About

The Diddy Kong Racing Randomizer is an app that modifies a vanilla NTSC-U v1.0 DKR ROM to randomly shuffle different aspects of the game during gameplay. Randomization options are tersely described via tooltips for each option, and are elaborated on below.

For copyright reasons, the randomizer can only patch a vanilla ROM into a randomized one; it cannot make a ROM from scratch. A vanilla NTSC-U v1.0 DKR ROM must be provided by the user.

The randomizer features two main modes; ATR randos and hundo randos:

ATR randos only allow playing in Tracks mode, and are designed for "All Trophy Races" playthroughs. Unlike in 100% randos, each track is reassigned a random world so that each trophy race can have a set of any 4 tracks.
Hundo randos only allow playing in Adventure mode, and are designed to expect 100% completion of a savefile. All warps can be randomized (with the exception of Wizpig 2), where entering a warp will the player to a random location. Hub world exits are adjusted so they always take you outside of the warp that goes back to said hub world. With sufficient options enabled, the completion of a rando is effectively a puzzle. To aid in tracking progress of a playthrough, a completion tracker can be found here. Logic is set in place such that 100% completion is always possible, but it is possible to softlock a playthrough if things aren't completed in the right order. See the Softlocks tab for details.

Randomization options include:

Maps. In hundo, this can include races, minigames, bosses, and hub worlds. all maps of the selected types are pooled together and reassigned. E.g. minigame warps may go to any other randomized map, not necessarily another minigame. In ATR, only races may be randomized.
Vehicles. Different vehicle randomization options can be selected for different flavors of randomess. Vehicles that would make beating a track impossible against the AI (e.g. PL car) are never chosen.
Lap counts. Each track can be randomized to have anywhere from 1 to 5 laps per race. This includes the Taj challenges. Tricky and Bluey will always have a single lap, as their tracks do not form a closed loop.
Balloon powerups. The in-game balloon powerups can be randomized such that each balloon may be any one of the five vanilla powerup types. This randomization is overridden by any magic codes active that affect the balloon types.
Magic codes. For each race, a random subset of magic codes may be active for the duration of the race. See the randomizer option for a full list of potential magic codes. In the case of "invisible" magic codes, the game is slightly altered to hint that these codes are active:
- OFFROAD: When active, racers' wheels will be slightly enlarged.
- VITAMINB: When active, the HUD banana will be extra shiny.
- BOGUSBANANAS: When active, the HUD banana will be green.
Adventure 2. A configurable percent change that any given track will be in Adventure 2 mode.
Silver coin races. This option allows vehicle, lap count, powerup, and magic code options to be re-randomized for silver coin races, so long as they are enabled in the first place. Besides making each track a little less stale, this also allows for more extensive vehicle randomization for the standard races. This is because, without this option enabled, only vehicles that can be used to complete both the standard and silver coin races can be chosen (e.g. HTV will always be plane, because only plane can complete the silver coin race). With this option enabled, this unrestricts the standard races to a looser vehicle requirement (e.g. HTV could be in hover, or even car). Note that this only affects silver coin races; trophy races revert back to the settings used in the original race. This option is only valid for hundo randos.

The randomizer supports configuring a peak difficulty for tracks. This designed such that a set of randomizations for an individual track that is deemed "too hard" for the configured peak difficulty is discarded and rerolled. This does not affect how difficult all tracks are, it only limits how hard tracks can be. A 1/5 difficulty is suitable for a casual player with minimal DKR experience. A 5/5 difficulty is suitable for a seasoned DKR speedrunner looking for a challenge. Some difficult configurations that aren't based simply on the player's ability to drive fast are exclusive to 5/5 randos, such as:

WB car (requires AI rendering manipulation)
IP with no red balloons (requires strategic hazard placement)
DB with no red balloons (requires strategic hazard placement)

Some of the above settings can be overridden on a per-track basis via the Track Overrides tab.

For Hundo randos, optional sequence breaks may be selected. These are specific tricks a player may perform in order to bypass a particular in-game barrier. By selecting any of these options, this signals to the routing algorithm that their corresponding skips are "fair game", resulting in a rando that may require the selected sequence break(s) to be performed in order for the ROM to be completable. All available sequence breaks are:

OW OoB. If enabled, the player may be required to perform an Out-of-Bounds in the Overworld. This OoB may be necessary to get into CI, DF, and/or Wizpig1 earlier than intended.
HTV WW. If enabled, the player may be required to perform an Out-of-Bounds in Hot Top Volcano and utilize its wrong warp. Wrong warps will warp the player to a random track, with its destination being deterministic. The wrong warp may be necessary to access other maps early (or in some cases, at all). If HTV's vehicle is plane for the standard race, trophy storage may additionally be required in order to complete the rando.
SV Early. If enabled, the player may be required to perform an Out-of-Bounds to clip into the Snowball Valley loading zone, bypassing the 6/14 balloon requirement.
SM Balloon. If enabled, the player may be required to perform an Out-of-Bounds in Smokey1 and/or Smokey2 to collect the OoB golden balloon. This allows the player to have a higher-than-expected balloon count, as well as the ability to re-visit the Smokey1 warp with 9/10 Dragon Forest balloons (see Softlocks section for details). Although it is possible to save-and-quit to respawn the balloon, the logic assumes the player will never collect either of the balloons more than once.
IP Early. If enabled, the player may be required to perform an Out-of-Bounds to clip into the Icicle Pyramid loading zone, bypassing the key door requirement.
TT Stomp. If enabled, the player may be required to perform a TT stomp into any warp where possible. This includes AL, FC, JF, HTV, Tricky, EP, WC, SV, FV, IP, Bluey, GV, WP, HW (if the BC door is open), Smokey, SdA, DC, SC, SpA, and Wizpig 2.

Softlocks

In 100% randomizers, in-game mechanics are kept as vanilla as possible while still performing selected randomizations. This has the consequence of certain sequences of actions resulting in a softlocked savefile can cannot be progressed past a certain point. The randomizer logic guarantees a ROM is beatable; these softlocks only occur through incorrect actions by the player, and should therefore be avoided. This section describes exactly what to look out for.

TL;DR:

(If hubs are randomized) Don't complete the FFL trophy before entering the lighthouse.
(If bosses are randomized) Don't beat boss 1 until you can satisfy the silver coin requirements for all tracks in that world.
(If bosses are randomized) Don't collect 8 balloons in a world until you've completed what's in the boss 1 warp.
(If Smokey OoB is enabled) Don't collect 9+ Dragon Forest balloons until you've completed what's in the boss 2 warp.
(If races are randomized) Don't complete FFL tracks until necessary.

Each bullet is explained in more detail below.

Early FFL Trophy Completion

When the FFL trophy is completed, the billboard on the beach disappears. If the lighthouse warp is not unlocked at that point, that warp will become impossible to access, as the billboard is required to play the rocket cutscene and unlock FFL.

Early Boss 1 Completion

The conditions that must be met for a race door's required balloon count to upgrade from its standard race count to its silver coin race count are:

The standard race must have been beaten.
Boss 1 of that race's world must have been beaten (note this condition does not apply for FFL races).

This means that if the boss 1 race of a world is encountered at a random point in the game and completed too early, the world doors for races that have been completed will thereafter use the silver coin race balloon count, not the standard race balloon count. In some cases, it may not be possible to have enough balloons to enter with these elevated requirements, and the game would be softlocked.

Example softlock:

Randomizations:

Sherbet warp goes to Smokey 1
Smokey 1 warp goes to Sherbet
FM warp goes to WP
WP warp goes to Snowflake
Snowflake warp goes to FM
Smokey OoB is enabled

Sequence of events:

Collect OW balloons, complete all of Dino
Enter FM warp, complete WP
Complete car and hover taj challenges
Enter Snowflake warp, complete FM
Enter Sherbet warp, complete Smokey 1 and collect the OoB balloon

The softlock:

At this point, the game is softlocked. 16 balloons have been obtained (4 OW + 2 Taj + 8 Dino + 1 WP + 1 Smokey 1). Dino is completed, Sherbet and Snowflake are inaccessible, leaving just Dragon. Normally, with 16 balloons, WP could be entered, allowing access to Snowflake. However, because Smokey 1 and WP have been beaten, the WP door uses the silver coin requirement of 23, barring entry and softlocking the savefile.

The mistake:

The correct thing to do would have been to NOT beat Smokey 1, instead just collecting the OoB balloon and reutrning to lobby; that would have left the WP door at the 16 balloon requirement and it could have been entered.

Early World Balloon Completion

If the player collects all 8 balloons from a particular world (4 standard races, 4 silver coin races) too early, this will lock the player out of the boss 1 warp of that world. Boss races utilize two separate maps for the initial and rematch races, and the game puts two overlapping warps behind every boss door. Only one is active at any time, however. If exactly 8 balloons are collected in that world, the rematch race warp will be active (e.g. Tricky 2), otherwise the initial race will be active (e.g. Tricky 1). This means that if all 8 balloons of a world are collected before the boss door is entered, the boss 1 warp will be completely inaccessible, and may softlock the game.

Example softlock:

Randomizations:

IP warp goes to Bluey 1
Bluey 1 warp goes to Sherbet
Sherbet warp goes to IP

Sequence of events:

Collect OW balloons, complete all of Dino
Complete Snowflake 1, completing Bluey 1 via IP warp
Complete Snowflake 2

The softlock:

At this point, the game is softlocked. Because all 8 Snowflake balloons have been collected, entering Bluey will always use the Bluey 2 warp. The Bluey 1 warp, and therefore Sherbet, become inaccessible.

The mistake:

The correct thing to do would have been to, when 4-7 Snowflake balloons were collected, enter Bluey (which would go to Sherbet), and exhaustively complete everything there. Only once there is nothing left to do in Sherbet, the 8th Snowflake balloon can be collected, and Bluey 2 can be accessed instead.

Early Smokey Balloon Collection

Enabling the Smokey OoB sequence break may also introduce the ability to softlock. As mentioned above, when 8 balloons in a world are collected, the boss door will utilize the boss 2 warp instead of the boss 1 warp. It's important to note that exactly 8 balloons enables boss 2. If the Smokey OoB sequence break is allowed, collecting the Smokey balloon may be required, potentially accumulating 9 Dragon balloons and re-unlocking the boss 1 warp. If this is done, it will become impossible to re-access the boss 2 warp. Thus, the boss 2 warp must be completed in its entirety before collecting the 9th balloon and locking it back to the boss 1 warp.

Example softlock:

Randomizations:

Smokey 2 warp goes to Sherbet
Sherbet warp goes to Smokey 2

Sequence of events:

Collect OW balloons, complete all of Dino and Snowflake
Enter Sherbet warp, complete Smokey 2 and collect the OoB balloon
Complete all of Dragon 1, collecting the Smokey 1 OoB balloon as well
Complete all of Dragon 2

The softlock:

At this point, the game is softlocked. Because 10 Dragon balloons have been collected at this point, the Smokey warp will always go to Smokey 1, rendering Sherbet inaccessible.

The mistake:

The correct thing to do would have been to collect the Smokey 2 balloon, complete the 4 standard races, collect then Smokey 1 balloon, then complete only 2 of the silver coin races. At this point, exactly 8 Dragon balloons would have been collected, and the Smokey warp will go to Sherbet. All of Sherbet can then be completed before finishing the remaining 2 Dragon silver coin races.

Early FFL Track Completion

Care must be taken when completing FFL tracks. As mentioned above, after beating a track and the boss 1 of that track's world, the track's door will convert to the silver coin balloon requirement to enter its warp. In FFL, there is no boss 1, so simply beating an FFL track will raise that track's balloon requirement by 4. It is therefore possible to softlock by completing an FFL track and not being able to enter its warp due to the +4 requirement. It's worth noting that this softlock is fairly rare, as it requires precise FFL track randomizations and narrow balloon count margins. It is nevertheless document here for posterity.

Example softlock:

Randomizations:

SdA warp goes to Bubbler 1
Bubbler 1 warp goes to SC
SC warp goes to DC
DC warp goes to FM
FM warp goes to SdA
SpA warp goes to Bubbler 2
Bubbler 2 warp goes to SpA
HTV WW is enabled and goes to SV
Smokey OoB is enabled

Sequence of events:

Collect OW balloons, complete all of Dino
Enter FM warp, complete SpA standard + silver coins
Complete all of Snowflake
Complete Sherbet 1 (since Bubbler 1 is inaccessible, this is all that can be done)
Enter Bubbler 1 warp, complete SC standard + coins
Complete all of Dragon, collecting both Smokey balloons
Use trophy storage to complete Sherbet trophy
Beat Wizpig 1 and enter FFL
Enter DC and SpA warps, completing FM and Bubbler 2 respectively

The softlock:

At this point, the game is softlocked. The player can get at most 41 balloons (standard FFL entry count of 39, +2 for SdA, +2 for SC, +2 for Smokey balloons, -4 for Sherbet 2). Normally, SdA could be entered, but because it was completed when entering FM, its balloon count gets its silver coin requirement of 43, not 39.

The mistake:

The correct thing to do would have been to not complete SdA. There would be a -2 balloon penalty for doing so, but would also result in a -4 balloon requirement for the SdA door. The player would exactly match the SdA door requirement of 39, allowing Bubbler 1 to be completed and progression to continue.
Strategically, the same caution should have been used with SC as well. But once the FFL warps are seen, it becomes deducible that it can safely be completed.

Technically, this situation is never a pure softlock. The game can be quit and the Smokey balloons can be farmed as necessary. This is out of logic of the randomizer, however, and is never required to complete a playthrough.

DKR Randomizer Changelog

The full changelog of all DKR randomizer versions.

Version 1.6 (Current)

Released 2024/03/14.

Migrated the randomizer to a webapp.
Added an option to limit the maximum difficulty of any particular track. 5/5 difficulty aims to allow configurations that elicit very difficult races for skilled speedrunners, while still being beatable. 1/5 difficulty aims to be easily beatable by everyone, including casual players with limited DKR skill.
Playing mirrored tracks has been split out of the magic code randomizations and into its own Adventure 2 option. Mirrored tracks can be configured via a probability on a per-track basis. Mirrored silver coin races use the Adventure 2 coin locations.
Added the ability to override vehicle and lap randomizations for individual tracks and race types.
Added indications of invisible magic codes being active.

When VITAMIN is active, bananas are extra shiny.
When BOGUSBANANAS is active, bananas are green.
When OFFROAD is active, the racers' car tires are enlarged.

Tweaked player spawn locations with trophy storage. Now, if storage is consumed (i.e. the trophy is completed or quit out), the player spawns in the completed trophy's worlds' hub. Otherwise, the player spawns beside the map's warp location (i.e. the player backs out of a race/minigame before it starts or a boss race is completed).
The randomizer can now generate xdelta patches.
Spoiler logs now include the rando options, wrong warp destination, and trophy storage availability.
Rando outputs can now be specifically chosen.
Bug fixes:

Fixed softlock where non-plane Smokey races required the OoB golden balloon.
Fixed softlock where PL is first entered in a trophy race in plane not in first place (plane water physics is now applied prior to race start).
Fixed balloon randomization softlocks:

IP and DwB will always have a red or green balloon.
Smokey 1 and 2 will always have a blue balloon (if the OoB golden balloon is required).

ATR vehicle randomizations are no longer restricted to coin challenge-completable vehicles.
Entering a completed track with trophy storage now respects the chosen vehicle.
The Wizpig head cutscene no longer gets delayed when exiting from the last boss 2 race directly to the OW.
Both key door and boss door cutscenes can now play contiguously when expected.
When triggering a boss door cutscene after leaving a key door, the player no longer experiences a spawn displacement.
Fixed boss cutscenes sometimes putting the player in the wrong vehicle.
Fixed taj challenges not triggering when entering Wizpig 1 early.
Cutscene skip → restart race after a silver coin race now puts the player back in the standard race vehicle.
ATR randos now properly create spoiler logs.

Version 1.5

Released 2022/11/05.

download

Added option to differentiate between 100% randos and ATR randos.

In 100% randos, races stay assigned to their vanilla worlds and must be found to make progress for each world.
In ATR randos, races will be reassigned worlds so that each trophy race can have any set of 4 tracks.

Completely overhauled 100% randos.

Added routing logic to ensure that 100% completion is always possible, though softlocks are possible.
Minigames, boss races, and hub worlds can additionally be randomized.
Sequence breaks can be enabled. This extends the logic such that any enabled sequence breaks may be necessary to perform in order to complete a playthrough.

Randomized laps now affect Taj challenges.
Added a spoiler log for generated randos.
Fixed overworld vehicle getting corrupted.

Version 1.4

Released 2022/04/03.

download

Added a GUI for creating randomized ROMs.
Silver coin races can be rerandomized.
Specific magic codes can be banned.
Boss races and minigames are now affected by randomized vehicles.
Miscellaneous bug fixes.

Version 1.3

Released 2021/05/13.

download

Magic codes can be randomized.
FFL 1 races are no longer silver coin challenges.
Randomizer now fails if an invalid flag is given.
Loading tracks with randomized balloons no longer occasionally crashes.
Expansion pak is no longer required.
The intro cutscenes of trophy race races 2-4 can be skipped by default.

Version 1.2

Released 2021/04/29.

download

Silver coin challenges are no longer broken.
Trophy race points aren't corrupted when tracks have > 3 laps.
Race intro cutscenes are not skippable on first enter in adventure mode.
The audio of TT introducing tracks is now synced with the randomized tracks.
Vehicle randomization is more configurable.

Version 1.1

Released 2021/04/25.

download

The base ROM no longer needs to be supplied via command line arguments.
Balloons powerups can be randomized.

Version 1.0

Released 2021/04/24.

download

Initial release!
Races can be randomized.
Vehicles can be randomized.
Lap counts can be randomized.

Credits

Created by Antonio Castelli

Special thanks to:

The DKR decomp team for making the extent of this project feasible.
The DKR Hacks discord for play testing and feedback.
Faschz for creating the original randomizer.
MorKs for designing the Rando Tracker.

Source dependencies:

Clear Randomizer

This will clear all settings in the randomizer. Are you sure?

Clear Track Overrides

Changing this option will reset all track overrides. Continue?

Invalid ROM

An invalid ROM has been provided.

The randomizer can only take an NTSC-U v1.0 DKR ROM in .z64 format.

Error

Internal Error

There was an internal error running the randomizer: