AZCT - Luna's chariot (Shield Dungeon Topic)

[Aposke]

Aposke here, establishing face (and level design) in order to show that I'm working on something and so I can make sure noone else is working on a dungeon with a similar design.



Overview: The dungeon's called Luna's chariot and incorporates both shield upgrades (level 2 and level 3). Its theme is going to be moonlight, the night, and very basic room designs. I'm aiming to take a very simplistic approach to the rooms, not adding too much clutter and just letting each room stand for itself.

Layout: There's going to be one big main hall with a few adjacent hallways and rooms. One of them is going to lead the player to the first shield upgrade, while others lead to bonuses / etc. Somewhere within the main hall, the entrance to the 2nd shield upgrade is going to be hidden, however, it will not be accessible before the player has received the hipster glasses.
The dungeon will probably require 2 Dmaps and encompass between 30 and 40 screens.

Theme: The theme of this dungeon is moonlight. To establish this, I've used the color pallette for the Overworld at Night and simply used it for dungeon interior. I will also see into creating custom tiles so I have a wider range of graphics to use. Another reoccuring theme will be shooters, i.e. statues that shoot fireballs at you, since these are connected to the shield upgrade which can block them.

Progression: 50% of the room layout is done, central ideas are developed 20%

Expect a playable demo to be out by the end of next week.

[Doctor Shemp]

How's this for the music?

[Aposke]

This is wonderful, Shemp. Just what I've been looking for!
The ending is kind of abrupt, I wonder if you can change that, maybe make it fade out a bit more, but maybe it's a limit in ZC or something. Other than that, this is really excellent - thank you so much.

[LaularuKyrumo]

inb4 Luna's Tower references start coming out of the woodwork

[Aposke]

inb4 Luna's Tower references start coming out of the woodwork

I swear to god that's my biggest fear with this. I started this dungeon before I even knew of the ASMBXT level and now people are going to have expectations oh no!

[KingTwelveSixteen]

inb4 Luna's Tower references start coming out of the woodwork

I swear to god that's my biggest fear with this. I started this dungeon before I even knew of the ASMBXT level and now people are going to have expectations oh no!

Eh, just do whatever you want to and ignore the tower.

[Doctor Shemp]

This is wonderful, Shemp. Just what I've been looking for!
The ending is kind of abrupt, I wonder if you can change that, maybe make it fade out a bit more, but maybe it's a limit in ZC or something. Other than that, this is really excellent - thank you so much.

I'm starting to get suspicious with everyone calling my stuff wonderful. You guys would tell me if I turned in something bad right? As for the ending, yeah it is abrupt. The melody is on the triangle channel which has no volume control, and I can't move it off the triangle channel because a) it would sound different and b) I've run out of channels. So I wasn't really sure how to end it.

[LaularuKyrumo]

inb4 Luna's Tower references start coming out of the woodwork

I swear to god that's my biggest fear with this. I started this dungeon before I even knew of the ASMBXT level and now people are going to have expectations oh no!

Honestly, if your dungeon reminds anyone of Luna's Tower then you're probably doing it wrong as it means you've got like 50 dmaps reserved and multiple pseudo-midpoints and probably death knights everywhere.

Just saying. :o

[Aposke]

Little update on the dungeon: I lost all my files on my harddrive due to a failure, but I should be able to get them back. Until then, I don't have much choice but to wait with the production for this dungeon. Either way, does anyone here still have the latest game file I put into the thread before everything got deleted? That one should be more or less up-to-date, though I'm not sure if it's even possible to continue editing with just the .zc file or what it was called.

[jayScribble]

I thought I have everything downloaded: I don't have latest one now.

[Nimono]

So, I've taken over this dungeon since Aposke is banned now, and I currently have some form of something in the dropbox that could perhaps possibly be tested? https://www.dropbox.com/s/nq2g4i1in4kdg ... s.qst?dl=0

Notes:

-Dungeon has no music since Aposke never uploaded it to the dropbox, and the download link in this thread doesn't work
-I've redone everything from scratch
-Along with the above, the dungeon will need a new name to fit its new theme; any suggestions?
-Incomplete; you can't even get the first shield for the dungeon.


Also, I'd like to have a few puzzle rooms in the dungeon based around needing to block shooters with movable Sponge blocks, but due to the small rooms, I'm having trouble figuring out how they should be set up, only being able to come up with very simple "push this a little bit to this spot, done". Any suggestions?

[Lejes]

Four way movement, ewwww. Anyway.

http://i.imgur.com/SSURezH.png

NES dungeon type doesn't work well with freeform style rooms. Either the DMap or every individual screen that doesn't use the traditional door structure needs to be made interior type.
EDIT: I just figured out that turning on the quest rule "Freeform Dungeons" will fix the issue with tiles being drawn over Link and walking being restricted, but he'll still move forward automatically unless the DMap/room type is changed.

http://i.imgur.com/iXIDITw.png

Zelda 1 also didn't anticipate infinite push blocks. You need to turn the "Can't Push Blocks Onto Unwalkable Combos" quest rule on. I think you could also change the blocks near the door to Block Arrow (All) combo type, so the statues don't snipe you when you're going for the door. As for puzzles/general playability, I think this would be very helpful:

/**
* The X position of the current moving block. If there is no moving block
* on the screen, it will be -1. This is read-only; while setting it is not
* syntactically incorrect, it does nothing.
*/
int MovingBlockX;

You can use the moving block's X and Y to destroy any EWeapons passing over it, eliminating that engine flaw and opening up more puzzle possibilities. For example, you could build a one tile wide path with a magic shooter at the end before the magic shield is found. The magic would murder you unless you moved a sponge block into the path to serve as a shield. Just moving it in there would be too simple, so you could maybe have the sponge block sealed behind a more traditional block puzzle, and extricating it would be the real challenge.

http://i.imgur.com/HZjTyZc.png

There's an enemy spawn flag on the pit for some reason.

The dungeon looks pretty nice so far. I like the color palette. Is that style of map going to be standard for the quest? The flipper dungeon still has a crummy NES map, so I'll have to look into changing it.

[Nimono]

Four way movement, ewwww. Anyway.

http://i.imgur.com/SSURezH.png

NES dungeon type doesn't work well with freeform style rooms. Either the DMap or every individual screen that doesn't use the traditional door structure needs to be made interior type.
EDIT: I just figured out that turning on the quest rule "Freeform Dungeons" will fix the issue with tiles being drawn over Link and walking being restricted, but he'll still move forward automatically unless the DMap/room type is changed.

http://i.imgur.com/iXIDITw.png

Zelda 1 also didn't anticipate infinite push blocks. You need to turn the "Can't Push Blocks Onto Unwalkable Combos" quest rule on. I think you could also change the blocks near the door to Block Arrow (All) combo type, so the statues don't snipe you when you're going for the door.

I...what? Ugghh I really need to check what rules Aposke did and didn't turn on. I assumed he picked the default option! Ugh... Thanks for noticing those things. >_>

EDIT: As for the shooters in that room, I eventually plan to just make them FFC scripts instead so they only fire in a specific direction. And regarding the map, I don't think we have a set map style yet. All I know is that we're going to make things look like ATXS text bubbles.


i just kinda used my map for this dungeon 'cause I like it

[Nabe]

I'd like to use the atxs-style maps for every dungeon for consistency's sake, and will happily make one up for people in a style like Shoe's Zone (meaning pixel art in the parts of the frame that aren't taken up by the map itself) but you're welcome to use your own map if you'd rather.

Haven't played the dungeon yet but I like the palette.


ALSO: it seems very clear now that the final shield should be the "Sponge Shield".

[Nimono]

I'd like to use the atxs-style maps for every dungeon for consistency's sake, and will happily make one up for people in a style like Shoe's Zone (meaning pixel art in the parts of the frame that aren't taken up by the map itself) but you're welcome to use your own map if you'd rather.

Haven't played the dungeon yet but I like the palette.


ALSO: it seems very clear now that the final shield should be the "Sponge Shield".

Yeah, if you could make a map in that style for both leever's nest and this dungeon, that'd be great!


and I don't think we should call the Mirror Shield the Sponge Shield. Sponges absorb, but Mirrors reflect. Mirror Shield reflects enemy shots, so it being a Sponge wouldn't make sense. You...pretty much can't make the shield anything other than a mirror. The function is too tied to the name. However, we CAN call the Magic Shield the Sponge Shield since that one DOES absorb shots!

(Then again, there's a Sponge thing in Paper Mario: Sticker Star that absorbs attacks and reflects them on a certain boss...)

[Nabe]

Making Sponge the L2 Shield sounds just as good to me.

[Nimono]

Nabe: Now I'm wondering if maybe we SHOULD make the Mirror Shield be sponge. We could even call it "Absorbent Aegis"!


https://www.dropbox.com/s/nq2g4i1in4kdg ... s.qst?dl=0
I have a new update for the dungeon. You can now claim the Magic Shield. I'd greatly appreciate some tests to see how well the shooters work, and if they might do too much damage! Remember, the ideal difficulty for this should be between levels 3 and 4!

EDIT: Also, thoughts on the name? I wanted to make some kind of pun with shield alongside having alliteration, or possibly a pun with Sponge... not sure.

[Nabe]

I love the atmosphere and the palette. Luna's Chariot looked a bit garish, but this is nice. Purple is a good call on the weak Wizzrobes, and the use of enemies overall is good. Lots of subtleties that make me smile.


The one immediate problem I notice is that the sword shooters have a habit of poking Link on the other side of the sponge blocks if the blocks are moving when the shooters shoot, probably because the sword sprite is long enough to reach through before actually getting blocked.

Is there another shot type that's smaller and shoots straight? Or if not, there's probably also the option of making the sword eweapon shorter.

[Nimono]

I love the atmosphere and the palette. Luna's Chariot looked a bit garish, but this is nice. Purple is a good call on the weak Wizzrobes, and the use of enemies overall is good. Lots of subtleties that make me smile.


The one immediate problem I notice is that the sword shooters have a habit of poking Link on the other side of the sponge blocks if the blocks are moving when the shooters shoot, probably because the sword sprite is long enough to reach through before actually getting blocked.

Is there another shot type that's smaller and shoots straight? Or if not, there's probably also the option of making the sword eweapon shorter.

They all have the same hitbox. The problem isn't that the weapon is of a size, it's the fact that when a block is pushed, it ceases to be a block. If you push a block on layer 0 with transparent pixels, those pixels vanish during its movement because it's become a sprite temporarily. Thus, the only way to fix it would be like Lejes said and have a script check for the moving block and then remove any weapon that comes into contact with it. On that note, I really need to check if Aposke put in any non-default scripts, to ensure I don't wreck anything.

[Nabe]

Righto.

I'm inclined to say 1 damage would probably be better on the shooters, regardless. Although I think my largest annoyance with screen 10:34 is that the engine forces you out the bottom door if you even think about going near it. :D The room itself is cool.

[Nimono]

Righto.

I'm inclined to say 1 damage would probably be better on the shooters, regardless. Although I think my largest annoyance with screen 10:34 is that the engine forces you out the bottom door if you even think about going near it. :D The room itself is cool.

Ah! I hadn't taken that into account. What I could do is change that wall to a Wall combo and just manually put the hole tiles there; it's not like you can enter that room before bombing that wall.