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Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

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Doctor Shemp
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Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

I'm going to (probably) have time over the next while to do some video testing of the game. Which parts need it? Or, if they all do, which parts particularly need it?
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by raekuul »

Is everything that's critical to completion ready on the first island? If not it may be beneficial to wait until it is so that it can double as an alpha test.

Plus I kinda want to do this too.
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Doctor Shemp
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

raekuul wrote:Is everything that's critical to completion ready on the first island? If not it may be beneficial to wait until it is so that it can double as an alpha test.

Plus I kinda want to do this too.
Well, I know there's no functional cutscenes beyond placeholders, but they're not critical to completion. It probably could function as an alpha test.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nabe »

For main game completion's sake, the first island is definitely done, i.e. Level 0 - Level 4 is playable in an unbroken way. The minidungeons aren't added, and they don't have entrances afaik (aside from the boomerang entrance which I stole). The only one on the first island that's fully completed is the Destroyer's Shrine, which would probably not be part of the first half playthrough anyway. But, the Boomerang and Shield minidungeons are done up to the parts the player could enter with first island equipment, and could be added temporarily for a copied "playthrough" qst. I've lost the list, but I assume the rest are on Island 2.

Functionally, item drop sets aren't what they will be in final, and there will be a scripted shop system so that the player can't re-purchase items. From a polish perspective, there will also be cutscenes and dialogue that aren't present now, the subscreen isn't final, and the dungeons don't have final map graphics -- the maps should appear, they'll just look very strange.

The majority of this latter stuff can be in place within a week, if you'd care to wait, aside from the plot stuff and item drops.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Nabe wrote:I've lost the list, but I assume the rest are on Island 2.
I can confirm that the flipper mini-dungeon and the 'hookshot' mini-dungeon have both been placed on island 2.

Some of the other mini-dungeons could easily go in some currently empty secret areas and stuff though.

Also I kind of hadn't checked out the glasses dungeon in any way when I was making island 2 so I'm not sure if it's in a good place?? It's a cliff-side thing, looking at its name, so maybe there's already somewhere to put it...
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nimono »

I recommend you do a video test of everything you can in the merged quest, and then everything that's not, test separately. Even the unfinished things. It'd be very helpful to see the balance issues in action!
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Nabe wrote:Functionally, item drop sets aren't what they will be in final, and there will be a scripted shop system so that the player can't re-purchase items. From a polish perspective, there will also be cutscenes and dialogue that aren't present now, the subscreen isn't final, and the dungeons don't have final map graphics -- the maps should appear, they'll just look very strange.

The majority of this latter stuff can be in place within a week, if you'd care to wait, aside from the plot stuff and item drops.
I can probably test twice. If you'd prefer to me wait, though, I can test second island stuff instead.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nabe »

I say go ahead on the test -- functionally it should be fine.

KingTwelveSixteen wrote:Also I kind of hadn't checked out the glasses dungeon in any way when I was making island 2 so I'm not sure if it's in a good place?? It's a cliff-side thing, looking at its name, so maybe there's already somewhere to put it...
Level 6 would probably be best where you have Level 8, and vice-versa, since Level 6 is a cliff and Level 8 is on a cloud floating above trees.

I suppose alternatively, the cliff on screen 1:75 or even the one on 2:05 would work for Level 6. But since Level 8 involves trees, the switch of the two might work better. If Level 8 is on 1:75, that screen could use a Side Warp at the top to enter a short section of forest that would lead to Level 8 -- it's a bit weird spatially, but that can be explained because that whole area is a Lost Woods of sorts. I'd volunteer to design that section leading to L8, also.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Yeah, that'd be fine.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Witness how bad I can be at the game
A few summarised notes:
  • Sheath tends to blend in with sand
  • The Wizzrobe in Level 0 could stand to have significantly less health
  • Level 0 as a whole should be toned down: we wouldn't want people to be dissuaded and try something else first instead
  • If the discoloured rock on the overworld isn't a secret, what is it?
  • The switch turns into a tree when it gets hit.
  • I can't beat the boss of Level 2 with 3 hearts and no feather. It's possible I'm just bad, but I think the timing on the second phase should be loosened to be equal to the first phase. Having the boss increase in speed and how much fire he spews is enough of a difficulty increase as it is.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by jayScribble »

Words of advice on how I play to make things easier:
  • In a room with many enemies, kill all but one of them if you're going to visit it many times: generally, whenever you visit that room, there should be always one enemy there as long as you don''t kill it.
  • If an enemy pathway is in front of an open door, stay in the doorway and safely slash when they are in front of you.
  • If there is a block between you and an enemy, and you can walk under it, if the enemy is positioned at the top of the block, you can attack from under the block if you're pressing against it and still hit the enemy since you have farther reach from the bottom than any other direction.
Also, that glitch you were talking about the Armos: in the original Zelda, the glitch was that just touching an unmoving Armos from the bottom does damage to you. It's fixed in Zelda Classic.

About the 2nd dungeon boss:

stay around 3 tiles away from the boss and always be at the side of it. After placing a bomb in it's mouth, place a bomb again immediately and run away. Repeat until dead.



Beside that, there will be some changes with Dungeon 0, such as two shooters instead of four in each room to make it less intimidating.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nabe »

"No slash!"
Yeah -- and honestly we should just give that out silently from the beginning.

"This Wizzrobe takes forever to kill."
The enemy on all of those screens has now been replaced with a "Weak" variant, with half health.

"So what's in that locked chest on the left?"
Nothing. There's no key in the dungeon for it, KTS meant it as decoration. But: we could put something in it. And should! That would be a neat thing later, to give out the key for it later and say "Do you remember where this goes?"

"The switch probably shouldn't become a tree."
I didn't bother doing anything permanent, since I figured you'd want to place it somewhere yourself, and probably not have it be a purple switch. I'll rig up a puff of smoke combo that changes into a blank tile of land.

"This map feature is cool."
Yeah, not me. That's all the engine. But the feature can be enabled in dungeons.

"red rock what the heck"
It's a Super Bomb spot. And it's one of only maybe 8 secrets I added so far, so don't expect to find too much.


Shield 1 is currently in the top-left corner of the overworld. Maybe it should be given out for free, though, and I seem to remember that being the original plan.


@ Level 2, I'm looking into the Dodongo script now. The tiles you saw in the dark room aren't intentional, they were just CSet 2 instead of 4. But there are now intentional tiles there, as a test of how it looks.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

jayScribble wrote:Words of advice on how I play to make things easier:
  • In a room with many enemies, kill all but one of them if you're going to visit it many times: generally, whenever you visit that room, there should be always one enemy there as long as you don''t kill it.
  • If an enemy pathway is in front of an open door, stay in the doorway and safely slash when they are in front of you.
  • If there is a block between you and an enemy, and you can walk under it, if the enemy is positioned at the top of the block, you can attack from under the block if you're pressing against it and still hit the enemy since you have farther reach from the bottom than any other direction.
Also, that glitch you were talking about the Armos: in the original Zelda, the glitch was that just touching an unmoving Armos from the bottom does damage to you. It's fixed in Zelda Classic.

About the 2nd dungeon boss:

stay around 3 tiles away from the boss and always be at the side of it. After placing a bomb in it's mouth, place a bomb again immediately and run away. Repeat until dead.



Beside that, there will be some changes with Dungeon 0, such as two shooters instead of four in each room to make it less intimidating.
In the substantial amount of footage I cut out I got back to playing sensibly and did all those things. I could regularly get to the boss with full health and by the end could semi-regularly beat the first phase with full health. I then got murdered repeatedly by the second phase. I couldn't hug it close because it moved too fast and with rapid directional changes, and because the timing window is short, that meant I couldn't bomb it in time. I took to just bombing continuously and randomly in the hope I'd fluke one, going between the trees to restock, but the fire from the second phase can trap you in the corner between the individual flames and double- or even triple-hit you, killing you extremely quickly if you're in the corner.

I'll try the boss strategy you mentioned but later. For the next video I'll go and get the shield, get the feather from Level 1, and hopefully beat Level 1 to get up to 4 hearts total.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

After seeing how much trouble everyone (including myself, after retesting) was having with dungeon 0, I changed it so now it's easier.

Just the dungeon0 in overworld1 in the dropbox, not the dungeon0 by itself part.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nabe »

Rather than remastering all of the SFX, Shemp, try playing with the Volume settings in ZC while you're playtesting, because we could pass on "Recommended Sound Settings" in the readme and on the download page and save a bit of work.

That said, the balance sounds Good(TM) to me across my various IEMs, with these settings (might be the defaults):
soundsettings.png
soundsettings.png (27.66 KiB) Viewed 9971 times


I've tried changing the sand colour to a slightly different hue, which looks okay. As an alternative I could try burning or hue-shifting all of Sheath's colours a bit to match whatever wacky colour I'd have to pick for her skin, similar to Link's healthy orange glow in Zelda 1.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nimono »

Nabe wrote:As an alternative I could try burning or hue-shifting all of Sheath's colours a bit to match whatever wacky colour I'd have to pick for her skin, similar to Link's healthy orange glow in Zelda 1.
We could always just give her face a bit of an outline so it's clear where it ends!
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Video 2
I can't figure out the wizzrobe mirror room. It looks like the beam is reaching the target but it might not be. Either way nothing is happening. Two other points:
  • I agree that the wizzrobes in this dungeon should have their damage output lowered.
  • Which block is a push trigger and in which direction seems completely arbitrary.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by jayScribble »

About the Wizzrobe Mirror room:

You need the warp whistle to get past it and be within the whirlwind to get to the star block.

This puzzle had be bummed out until I solved it.
It's one of those puzzle that if you know the mechanics of the game, then is it's easy, but the problem is what is it you need to understand about it, which is where the difficulty of the puzzle is, especially for a new player.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by raekuul »

Then it's the sort of thing that needs to be made clear beforehand, especially if some dungeons use the Whistle as an escape button and others do not.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nimono »

Doctor Shemp wrote:Video 2
I can't figure out the wizzrobe mirror room. It looks like the beam is reaching the target but it might not be. Either way nothing is happening. Two other points:
  • I agree that the wizzrobes in this dungeon should have their damage output lowered.
  • Which block is a push trigger and in which direction seems completely arbitrary.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I assume you're speaking of my dungeon. So, regarding the mirror room, good news: The solution will at least be a LITTLE clearer when I port over my Sponge combo to Level 3- that's what will be in place of that "target", it's supposed to absorb all shots. To go with this, I may remove the sole bombable wall in the dungeon and replace it with a normal door, then change the room that exists solely to give you bombs to a Guy room who explains Sponges and whirlwinds bouncing off mirrors. I believe that will solve everything regarding that room!
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nabe »

I've gone ahead and added your Sponge combo to the overworld, Riolu, and added a sponge line to what your Guy already had to say about mirrors; feel free to change it, of course.


A Study on Whistle Whirlwinds and Mirrors, or,
Why This Puzzle is Sometimes (Unintentionally) Annoying
zelda008.png
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If Link is standing on a tile horizontally aligned with a mirror, the player will very reasonably expect (as long as they know that mirrors reflect whirlwinds, which they know from the Guy that tells them, and as long as they understand that whirlwinds always come from the left) that their whirlwind will hit the mirror and bounce off.

zelda009.png
zelda009.png (2.62 KiB) Viewed 9938 times
"Why didn't my whirlwind hit the mirror?!" the player in the above screenshot frustratedly exclaims, while being thankful he didn't actually step into the whirlwind. Well, junior, you were actually standing one pixel too high. Counter-intuitively, if the player stands lower than that spot (up to as low as the "tile" in the following screenshot) the whirlwind will always hit the mirror.

zelda012.png
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zelda013.png
zelda013.png (2.59 KiB) Viewed 9938 times

So. how do we ensure that the player's whirlwind hits the mirror if they're standing where it should reasonably hit the mirror? Well, one way is to force the player to stand exactly on the tile, using solid obstructions like these:
zelda014.png
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zelda016.png
zelda016.png (2.53 KiB) Viewed 9938 times

But that's not ideal, since the player still has to step into that space. (Putting a musical note tile in the middle of those solids would help, but it would also give away the solution to the puzzle.)

One option would be to use two-combo mirrors, oriented vertically, with each combo being visually half of the mirror, but only the top combo being an actual Magic Mirror combo. This would make it so that the whirlwind always hits the mirror when the player is standing in the actual correct spot.

Another option would be to use FFCs instead, with a "Better Mirror" script that properly grabs any weapon sprite overtop of it and reflects it like a mirror combo. And a third option would be to use scripted Whirlwinds instead, and make it so that their hitboxes don't suck.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Doctor Shemp »

So where do I get the whistle in lvl 3 then?
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by jayScribble »

Doctor Shemp wrote:So where do I get the whistle in lvl 3 then?
At the top left "horn" of the dungeon, though the sidescrolling section. (It's still a long way to get there in the first place.)

If you're concern about the mirror puzzle and positioning, you can

cheese it like me and position yourself exactly at the y (horizontal) position of the star block and use the whistle to bypass all the mirrors.

Although, I remember dungeon 5 having a similar puzzle with the mirrors and star block, which means you sort of need practice about the positioning part regardless.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Lejes »

The whole whistle->mirror interaction feels arbitrary anyway, like a chicken you hit with the hammer to reveal a stairway. These triggers are possible in ZC, but that doesn't mean they're good.
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Re: Dungeon/Overworld Video Testing

Post by Nimono »

Lejes wrote:The whole whistle->mirror interaction feels arbitrary anyway, like a chicken you hit with the hammer to reveal a stairway. These triggers are possible in ZC, but that doesn't mean they're good.
I don't know what made the developers decide to add it to ZC, and the only reason I put it in my level is to give the Whistle SOME use that other people could build on.


Exactly HOW do you build on "Use the whistle at the designated spot to make something happen!" or "Use the whistle to return to the entrance of the dungeon/to near a completed dungeon!"? I feel we shouldn't have it be like the original Z1 where its only uses were an arbitrary method of opening Level 7 and getting to previous dungeons quickly. It just...wasn't of any use past that!
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