All About Hints
This page is designed to explain the ins and outs of the hint system in DK64 Randomizer. This is a complex system that is of very high importance to quickly beat seeds, particularly when item randomizer is enabled. Each type of hint works a little differently so each will be covered separately and some common features will be listed at the end.
- The "Standard" hint system is recommended for most settings. This system is flexible and accounts for all kinds of win conditions, seed length, predicted fill difficulty, and many other settings.
- The "Cryptic" setting is identical to "Standard" with some light riddling in names.
- The "Fixed" setting is largely no longer used, as it was optimized for Season 2 racing. See Season 2 Hints below for details.
- The "Item Hinting" setting is a separately designed hint system ideal for beginners.
- The "Advanced Item Hinting" setting is a twist on Item Hinting intended to increase the complexity of that hint system.
The following hints are in every seed, and are generally extremely helpful.
Entering Snide's with a Kong without any blueprints will have Snide inform you the Kongs required (in order) to shut off the Blast-O-Matic. This was previously on a hint door and is now found exclusively at Snide's!
Cranky will inform you if the item on the Jetpac game is foolish or not. For more detail on what "foolish" entails, see the Foolish Hints section below.
- "A foolish game" will mean it is a foolish item
- "Something you might need on your quest" is a non-foolish item. Note that this is not necessarily a required item, merely not foolish.
Upon obtaining enough medals to play the game, Cranky will be more specific about the type of item on the minigame instead.
The following hints are hint types that will show up in the Standard, Cryptic, and Fixed settings.
Path hints are critical to finding very important items across your seed. They come in the basic form of: "An item in the {hint region} is on the path to {a list of path endpoints}."
The goal with path hints is to pare down to the bare essentials (within reason) for the end item on the path. So if Key 8 is locked by Coconut, Key 8 will have Coconut on its path. This then applies to all other prerequisites, so all items needed to get Coconut will be on the path to Key 8. This repeats until the moves needed have no prerequisites. At this point you have created the path. Here's an example.
"Key 7": {
"Factory Dirt Patch (Dark Room)": "Key 7",
"Isles Dirt Patch (Under Caves Lobby)": "Bongos",
"Japes Diddy Medal": "Coconut",
"Caves Donkey 5 Door Cabin": "Peanut",
"Castle Diddy Medal": "Primate Punch"
}
The goal of the path is on the top of the path listed, and then items are generally acquired in order. Bongos + Coconut will get you Peanut out of Donkey's 5 Door Cabin. Then Peanut will get Punch from Diddy's Castle Medal. Finally you get Key 7 from the dirt patch in the Factory Dark Room.
Some assumptions are made to improve the quality of the paths. This is important to more efficiently hint more relevant things. These assumptions are critical to maximizing your understanding of how path hints will direct you. Assumptions made vary by settings.
For path generation it is assumed that:
- You have infinite coins. No moves will be hinted strictly for acquiring coins. This would be absolutely awful to get hinted, as it would intuitively point you in the wrong direction entirely.
- You have infinite GBs. Similarly to coins, a move needed strictly for GBs would point you in the wrong direction, making it an actively detrimental hint.
- You have access to K. Rool. This is essential to K. Rool paths. More on that later.
- You have access to all Kongs. This is to prevent significant retreading or duplication on paths. If Peanut is used to unlock Tiny, we don't want Peanut to be on the path to every Tiny check in the game. This is often stated as "Kongs are assumed," meaning that a path hint will never point at a Kong's location directly!
- You have access to all levels. Similarly to Kongs, Everything on the path to Key 5 should be aimed directly at that item to be as straightforward as possible. We don't want Key prerequisites to be on the path to Keys via another Key. This is often stated as "Keys are assumed" meaning that in Season 3, a path hint will never point at a different key's location directly!
Note for Loading Zone Randomizer: This assumption does not apply in LZR! This is because the impact of adding any given loading zone is significantly reduced. - You can dive to get into level 4. This is to prevent a heavily-locked Diving from impacting every location in level 4. It would be unintuitive for Diving to be on the path to Forest Chunky Minecart purely because Forest was level 4.
Note for Loading Zone Randomizer: This assumption does not apply in LZR! This is for similar reasons as the previous, as gaining access to a single random entrance is less impactful. - You can get past the quicksand at the start of Aztec. Vines or Tiny + Twirl is always available before Aztec, but we don't want that to overload or misdirect paths for anything in Aztec. However, Vines often ends up on the path to things in the back of Aztec because you may need Vines (or Rocketbarrel) to get to the Guitar pad that opens it up.
Note for Loading Zone Randomizer: This assumption does not apply in LZR! Much of the time you have access to Aztec via exiting the 5-Door Temple, and when you don't it is notable. - You have access to upper Isles. Again, another Vines constraint to possibly save some headaches. This is far more niche and not relevant to Season 3 because with activated Isles warps you immediately have access to upper Isles.
Note for Loading Zone Randomizer: This assumption does not apply in LZR! This is because it is again loading-zone-based in settings where these specific loading zones likely matter significantly less.
One half of your path hint is comprised of a region of DK64. These regions are arbitrarily created by us and utilize natural divisions in levels to help intuit reasonably-sized chunks of the game. All locations are in exactly one region.
The full list of regions can be found here.
A full list of location-region pairs for most major locations can be found here.
If the location that is being hinted is a starting move, it will directy hint the move itself instead of the location. e.g. "Rocketbarrel Boost is on the path to..."
In Standard settings, the number of path hints you get is based on the length of the paths to each of your goals. For each path's length, it adds a corresponding number of path hints to the total number of path hints you will receive. The endpoints are as follows:
- Keys can be an endpoint to hinted paths. e.g.
"path to Key 4."
In the Standard hint system, the number of path hints you will be given is a percentage of the number of distinct locations eligible for path hints, rounded randomly. To build an example, here's a scenario:
- You have two path endpoints in your seed, Key 1 and Key 2.
- The path to Key 1 is 4 steps, and the path to Key 2 is 5 steps.
- There is one move on both paths.
- This leads to the number of eligible path hinted locations being 8 - 4 from one path, 5 from the other, minus the 1 shared between them for 8 distinct locations.
- The number of path hints you will receive is then
8 * .59, rounded randomly.
Each hinted move is hinted to every path it is on.
- Hints can point to key and win condition paths at the same time. e.g.
Something in the Lighthouse Area is on the path to Key 8 and K. Rool vs. Lanky - Every endpoint in your seed is guaranteed to be on at least one path hint unless hinting it would be useless. This might look like:
Your training with Mini Monkey is on the path to K. Rool vs Tiny(and nothing else!) - All path hints will always point to different items. Identically worded path hints point to different items.
- You can get a LOT of paths hinted for a single item. Fear not! This is usually a very important item with broad uses and your path hints that point to single paths usually help home in on your goals.
Because ALL paths are hinted for the chosen item, you can use that information to deduce what an item is NOT on the path to. This may assist you as you track down your last items - remember what they cannot be behind!
- e.g.
Something in the Main Isle is on the path to Key 4 and K. Rool vs Diddyand NOT on the path to any other Keys or K. Rool phases! If you only found Peanuts in the Main Isle, it would be wise to not use Peanuts to look for Key 7.
These are hints that point to distinct individual locations that are strictly logically required to beat the seed. Whatever item you find at that location will be helpful in achieving your win condition. This is a riff on ZOOTR's Way of the Hero and functions identically.
A "strictly required" item means that every sequence of events that can logically complete the seed will always use that location. This means that either/or situations are often neither Way of the Hoard.
The most notable example of this is with Progressive Slams. Often you need one slam upgrade for Chunky phase. In many of those worlds, you could logically acquire either slam upgrade to beat the seed. This means that neither is "strictly required" because there exists a world where you did not go to one of the slams' locations and still beat the seed. If one slam locks the other slam, then all worlds will route through the first slam's location, making that location Way of the Hoard.
While Way of the Hoard hints are always unique from each other, there can be some overlap with path hints. Two of your hints may be:
"An item in the Giant Mushroom Insides is on the path to Key 5."
"Forest Tiny Mushroom Barrel is on the Way of the Hoard"
It is possible for these to both be referring to the same location, but you cannot be certain until you have full cleared the region. It could be that Key 5 is on Forest Donkey Mushroom Cannons while Gorilla Gone is in that bonus barrel.
Both Path hints and Way of the Hoard hints are aimed at specific locations. These two categories of hints are generated independently of each other with one exception. There is a mechanism which attempts to reduce the number of times a location is hinted.
At a low level, each hint is looking at one specific location. If a location is randomly chosen to be hinted but is already hinted elsewhere (by a different type of hint), it will reroll that choice of location to two times attempting to find an unhinted location. If the last reroll is an already hinted location, tough luck - the location will end up hinted by two different types of hints (e.g. path hinted and WotH hinted, Kong Location hinted and WotH hinted).
You may find these hints if your goal is K. Rool and you have fewer than 5 phases. In addition to these hints you may find on doors, you can find the K. Rool fight order on the wall in K. Rool's throne room in Helm. Because of this, you are not guaranteed to find one of these hints if your seed is expected to route through Helm (required Key 8 in Helm).
- The Item Hinting System will always have one if you need Helm.
- The existence of Multipath hints in a seed will prevent this hint from appearing, as you will get your phases hinted through those hints instead.
You may find these hints if one or more of your Crown or Key Helm doors have a random requirement. For each door that is random, you will receive one hint telling you what the requirement is.
- The Item Hinting system abides by the same rules and will place these hints as necessary.
You may find these hints if you unlock your Kongs throughout your seed.
- If Kongs are in cages, you will find hints that tell you which Kong frees another in a level. This will not distinguish between cages in Aztec.
- If Kongs are not in cages (e.g. on GBs, in shops, etc.), you will find hints that tell you who finds each Kong and in what level. e.g.
"Tiny can find Diddy in Jungle Japes."
Sometimes they will not hint the Kong but instead hint the item type they are on (e.g. "A fairy holds Diddy in Jungle Japes"). You will always get one hint per locked Kong.
In some rare scenarios, you may see"{kong name} can find {him/her}self in {level}? How odd..."This means that the kong is on a check flagged for themself but is still available for other kongs, usually through the Free Trade Agreement used in S2. - Note that if the kong is on a boss, your hint will point to the Kong the boss is for, but it will not tell you it's a boss!
- In progressive hints, your Kong hints will always appear on or before the 20th hint (the 5th pack of hints)
A region is "foolish" if you need no items inside that region.
- Collectibles are NOT considered when calculating foolish regions. You may need to enter foolish regions for coins, colored bananas, or GBs.
- Foolish hints are specific to major item locations. They only care about the locations contained in the specific region, not any events. If the Lighthouse is foolish, that does not kill every location that needs the water raised, nor does it mean that all entrances in the region are foolish in LZR.
- You may find a hint that says "It would be foolish to collect colored bananas in {level}." This means that your medal rewards AND the boss in that level contain nothing useful.
- These hints do take into account items locking other items. For example if you find a crown in a foolish region, you know that neither Helm door requires crowns.
- The only vials that can be in foolish regions are Ammo Belts and Instrument Upgrades. No vials that have logic implications can be found in foolish regions.
These hints tell you how many potions are contained in a hint region.
- The hint will look something like:
Scouring the Forest Mills will yield you 2 potions. - The hints have nothing to do with the quality of the potion. Instrument Upgrades and Ammo Belts are included in the count!
- Eligible hint regions are regions that are not shops and contain at least one potion.
- There is no bias to what eligible regions it will select.
- This only counts potions! You may find Kongs or Keys in that region that do not contribute to the count.
You may find these hints if you are in coupled or decoupled loading zone randomizer seeds.
- You are prioritized one hint that points you to Japes, Aztec, and Factory each.
- The remaining entrance hints will usually point to important locations, prioritizing useful connectors like Castle tunnels or Training Grounds.
The Fixed hint system is no longer widely used, as it was designed for Season 2.
The "Fixed" option uses a fixed distribution of hint types and was optimized for the S2 racing preset. It is best used in conjunction with exactly the S2 racing preset.
The distribution is as follows:
- Helm Order: 1
- Kong Location: 3 (one for each locked kong)
- Path: 14
- Way of the Hoard: 9
- Foolish Region: 5
- Region Potion Count: 3
These numbers were taken from the rough average of the "Standard" system's outputs for S2 settings while also culling worse hint categories.
A notable absence is a K. Rool order hint. You are expected to piece this together from path hints to K. Rool phases as well as the wall in Helm.
Remember that all Keys are guaranteed to be hinted at least once among your path hints.
This option does not have anything specific enabling or disabling it, but you are VERY likely to encounter errors if the settings deviate significantly from the S2 preset.
Breaking deviations can include (but are not limited to):
- Changing the win condition
- Starting with more/fewer keys
- Starting with too many moves
- Removing Shops from the item pool
- Starting with more/fewer kongs
- Probably some other things I'm forgetting because it's complicated
If you're not sure, the "Standard" settings are more likely to give your custom settings a suitable (or better) experience.
This is an entirely separate hint system designed to be a streamlined experience. It is intended to be more approachable than learning paths while still maintaining complexity and depth in analysis. It is entirely separate from the Standard hint system. Of the above hint types, only Helm Door and K. Rool Order hints will carry over.
The hints have a 50/50 chance to be either:
- A:
Looking for {item}? Try looking in the {hint region}.- Hint regions are the same ones used in path hints.
- B:
Looking for {item}? Try looking in {level} with {kong}.- This style follows the same general hint structure as the microhints (see above), meaning it could also be:
Looking for {item}? Seek {location type} in {level} for this.- Location types include Kasplats, dirt patches, fairies, and battle arenas.
- This style follows the same general hint structure as the microhints (see above), meaning it could also be:
- The items that can be hinted are Kongs, Keys, and non-junk moves.
- The priority of what gets hinted is the following:
- Keys
- Kongs that are on the Way of the Hoard
- Moves that are on the Way of the Hoard
- A slam if you have not received a slam hint from the above priority and you don't start with Slam 2
- Moves/Kongs that are not on the Way of the Hoard
- This priority means that if a move is hinted, it is more likely to be required.
- If a move is not hinted, it is NOT required unless your seed has so many required items that not everything could get a hint (this is rare unless you're actively trying to make a seed awful).
- Every hint door available will be taken by these item hinting hints.
- Hints to required things will try very hard to not lock themselves.
- e.g. A Rocketbarrel hint will not be on the Rocketbarrel-locked door in Caves lobby unless it is not Way of the Hoard.
- e.g. A Key 2 hint will not be in lobby 3 or lobby 4.
- There are a few hints that will be placed before item hinting hints:
- A K. Rool Order hint will be placed if K. Rool is random and required.
- A hint will be placed for each random Helm door.
All the same rules apply to Advanced Item Hinting except that the item to-be-hinted is instead hinted as a category of that item.
- For example, a kong would be hinted as
Looking for kongs? Try looking...(the rest of the hint is the same as described above) - Kong moves can be hinted as either
Looking for {kong} moves?orLooking for {move type}?.- The move types are:
Guns,Instruments,active kong moves(Punch, Grab, etc.),kong barrel moves(Mini, Rocketbarrel, etc.),kong pad moves(Blast, Balloon, etc.) - Even though you can now hint items in two different ways, there will only ever be one hint per item! All hints point to unique items! You can use this fact to crunch the numbers on whether or not an item is hinted or if an ambiguous hint points to a desired item.
- The move types are:
- Barrels, Diving, Oranges, and Vines are always hinted as
Looking for training moves? - Other shared moves (slams, sniper. homing) are always hinted as
Looking for shared moves? - Camera and Shockwave are hinted as
Looking for fairy moves? - A hint to the Bean will be unchanged.
- The category is plural for grammatical purposes - each hint always refers to a single item.
Most microhints follow the Direct Item Hint format:
"You would be better off looking in {level} with {kong} for this."
If the location is not tied to a kong, it will instead state the type of location:
"You would be better off looking for {item type} with in {level} for this"
- Monkeyport: Touching the Monkeyport pad at the back of Krem Isle while holding enough GBs to enter the most expensive non-Helm B. Locker (usually level 7) will give you a hint to its location. If Switchsanity has randomized this pad, you will receive a hint for that item instead.
- Gorilla Gone: Touching the Gorilla Gone pad in Helm Lobby while holding enough GBs to enter Helm will give you a hint to its location. If Switchsanity has randomized this pad, you will receive a hint for that item instead.
- Slam: Entering the Chunky phase of K. Rool without the level of slam needed to beat the encounter will have the announcer tell you what levels you can find slam upgrades in. If two slams are in the same level, the level will only be listed once.
Note that K. Rool progress is saved. You can progress up to this phase, get the hint, get a slam, and return straight to Chunky phase.
- Helm Instruments: Touching an instrument pad in Helm while not in possession of that instrument will give you a hint to its location.
The delivery mechanism for your hints is one of two ways. The default is to have the Wrinkly doors each give a hint, but Progressive Hints puts all your hints on the pause menu. Progressive Hints unlock as you collect GBs in bundles of up to 4. You can specify the cost of the 35th hint and the rest will be distributed accordingly. The formula tends to weight towards giving more hints early to better match the hint door experience.
As an example, here's a progressive hint cap of 50 (the Season 3 value):
- Hints 1-4: 1 GB
- Hints 5-8: 1 GB
- Hints 9-12: 4 GBs
- Hints 13-16: 8 GBs
- Hints 17-20: 13 GBs
- Hints 21-24: 20 GBs
- Hints 25-28: 28 GBs
- Hints 29-32: 36 GBs
- Hints 33 & 34: 45 GBs
- Hint 35: 50 GBs
For other hint caps, use the calculator.
- Setting up DK64 Randomizer
- Logic, Hints and Game Information
- Logic Tips & Tricks
- All about Hints
- Lesser Known Game Knowledge
- General Strategies
- Vanilla Coin Locations
- Vanilla Item Locations
- Vanilla CB Requirements
- Custom Locations
- Distributions
- Random Settings Distributions
- Racing and Sharing Seeds
- Custom Music