In the demo, it disturbed a lot of players that the Dalton's dungeon entrance was hidden behind a mountain. We put it there because we didn't want them to find it before having met Sargon and the Elder, right? The better solution would have been to put the exit in front of the mountain, and to have it accessible only after some storyline flag is activated. Unfortunately, we didn't know how to do this since it requires complicated overworld event modification. Well, now I can say that...
...We still don't know how to do it
But I've found another solution: we can "parasitize" the Black Omen code in the overworld events to activate or deactivate the Dungeon exit. Overworld exits are at Mem 7E7E00. We can insert a BitMath command anywhere in the Black Omen code to set or reset this mem (=to activate or deactivate the exit). Basically, the trick works like this:
If the Black Omen is loaded = Dalton's Dungeon entrance is deactivated.
If the Black Omen isn't loaded = Dalton's Dungeon entrance is available normally.
At the beginning of the Chapter 1, I set Mem 7F01F7 ("Black Omen has appeared") so that the Black Omen is loaded on the map. This make the entrance not available. This also means that the Black Omen will hover in the sky, but it's not a problem, since it's out of sight and Magus doesn't have access to the Epoch!
After talking to Dalton in the Beast Forest, I reset Mem 7F01F7 in the location code. This means that the overworld map code will not load the Black Omen anymore, and thus the Dungeon entrance will not be deactivated: Magus will be able to enter it normally.
It is even possible to add a SetTile command after the BitMath 7E7E00 to make a "cave entrance" tile appear on the mountain!
Well I'm not sure I explained this very clearly, but the important thing is that all this
works. Now if it works once it'll work twice, won't it? I'm thinking about applying the trick to the Dorino Plains (using the Sunken Desert code).
