortable diving in and trying it out to learn it for yourself, head to the "Releases" page of this repository and grab the latest version of the .apworld file!

Client Features

All randomizers supported by Archipelago will have some sort of "client" program, or an equivalent, which acts as a middleman between the Archipelago servers and the game. At a base level, all a client needs to do it tell the game when an item was sent to the player that is connected on the client, and to report to Archipelago whenever the game player checks a location and sends an item to themselves or someone else.

The AHT client accomplishes this but also has a few additional features bundled with it for convenience and debugging purposes.

Universal Tracker Support

Universal Tracker is a very popular tool that lets you see what locations/checks are "in logic" for your seed at all times. In other words, it tells you what things you can do with the current items you have. Many people prefer to play without trackers and to instead test their memory and game knowledge (I'm one of them) but trackers save a lot of time and can prevent you forgetting about something you could've done potentially days ago (we've all been there...)

The AHT client integrates Universal Tracker directly into it, meaning you don't need to open up a second Archipelago window to see tracker information. It's all embedded directly into the AHT client window on the "tracker page". That said, there are some commands that Universal Tracker can do that do require it to be opened on its own, so be prepared for that if you want to use commands like /explain (this may change in the future).

Although Universal Tracker is integrated into the AHT client, you do still need to have Universal Tracker installed for this to work (download it from the link above). If you do not have it installed, the AHT client will load without it; if you experience this to not be the case, please let me know ASAP and I can squash the bug :)

Map Icons

The game mod will have map icons that are enabled via the pause menu. The map icons will get rendered on top of the map and visually represent what items are considered "in logic", not in logic, or already checked/done/collected. If you find any inaccuracies (the map icon not matching what Universal Tracker says) let me know.

Custom Commands

/reset_client

Forcibly reconnects the client.

/add_item

A debugging and save file recovery command which lets you add a number of dark gems, light gems, lockpicks, or raw gems to your game file. Because gems matter a lot, especially when playing with shop_randomization and gem_logic, this command allows you to set up a new save file in the event your original save file gets corrupted or lost for any reason. Please use this responsibly, as minimal error checking is done on your input to it.

/list_options

Lists all of the options you specified when generating the randomizer seed that you are currently playing on. Any data that was included post-generation to be sent to and from Archipelago servers will be listed here. Much of the information is viewable in game or by reviewing the YAML file you used to set your settings, so this command is purely meant to supplement that for additional debugging and an alternative way of viewing the same information.

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