Flute

The flute (sometimes called the ocarina) is a Y-item in ALttP. When it's been activated, it allows players to fast travel around the Light World overworld.

Getting the flute

Shovel quest

In order to get the flute, the player must go on a short side-quest involving the shovel. On the Dark World screen that corresponds to the grove, there is an NPC who's turning into a tree: fluteboy. When you talk to him, he will give you the shovel and give you a hint about where to dig.

After obtaining the shovel, you can dig a place in the northwest corner of the grove screen, and you will find the flute. After picking up the flute, the flute will replace the shovel in Link's inventory. The shovel's only real utility in the game is as part of this quest.

Duck unlock

After obtaining the flute, it will do nothing but play a melody when used. You need to activate it by playing it near the weathervane in Kakariko Village.

After doing this, a short scene plays where a duck bursts from the weathervane. From this point on, playing the flute while in the Light World overworld will call the duck, who will fly on screen and try to pick Link up. If Link is picked up, the player will be presented with an interface where they can select 1 of 8 positions on the Light World overworld to fast travel to. After making a selection, the duck will drop Link off on the chosen screen.

Calling the duck

After the duck is unlocked and your flute is active, you simply need to press Y with the flute equipped while on the Light World overworld, and the duck will fly onscreen to pick you up. The flute continues to do nothing but play a melody if you're indoors or on the Dark World overworld.

Cooldown

The flute has a cooldown mechanic that can give the player a delay on being able to use it. The cooldown will be active when:

1. The player has used the flute and called the duck, and it will remain on cooldown for a few seconds after the duck has flown off screen
2. The duck has just dropped Link off on a new screen
3. The player has just unlocked the duck

The cooldown can be skipped in a few ways, but by far the most common method for speedrunners to be aware of is through tapping A . And even better, the player can item dash with the flute to eliminate the cooldown and call the bird simultaneously. This mechanic is commonly used in routes that unlock the duck and immediately want to flute away (e.g. 100% NMG).

Optimizing the duck pickups

After calling the duck, you ideally want to scroll the screen to the left so that it leaves the screen sooner after grabbing Link. The fastest way to do this is to dash left into the duck as it's coming to pick you up. But this can be finicky and unreliable without a setup.

Walking into the duck

The easiest optimization is just to walk into the duck. Wait for the 5th note in the flute's melody and then hold until Link is picked up. It's possible to flub this by starting your walk to the left too late, so be careful of this.

Walking into the duck saves ~13 frames over standing completely still.

Dashing into the duck

To duck dash, you begin dashing to the left on the 5th note in the flute's melody, and then you either:

1. If you have a good setup and are confident in your execution of it, dash all the way until Link is picked up by the bird.
2. If you don't have a good setup, cancel your dash right before the duck grabs Link

Different flute situations can have different setups. They generally involve manipulating the distance between the left edge of the screen and Link's sprite. One example of a 100% successful duck dash is to dash left on a scrollable screen some time before calling the duck. Dashing left on a scrollable screen will scroll the screen by 4 pixels relative to Link's position. Link will now be 4 pixels further away from the left edge of the screen, meaning that if you now call the duck and then dash at it, you need to travel 1 frame longer to hit the duck, which lines you up perfectly. An example of this type of setup is when getting the ether medallion and immediately fluting away, just like you do in the Any% NMG run. Because you dash left along the bridge while going to the tablet, this will set things up to where you should have a "free" duck dash (assuming no movement mistakes throw your alignment off).

In some situations, there's no known consistent setup, and you just have to cancel your dash or fall back to a walk strat. An example of this is fluting after the Lumberjack heart piece in 100% NMG.

Flute interface

After the duck has picked Link up, the player will be presented with an interface displaying the Light World overworld map and 8 marked positions:

1. Death Mountain
2. The Witch's hut
3. Kakariko Village
4. Link's house
5. Eastern portalway
6. Desert
7. The dam
8. Hylia waterfall

The player can move the d-pad or to cycle forward in the selections and or to cycle backwards. Moving backwards with 1 selected will select 8, and moving forwards with 8 selected will select 1. Pressing any of the face buttons will warp Link to the currently selected option.

After the interface first opens, the player has a 16 frame window where no selection can be made. However, the player can begin holding a face button, and the game will make a selection on the first possible frame—or in other words, you can buffer your flute selections. This is free to do when you're fluting to Death Mountain (the #1 spot and default selection). With practice, many players find it comfortable to do when fluting to the Witch's hut (#2) or Hylia waterfall (#8) as these are just one movement from Death Mountain. Buffering a first frame selection when flying to other places is risky. If you're unable to highlight the correct selection within the 16 frame window, you'll flute to the wrong place, which is a costly mistake that wastes several seconds.

Fake fluting

The flute interface can be accessed without using the flute and being picked up by the duck. It can also be accessed on the Dark World overworld and even indoors. This is done through a major glitch technique called fake flute.

Interaction with Misery Mire

The flute is mostly a convenience item that lets you travel the overworld more quickly, but there's an important exception to this regarding Misery Mire. The only way to access the dungeon without major glitches involves using the flute. This is because when fluting to Desert (#6 on the flute interface), Link is dropped off on a ledge that contains a portal to the Dark World. There's no other way to access this ledge, and there's no way to access the Mire overworld area from elsewhere in the Dark World. This means that in NMG categories that visit Mire, the flute is a hard requirement.

With the use of major glitches, Mire is readily accessible without the flute, and because of this, flute is frequently skipped in more heavily glitched routes.