Shovel bug in week 3, No "X" spot on map

Hello, this is my first post here.

I'm playing Ancient Stone Tablets right now, and after renting the shovel, there's no map mark for Piece of Heart. There wasn't any problems with this in first two weeks.

I'm using Snes9x 1.52, the newest Roms (official, not MQ, from 13th January), with these patches:
Preinstalled - Base, Indoors (Official), Upgrade, Translation, Sublines v.9 and Intro/End
Added - Mascot Patch (Link & Malon), Timeless, Green Aginah (both cutscenes and game), Itemfixes (week 3 & 4 only, Book of Mudora, Magic Cape, Mighty Boomerang and permanent shovel in Week 4).

I patched the week 3 rom according to your description

- official (week 3) with
+ mascot
+ aginah (both)
+ timeless
+ itemfix w3

and the place was marked as it should (attached pic)

probable bug sources
- you patched week 3 with itemfix patches for week 4 (your post indicates this)
- you played week 3 already? If you replay the treasure might be gone...

Possible way to fix: wait 10 minutes (until the shovel is no longer in your inventory; timer counts even if invisible with the timeless patch), and rent the shovel again. If nothing helps, repatch week 3 again and hopefully you still have a srm from week 2...

Attached Image (Click thumbnail to expand)

Thanks. I redownloaded and repatched all four weeks, but I deleted the saved games and I will start from the beginning (week 1). But I done a quick test using cheats. After loading week 3 (without progress from first 2 weeks), and turning on cheats for 99999 rupees, Lvl 3 sword, Red shield, Blue Mail and Pegasus Boots, I went to the shop for shovel. It worked fine, X appeared on the map. I think it will work fine during normal gameplay.

"No Mr. Bond, I expect you to dig!"

I found the source of this "shovel bug".

Possibly this is not a bug, but normal game behavior. To get the treasure spot, you need to rent the shovel from correct shop. In rental shops from previous weeks you will only see the following massage:

If you choose the correct shop, you will see this message instead:

And the X spot will appear on the map (it's time to dig for Piece of Heart).

There are two ways to solve this problem.
1. Don't do anything, you need to rent the shovel from current week's shop.
2. Fix this "bug" - you can choose any rental shop for treasure. BTW, you can upgrade your sword for 10 minutes in any rental shop. You can do the same with the shovel.

This post has been edited by JamesBond007 on Jan 16 2011, 09:16 PM

Sorry for double post, but editing my previous one is no longer possible.

Unfortunately, I found another, more serious bug with the shovel, this time in week 4. If the itemfix/shovel patch is applied (to have the shovel forever), if you buy the shovel from week 1/2/3 rental shop, you will keep it forever as usual, but you won't be able to find the Piece of Heart. This need to be fixed. There are 2 ways to do it:
1. Only week 4 rental shop will allow you to buy the shovel. In week 1/2/3 shops you can only rent the shovel for 10 minutes.
2. As mentioned in previous post, all four rental shops will act the same (they will give you the X spot on the map each week, and you can buy the shovel in week 4).

mh, really a serious bug...
I dunno how to fix it, though. Having previous weeks sell the correct treasure is essential if you missed a heart container (you know, if you start in week 4 first you still have the chance to get the heart containers from week 1-3). Selling the shovel in week 4 only is difficult, better say impossible to hack, because the game does not distinguish where you got the shovel from.
This shovel fix further has the problem that, when you missed the treasure (could not find it, because it's on top of death mountain and you couldn't beat D8 in time), you don't have another chance to dig for it, because the shovel is in your inventory and won't appear in the shop a 2nd time then after 10 minutes.

Edit: I looked into the rom and made it so that the shovel will be sold again. However this does not work. Another possibility were to make the X-mark stabled - but then you won't get former weeks' treasures... well I am open for suggestions.

Not a perfect solution but maybe the best we have... the 10 minutes counter for the shovel in week 4 is at 7e1e72 and 7e1e73; I could hack it infinity, so that you won't lose the ability to find the treasure after 10 minutes buying the shovel.

Of course this will not prevent the issue when you buy a shovel from a former week's rental shop.

What do you think?

The ideal solution would be to make the shop sell the shovel (rather than let you rent it) only if you found the other three trestures, but I imagine that is not feasible, so this will have to do.

I have another idea - the rental shop should rent the shovel as usual (for "10 minutes"), but it should remain in your inventory if you uncover the treasure (in each week). Collecting it is not required for that - I think if you find the Piece of Heart and leave the screen without getting it (in all weeks), it should be there after going back (I haven't tested it). But the shovel won't be transfered between weeks. Shopkeeper's dialogue could be changed, like "You may keep the shovel if you find the treasure".

In short:
1. You start Week 1. You rent the shovel
2. After digging, and finding Piece of Heart, you keep the shovel to the end of Week 1.
3. After starting Week 2. you don't have the shovel, you must rent it again and find the Piece of Heart.
4. The same with 3 and 4.
5. Because there's no week 5, you end week 4 (and the game) with the shovel.

This post has been edited by JamesBond007 on Jan 19 2011, 09:16 PM

Either solution has the same problem I reckon: the lack of a proper pointer in the game.

I made a modification before reading your answer, but if the game still lacks proper pointers, it can't be done.

However, I heard that in if you catch the Golden Bee to a bottle just after taking the Sword (in Week 1), and keep it to the end, it won't reappear in Week 2.

This post has been edited by JamesBond007 on Jan 19 2011, 09:22 PM

ok then, I think it's the only possiblility. I think it makes no sense to not let the other shops sell the shovel (in case you missed the HC of w1-3). Further, all shops use the same code, so I can't let it just be sold in week 4 shop.

Yeah, I make the treasure mark infinitve - this will not solve the initial problem (of buying week 1-3 shovel in week 4, but improves the patch in any case.

JB: your idea does not solving the issue what to be done if you rent a former week's shovel. And I can't make the shovel buyable in week 4 only, because all shops use the same code.

It makes sense that the bee won't appear, what are you going to do with 2 golden bees?

Ok, I made the x-mark last forever... there's only one problem; it's not written into srm, means when you buy the shovel you have the rest of the game time to dig for the last Heart Container until you use the autosave function.

But most people use savestates anyway I guess.