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AZCT Overworld

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jayScribble
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AZCT Overworld

Post by jayScribble »

Herein this thread, post what Ideas and suggestions you have on how the Overworld would function.

The basic idea is to have two Overworld maps, both being on two different islands.

The first Island being peaceful, but is starting to be overrun by monsters and then enemy forces from the other island. Most of the item collecting is to prepare for going to the second Island to defeat the enemy forces there.

The second Island is where the bad guy has already taken over the entire island and is planning to invade the first one. As a result, the few stragglers there are hiding and sell enemy equipment to the player.

My Overworld failed due to being too open, so something we can base something on would be a good start.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Dayfinder »

Something more modern Legend of Zeldas did well was their dungeon design. However, you need an overworld.

More specifically, I put forth a design similar to Death Mountain.

If you were to mirror it: The game starts you in a peaceful town (or a broken down but slightly inhabited one) and soon after you are allowed to 'begin' the journey. You are acquainted with a few new enemies, and later with more difficult versions. This is good journey design: Learn, beat, more difficult this time.
Similarly, has you progress towards the 'center' you see a locked off area that is possibly dangerous? You feel like you'll visit it later, and you're right. After reaching the center past a natural obstacle, you've reached a small safe haven. You're promptly given the tool to enter the locked off area, but dundundun theres another area you can't reach AT the safe area. As you go through the first dungeon, you advance as a player. Greeted with congratulations, you head back to the town and do ??? (rest of overworld). Later on, you return and all hell has broken loose.
You return to the safe haven, get inside the hard dungeon, and boom. Nostalgia and a similarity to your first dungeon fuel you, making for a great experience. After this, final boss & cut to credits.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Like I said I would do, I've made a demo of the first overworld. This one is lacking enemies, items or anything like that. Basically all it has at this stage is the layout, the graphical appearance (which will need to be fixed up with custom graphics to smooth over some of the transitions, but that can wait) and the dungeon locations.

Here it is. For testing purposes you start with the Roc's Feather. You can't cross rivers until you get the ladder as well.

If you get lost (and I've tried to design it so that you shouldn't without it feeling too railroaded and keeping some non-linearity) here's the spoilered screen locations of each place:
Wizzrobe's House: Screen 41
Town: Screens 12 & 21-23
Wyvern Cavern: Screen 53
Tar Pits: Screen 15
Lost Woods Hint: Screen 1D
Leever Nest: Screen 4D
Ladder: Screen 6C
Lost Woods: Screen 68
Gargoyle's Domain: Screen 58
Shrine to the Destroyer: Screen 38
Magic Octorok's Lair (kill a Magic Octorok for a Heart Container): Screen 36
Boat to Island 2: Screen 6F
Feedback seriously needed.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Looks pretty good to me.

Open the spoiler for a long fairly rambly critique/review!
At 2-3 (X-Y) there's a weird entrance to an area. It looks like the passage is one space higher than it should be. Or maybe one ground-space wasn't changed to an indoorsy ground-space like it should have been.

Oh, the entire Island 1 town place has the same weird entrance. It's wierding me out... :?

There is a bridge! Do we need a bridge? (almost certainly).
Should there be a road going to the bridge or near the bridge? Should the bridge be partially damaged/destroyed?

There's a weird connection between 1-(6-4) and 2-(6-4). This little strip of sand that is inaccessible. It looks odd.

I have spotted two spaces that are, shall we say, obviously-a-secret. There's one at I believe it was 1-7 and now there's one at 6-2. Are those actually going to be secrets or are they a mistake?

Oh, by the way? I love how you can barely jump over the river. It's neat.

Yay! The river at 6-(7-3) DOES have a thingy at the end! I knew it. :D
I probably shouldn't be so happy about something so obvious.
It also has a glitch! Link is partially invisible while entering and exiting the cave! Maybe it's a background-foreground thing?
...Why do I take such pleasure from jumping into the little spring at this part and drowning? I do not know! I only know that I am. :D
Reminding me of this one game-maker game I played where you could make the characters arms move around based on your mouses position when using certain spells. Like 60% of my enjoyment of that game came from making my guy flap his arms like they were wings whenever I jumped. Another 20% game from throwing the seed magic spell around pointlessly, even though it was nigh-useless.
This has been "Pointless Tangents With KingTwelveSixteen", and now back to our regularly scheduled LoZ Critiquing.

Oh hey! At 6-4 you can totally jump to that little bit of land in the middle. There should be a secret here! (maybe)

Also this music is really good. Good job! :mrgreen:

...5-3 is a dead end? My Secret-dar is pinging! What secret lies within this dead-end? I don't know, because I don't have bombs or a flute or whatever I need to find it. If it exists.
Is it just me or does the rock formation here look like a monster who's hands are reaching up and to the left?

Oooh, I am liking the color scheme of the graveyard at 7-6. Nice.
Ah, ghosts! The only enemy in the entire level I bet!

...Watch as I touch every single gravestone I can find. Is there a secret in any of them?!
Probably not. I'm touching them anyway.
Oh hey, you can spawn multiple ghosts from one gravestone. I didn't know that.

Oh yeah, and back at 7-6 those gravestones on the right looks like some kind of block-puzzle wall thingy. Was that intentional, making it look different than other things around it?

SUDDENLY 8-4 GRAYNESS.
That was very shocking and slightly disorienting.

and 8-5 is back to graveyardness, while also having what is obviously a dungeon!

7-3 is far less jarring of a transition. I approve.
(also I was wrong, there are Armos to (and also no secret under the Armos)).

Shrine to the Destroyer sounds more like a main dungeon than a bonus one, but oh well.

Nnngh, 9-3 has what is so obviously a passageway. I wanna go through it!
But I don't have any items but jump-feather. :(

Also more sudden transitions in 9-4, and really just everywhere in the general area of the gray.

A-4 has some different looking water!
Was that intentional?

Oh gosh I found the Lost Woods. And I was just thinking about how you needed to take a very particular path to get to the graveyard dungeon when I reached it to.
...Is there a reason the left and right exits of the lost woods look like they sorta-connect to actual places? It's an...effect.
Not sure what kind of effect, but it is one.

Bah! You pathetic river at B-7-ish! You cannot defeat my awesome jumping prowess!

Oh hey a ladder shop. Neat.
*yoink*

Oh gosh, messing around with the ladder made me lose health. SO ANNOYING SOUND ARGH.
Luckily the settings menu exists! Take that annoying sound!

D-6 obvious secret? Or maybe that's just me; this one is much less obvious than the other ones so far.

...That's a weird criss-crossy effect at (D-E)(6-5).

Woah! Man, level 3 is really far away!
I like it.
There should probably be a whirlpool of moving sand or something around here because of what level it is though.

Featureless deserts aren't that interesting to explore without enemies. Or any obvious secrets.

Cheatsheet: Go North, East, East, West.
Wait, won't that get me stuck in a useless area? I'm pretty sure I need to go north at the end. Will edit after checking.
EDIT: Yep, totally a useless area.

C-(2-3) contains a strange hook-shaped location! Possible secret? Or maybe just a flute location.

A-4 possible secret from this side?

A-2 contains what looks incredibly similiar to a giant arrow! If this isn't related to a secret somehow I will eat a hat. As long as the hat is made of gummi or something.

B-1 flute drop location? Or maybe a secret.

Er, is A-1 supposed to look like that? I don't think it's supposed to look like that.

Hm, the weird tree-line things up here look pretty neat. I approve.

Huh, 8-(3-2)'s transition doesn't actually seem that jarring to me. Is it because I've already been to the Gray-zone?

And with finding the other end of the Gray-zone's passageway I do believe I have explo-wait no. I haven't gone back to the Lost Woods yet.

This is a pretty good map. I managed to get back to the Lost Woods without taking a single wrong turn just from memory.

Turns out the Lost Woods is broken, so with like one-two places unexplored in the entire map, I must now end this lengthy post!
TL;DR: It is a pretty good map with like three total problems that I noticed and like eight things that I really liked.

EDIT: And now that I think about it, I never used the ladder for anything but slightly-easier jumps. Every jump needed to get anywhere is possible with just the feather.
Well, unless your goal is to jump off the edge of the screen, but that doesn't work. I checked.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Responses in bold.
KingTwelveSixteen wrote:Looks pretty good to me.

Open the spoiler for a long fairly rambly critique/review!
At 2-3 (X-Y) there's a weird entrance to an area. It looks like the passage is one space higher than it should be. Or maybe one ground-space wasn't changed to an indoorsy ground-space like it should have been.

Oh, the entire Island 1 town place has the same weird entrance. It's wierding me out... :?

Yeah, this needs to be fixed with custom graphics.

There is a bridge! Do we need a bridge? (almost certainly).
Should there be a road going to the bridge or near the bridge? Should the bridge be partially damaged/destroyed?

Yes and maybe respectively. In both cases custom graphics would be needed.

There's a weird connection between 1-(6-4) and 2-(6-4). This little strip of sand that is inaccessible. It looks odd.

The strip of sand is me realizing that I couldn't have the mountain crossing the screen without it looking weird from cset clashes. I wasn't really sure how to deal with that without custom graphics.

I have spotted two spaces that are, shall we say, obviously-a-secret. There's one at I believe it was 1-7 and now there's one at 6-2. Are those actually going to be secrets or are they a mistake?
I feel really stupid but I'm not getting your numbering system in this example. I think I get the second one but not the first one. Could you give me a ZQuest screen reference for both? In any case, if you think there should be a secret somewhere, let's put a secret there.

Oh, by the way? I love how you can barely jump over the river. It's neat.

Yay! The river at 6-(7-3) DOES have a thingy at the end! I knew it. :D
I probably shouldn't be so happy about something so obvious.
It also has a glitch! Link is partially invisible while entering and exiting the cave! Maybe it's a background-foreground thing?

Not sure what causes that.

...Why do I take such pleasure from jumping into the little spring at this part and drowning? I do not know! I only know that I am. :D
Reminding me of this one game-maker game I played where you could make the characters arms move around based on your mouses position when using certain spells. Like 60% of my enjoyment of that game came from making my guy flap his arms like they were wings whenever I jumped. Another 20% game from throwing the seed magic spell around pointlessly, even though it was nigh-useless.
This has been "Pointless Tangents With KingTwelveSixteen", and now back to our regularly scheduled LoZ Critiquing.

Oh hey! At 6-4 you can totally jump to that little bit of land in the middle. There should be a secret here! (maybe)

Sure, let's put something there. It's pretty obvious so it wouldn't be that major.

Also this music is really good. Good job! :mrgreen:

...5-3 is a dead end? My Secret-dar is pinging! What secret lies within this dead-end? I don't know, because I don't have bombs or a flute or whatever I need to find it. If it exists.

It doesn't. We'll add something later.

Is it just me or does the rock formation here look like a monster who's hands are reaching up and to the left?

Oooh, I am liking the color scheme of the graveyard at 7-6. Nice.
Ah, ghosts! The only enemy in the entire level I bet!

Yes, until the next version, which will add in enemies as well as putting in the heart containers and items for each dungeon so people can test the threat escalation.

...Watch as I touch every single gravestone I can find. Is there a secret in any of them?!

Not yet.

Probably not. I'm touching them anyway.
Oh hey, you can spawn multiple ghosts from one gravestone. I didn't know that.

Oh yeah, and back at 7-6 those gravestones on the right looks like some kind of block-puzzle wall thingy. Was that intentional, making it look different than other things around it?

The gravestones are in a wall on the right to prevent people from entering the Lost Woods screen from the wrong direction. If they look too much like a puzzle I'll change them to trees.

SUDDENLY 8-4 GRAYNESS.
That was very shocking and slightly disorienting.

I'll add a one-tile line of the previous graphic around it to smooth the transition.

and 8-5 is back to graveyardness, while also having what is obviously a dungeon!

7-3 is far less jarring of a transition. I approve.
(also I was wrong, there are Armos to (and also no secret under the Armos)).

Shrine to the Destroyer sounds more like a main dungeon than a bonus one, but oh well.

It's the Pit of Trials level. If you haven't played the more recent Zeldas it's a gauntlet of increasingly tough enemies and nothing else that you can beat for an overpowered weapon that you've just demonstrated that you don't need.

Nnngh, 9-3 has what is so obviously a passageway. I wanna go through it!
But I don't have any items but jump-feather. :(

9-3 is not meant to be a passageway, rather a preview into the grey area. I might need to fix it up to make that more obvious.

Also more sudden transitions in 9-4, and really just everywhere in the general area of the gray.

It's really hard to blend into grey, but again I'll add a one-tile smoothing line.

A-4 has some different looking water!
Was that intentional?

No. Just fixed that now.

Oh gosh I found the Lost Woods. And I was just thinking about how you needed to take a very particular path to get to the graveyard dungeon when I reached it to.
...Is there a reason the left and right exits of the lost woods look like they sorta-connect to actual places? It's an...effect.
Not sure what kind of effect, but it is one.

I'd like to say it makes it more disorientating, but really it's just because I wasn't sure what to do.

Bah! You pathetic river at B-7-ish! You cannot defeat my awesome jumping prowess!

Oh hey a ladder shop. Neat.
*yoink*

Wait, you've been crossing rivers this whole time without the ladder? Damn, I meant to make it so the rivers were just wide enough that you needed the one-tile boost from the ladder!

Oh gosh, messing around with the ladder made me lose health. SO ANNOYING SOUND ARGH.
Luckily the settings menu exists! Take that annoying sound!

D-6 obvious secret? Or maybe that's just me; this one is much less obvious than the other ones so far.

Might put something there.

...That's a weird criss-crossy effect at (D-E)(6-5).

You've lost me on the screen reference there.

Woah! Man, level 3 is really far away!
I like it.

Level 3 is a lot less far away if you stick to the north side of the island. The rivers are meant to corral you that way but clearly I haven't made them wide enough.

There should probably be a whirlpool of moving sand or something around here because of what level it is though.

Will add that if I can figure it out. Definitely enemies in the next version though.

Featureless deserts aren't that interesting to explore without enemies. Or any obvious secrets.

Cheatsheet: Go North, East, East, West.
Wait, won't that get me stuck in a useless area? I'm pretty sure I need to go north at the end. Will edit after checking.
EDIT: Yep, totally a useless area.
Damn. Thought I checked that but apparently not. It's now North, East, West, North.

C-(2-3) contains a strange hook-shaped location! Possible secret? Or maybe just a flute location.

A-4 possible secret from this side?

Probably.

A-2 contains what looks incredibly similiar to a giant arrow! If this isn't related to a secret somehow I will eat a hat. As long as the hat is made of gummi or something.

Again, sure, let's put a secret here.

B-1 flute drop location? Or maybe a secret.

Er, is A-1 supposed to look like that? I don't think it's supposed to look like that.

Whoops! Fixed.

Hm, the weird tree-line things up here look pretty neat. I approve.

Huh, 8-(3-2)'s transition doesn't actually seem that jarring to me. Is it because I've already been to the Gray-zone?

And with finding the other end of the Gray-zone's passageway I do believe I have explo-wait no. I haven't gone back to the Lost Woods yet.

This is a pretty good map. I managed to get back to the Lost Woods without taking a single wrong turn just from memory.

Turns out the Lost Woods is broken, so with like one-two places unexplored in the entire map, I must now end this lengthy post!
TL;DR: It is a pretty good map with like three total problems that I noticed and like eight things that I really liked.

EDIT: And now that I think about it, I never used the ladder for anything but slightly-easier jumps. Every jump needed to get anywhere is possible with just the feather.

Like I mentioned, that really wasn't intentional. Guess I need to make the rivers wider. Unfortunately if it's possible to make the ladder cover more than one tile, I haven't figured out how. Maybe we could scrap the flipper minidungeon and move the flippers to World 1?

Well, unless your goal is to jump off the edge of the screen, but that doesn't work. I checked.

That reminds me, I'll need to add impassable water to the edges of the map for when the player does get the flippers.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by jayScribble »

Overworld overview here: besides some of the issues that King mentioned above, there's only one current issue, but it's minor and can be easily fixed:
zelda044.png
zelda044.png (3.09 KiB) Viewed 10169 times
At 1-C and 1-B, when walking right from 1-B at the bottom, the above happened. I can escape easily just by going left, but that tile there should be blocked.
Other than that, a good overworld, and I'll be definitely test it when there are enemies and puzzle installed into it. Certainly better than my one.

I'll do more testing tomorrow.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by CodeGorilla »

Had a jaunt through it. The layout looks alright, though I'm still not a huge fan of the built-in graphics. That has nothing to do with the design, which seems solid. I'll have to see how it holds up with enemies and, well, actual things to do.

And you shouldn't need impassable water on the world edge since it's also the edge of the possible world - i.e. there's no black void beyond that sea. Which is good, because if there was, you wouldn't need the flippers to get there - you can actually exploit the engine to "walk" on water with the Roc's feather. Basically, any time you jump into the water, the engine respawns you at the spot you jumped from. The exception is if you jump over a screen boundary - then it respawns you where you entered the screen, on the ground. Even if that "ground" is actually water, you end up standing on it and not drowning, meaning you can jump again. You make progress by jumping immediately next to and parallel to a screen boundary, and crossing the screen boundary right before you land. If you have one of the health regenerating rings, you can go as long as you like with this method.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

I'll have a version with enemies up soon-ish. I also thought about it and making the rivers too big to jump across seems an inelegant solution: the fact that you can only just make the jump now means that if I widen the river you'll only just be able to make the jump with the ladder and it shouldn't be that way. Does anyone out there know enough coding to make the ladder more than one tile long?

In any case I think a more elegant solution would be beef gates. Not necessarily to a huge extent as it's only Island 1 and you should be going that way on the way to Level 4 anyway, but just enough to make it a fair bit harder going south and crossing rivers than going north and sticking to the path. On that note if anyone would like to make a dirt path graphic I could stretch it from the town to the bridge and then maybe to a smaller town on the north-east of the island to suggest going that way. Or maybe that's too obvious.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

I possess no dirt road graphic.

It isn't to obvious though, it's exactly the right amount of obvious.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Finally updated the overworld to address most of the issues mentioned (really all except those that require custom graphics) as well as adding in enemies and items. Same link as before.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Critique:
Thing I noticed: the map on the item screen breaks if you go far enough to the right of the map. The green dot should be on the map, not to the side of it (or missing completely)

I love the Shifting Desert. It's great. I would say it was perfect, but none of the rocks that looked like they were secrets (by the way the sand moved) turned out to actually be secrets. :(

The flute is broken. :(

Man, that area around the Magic Octorock is pretty hard! I like it.

I don't think enough was done to encourage people to go into Wizzrobe's House. Considering there is an actual challenge inside of it (while most people will be expecting a free sword), there needs to be a pretty big reason for the player to think 'I need to go here' (even if technically they don't need to go there first, it's still recommended). Possible options include: a path of grass from the start to Wizzrobe's House and nowhere else, one or two squares of [tougher/more numerous/both] enemies down every path but the one to the House, and having someone in town talk about how the old wizard down south is pretty much the only one still alive who has a weapon still, even though he never uses it. (possible plot exposition seamlessly merged in? I recommend this one! :) )

Let's see... Oh! The path to the Magic Octorok repeats. Three screens of three fire-spitters with boulders falling down and a single river-spitter is pretty boring and unfun! Also there are two screens which are pretty much exactly that but with slightly more or less fire-spitters. Make it something like one screen with 1 fire spitter, 2 blues and 2 [river/ocean]-spitters, a room of 2-fire spitters and 3 blues and a river-spitter, then boulders + 3 fire spitters, then boulders + 1 fire spitter + 2-4 blues, then a room of 4 fire-spitters and a river-spitter. It needs variety, is what I'm saying.
Also less boulders. Boulders aren't a very fun enemy to have to deal with when traveling upwards, they should be used sparingly. (I'm talking about how one screen to the left of Octorok River you have another area with three screen's worth of boulders. I suggest you take out the top one so the player doesn't keep panicking and flailing around even though they managed to reach the end of the path. That should be a 'reward' area, or a 'caution' area not an 'agh-panic-enemies-kill-run-pain' type area.)
Also of note: boulders at the very bottom of the island looks weird. You shouldn't be able to see falling boulders and the ocean at the same time. It just looks and feels odd.

After the man said that the southern half of the island was dangerous, I was expecting very few monsters in the general vicinity of the town itself, and a whole bunch of monsters to the south. But it seems like there's an equal number to the north and south on the left half of the island (minus the areas of the town that aren't overrun, but come on, of course there aren't any monsters there) even though the south part is supposed to be more dangerous.

The screen that the Destroyer's Shrine is on doesn't feel dangerous enough. Regular Stalfos? The areas immediately around it have things like those Fire-Slime-Thingys and the armored guys with the shields! At least put [a/some] lvl2 and possibly lvl3 Stalfos in as well.

Man, this music is good. I know I said that already the first time I reviewed the overworld, and probably when it was first shown in the music thread, but still. Those are some good musics. 8-) (do do do, do do do, do do do, doooo! These musics are bad at being repeated in text. Annoying.)
Can we get a soundtrack for this game out too? Because I want to listen to the music from this game even when I'm not playing it.

It has just occurred to me that there are no swords on this map but the wooden one. I'm fairly certain you've already planned out where the location of at least one sword upgrade is going to be (the dead-end near the Magic Octorock dead-end screams 'sword upgrade'), but no upgrades are implemented yet for some reason.

4-5 (X-Y) has some discolored water! Red water looks kind of ugly once you notice it, especially near all that good, clear looking water.

Aw, I am slightly disappointed that the lake in that one screen of the river doesn't open up if you play music to it.
Not that disappointed though, it was kind of a silly thing to think.

It is seriously annoying how even though I have bombs and arrows and the flute I still can't take any 'shortcut' paths, like the one in the Gray-Zone, or possibly that path through the northern mountains with the square of red around it.
I like taking the river jumping shortcut a lot though. In fact, I never actually crossed the bridge, even when I was crossing the river on the screen with the bridge. Is that weird of me?

Speaking of items and how useless they are, there aren't any bunnies! There needs to be some enemies for you to Pshoo~ once you get the bow and arrow, but right now there either aren't any or there are so few that I don't even remember them existing, which is just as bad.
Making the player feel powerful and that what they are doing matters is important, so there needs to be something tangibly gained from getting each item in each dungeon and it needs to feel that way even after you leave the dungeons (which are specifically designed to use each item).
Right now there seems to be no point to having bombs, the flute, or the bow and arrow, and that need to change for each one. Enemies to Pshoo~ with the arrow (probably bunnies), stuff to blow up (walls, secret caves, ~Shortcuts!~, maybe even a Dodongo enemy somewhere on the map that drops a heart when killed), and the flute needs to actually do something. Like teleport you, or put enemies to sleep, or you could use the Music Note symbol like the Leever dungeon does for shortcuts!

Also speaking of items, I didn't see any shop selling bombs or arrows in case you run out. Need one of those somewhere.
Wait no, there's already a shop, it's just a fake shop right now because this is the beta version of the overworld and it only has a free ladder in it, ignore that point.

Flying pea-hat enemies are terrible! Thank you for letting me go around them!

Hmm, I think we should change the graphics on the fire-spitting Octorock. The way it is now it's hard to tell in some areas if the enemy you are fighting is super weak or really dangerous. Maybe make it orange?
Or we could always just change the basic Octorock graphic to a different color, since red and fire make sense together.

Speaking of fire, did you really use the zelda ending fire as an actual enemy in some of the screens near the start? Because I can't decide if that's totally stupid or a pretty cool idea.
Maybe both.

Uh-oh, I was messing around in a boulder-area and I discovered something: if you enter a boulder area from the top it is possible for a boulder to spawn on you and hurt you before you can move far enough south to avoid it, even if you are holding down. :?
That is a problem that I do not know the solution to, aside from just removing all the boulders in a position to do that. :(
Well, that and completely ignoring it I guess.

8-4 has a gray square in the bottom left that looks really out of place. There should be some kind of grassy dirt or something right there instead. Also the rocks at the south of the screen there look weird with their gray backgrounds clashing with the tan dirt around them.

I do believe that is all my commentary for this version of the overworld, so with that I bid you adieu.
There you go, a nice, incredibly long critique/review for you to read. Hope you enjoy it.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Sorry for the late reply. I'll get onto fixing those and adding more stuff for the next version.

I really have literally no idea what causes the "Link walking off the pause menu map" bug and Google hasn't got any answers.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

New version.
Fixes some problems (but not the map one since I still have no idea how to fix that). Also adds shops (including hidden ones), the white sword, and much more detailed text for the town.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

It occurs to me that I completely forgot to respond to your responses to my critique (response).
Doctor Shemp wrote:Responses in bold.
KingTwelveSixteen wrote:
I have spotted two spaces that are, shall we say, obviously-a-secret. There's one at I believe it was 1-7 and now there's one at 6-2. Are those actually going to be secrets or are they a mistake?
I feel really stupid but I'm not getting your numbering system in this example. I think I get the second one but not the first one. Could you give me a ZQuest screen reference for both? In any case, if you think there should be a secret somewhere, let's put a secret there.

Nnngh, 9-3 has what is so obviously a passageway. I wanna go through it!
But I don't have any items but jump-feather. :(

9-3 is not meant to be a passageway, rather a preview into the grey area. I might need to fix it up to make that more obvious.

...That's a weird criss-crossy effect at (D-E)(6-5).

You've lost me on the screen reference there.

A-4 possible secret from this side?

Probably.

A-2 contains what looks incredibly similiar to a giant arrow! If this isn't related to a secret somehow I will eat a hat. As long as the hat is made of gummi or something.

Again, sure, let's put a secret here.
Thanks for the feedback!
The numbering system is Horizontal-Vertical, with (num-secondNum) meaning every screen between num and second num inclusive. So (A-B)(1-2) would be the square containing A-1, A-2, B-1, and B-2.

Ah, I do believe the first thing you are confused on is my fault. It is actually at 1-6

Also the grey thing is just a perfect looking place for a shortcut. :(
(I think it should be a flute-based one. Possibly with music-note block.)

On an unrelated note,
That strip of inexplicable sand is still there and still looks weird. Especially since the land to the left is green and to the right it is red. Suddenly tan just looks odd.
Maybe fake it and just pretend the green and red never meet? That would look way better than how it currently looks.

Sunset Town is a great name. :D
(and shops without a shop music feels weird to me. I am unused to classic zelda conventions somehow! Which is weird, since I've beaten classic zelda.)

Oh gosh no, the mayor repeats his entire incredibly long speech if you talk to him again?
That's terrible. Absolutely terrible.
Also the '...' part looks weird. It seems like it would always be obvious that there is more text, what with there being more text and all so the ... isn't that useful.
Also also switching paragraphs right after saying all the connected priests had something happen to them is pretty cliffhangery. :P
Oh, and also I ruined his final dialogue by already having the sword. Whoops.
Should probably avoid four full lines of dialogue, it looks kinda weird.

Haha, insolvent businesses? Really?
That's awesome. :D :lol:
Should he really be selling things other than the investment thing though? The other two items in his shop don't really seem to fit the theme to me...In fact, I don't even know what the middle one is.

The GENERAL store only sells rings?
That doesn't sound right. He is a jeweler, or...whatever word is for someone who only makes rings.
Unless there's a joke in there about generally, everyone needs a ring? Or something?

There is a house with a person in it who doesn't even say anything. Creepy guy just stares at you until you leave. :?

I never mentioned this before, but sometimes when you're moving through the town you have to detour to the very bottom of the screen to move forwards because the buildings completely block the paths, it feels very annoying.

There is a strange green staircase-looking thing at like 5-4 that crosses over the river.
Huh.
At first I thought 'secret', but then I realized that there was no real way for there to be a secret there...
It's nice to have a random 'memorable thing' just sitting there with no significance whatsoever sometimes.

...Did you purposefully make the area around the bridge harder in order to encourage people to explore more, get the feather, then jump the river? That's great. :)

More variety in enemies down at boulder-town! Or at least the left-half.
I didn't get to see the right half because I died fighting centaurs. :(
I forgot that I could jump.

Yay! One of the places I thought a secret should go has a bomb shop in it now!
Nice.

The left-gray peek area looks pretty good!
The right still looks like a shortcut.
Also I really like the effect the two give together! Left one is all 'look at this new grey area with spooky 'dangerous' enemies!' then right one is all 'and it also has 'DANGEROUS' enemies! BEWARE!'
It's pretty neat.

I found a green rupee, now I can buy a thing!

Mountain peek-a-boo area shows a cave!
I want to go in it.
(peek-a-boo effect achieved.)

HMM. Lost woods person still talks LOUDLY.
Is different text-fonts gonna be a thing? Like, when I eventually get to island two will there be people with differing fonts? Or a foreign guy with different fonts from everyone else?
Or is this just a mistake that will be fixed?

The guy who can teach me to be a better warrior is also selling a ring. Inconsistent. :(
Unless he thinks magic swag is the key to being a good warrior. :|

Aww, I can't afford a scroll.

I like how the monsters to the west of the shifting desert are tougher, encouraging you to do something other than hug the mountain and thus making it more likely to find the dungeon and/or the lost-woods guy.

Pfft, a regular heart isn't a...
wait.
YOU STOLE A DEAD WIZARD'S HEART?!
You monster! :o
(once I got it, I loved it.)

...Well.
Here's a nice note to encourage me to end this and get some sleep like I'm supposed to. The exit from this shop is on top of the mountains.
I am stuck, and cannot move. :(
It was fun! My progress with be arrested, till I've tested the rest, after I rest.
(Translation: I'm going to bed. I'll test the rest when I wake up.)

EDIT: DANG IT I FORGOT TO SAVE
I knew I forgot something. :(
KingTwelveSixteen
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

CONTINUATION:
There is discolored water at the point where the bridge and the screen above it meet, on both screens.

Woah, 4-4 has a fairy and a bridge now?
Neat.
Ha, walk on the bridge, get healed.

4-5, discolored water on the bottom-left.

The maintainer's dagger dialogue has a weird space before dagger.
Also dagger? Not sword?
And is 'strong' really the right word here? Maybe 'experienced with combat' or something...unless the later swords are gonna use things like 'the strongest' and 'Absurdly strong' or something as their descriptors...

...Maintainer's dagger cave, when you exit, shoves you on top of a mountain.

I bought the left scroll at the teaching place and it didn't do anything!
Or at least anything that I can see.

Ouchies. I forgot that flame octoroks explode when you kill them.

The arrow shop in the graveyard has no dialogue.

Ow, I died again.

Hm, it occurs to me that whenever you die you always start all the way to the left...
...I don't know why I noted that here.

6-4 is scary!

Ugh! And I just died exploding a fire-octorok again!
Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes.

6-5, discolored water at the bottom.

6-4 doesn't have a secret at the place you can jump to. :(

Oh! The thing I bought was 'fire-lazers when at low health'!
I know, because I just reached low health and started firing lazers.

Bluh, I'm dumb and also dead again.
I never had this much trouble beforeI had the white-sword, and now I am! How annoying.

Aw, no magic octorok yet.

That weird line of grey mountains at 8-4 still looks weird. It would be fine if they were tan mountains, but they aren't.

...The heck? Did you put permanent no-second-item enemies here in grey-land?! Because that is really annoying. Especially since there's nothing nearby that can cure you of it.

That line of graves still looks weird and puzzley. Why did you block off all the entrances to the lost-forest except from the bottom anyway?

Gargoyle's Domain has a great song.

Woah, C-5 has an enemy that looks like a boss-creature!
It's a total chump though, I just wrecked it. 8-)

...Why is the life-counter reversed inside the leever dungeon? Your injuries dissappear hearts from the left inside it, but from the right outside it.
Weird.

Aw, no secret at A-4.

Um, I bought the blue staff.
What does it do???
Because it doesn't hit enemies when I whack-em, and it doesn't fire a projectile either.
I got no clue.

Is it possible to turn off the ladder's thing where it prevents you from going perpendicular to the direction it's facing? Because that's annoying when you can jump over water and you're just using the ladder to extend your reach.

Whuh-oh. It is possible to buy the same scroll at the warrior-teacher multiple times!
Or at least already bought scrolls still appear.

I got the ability to hold out my sword, and also spin attack!
The sword doesn't go shiny when the spin-attack is charged though. Weird.
Oh well.

Heeeeey...The second bomb shop...I think it might be identical to the first one!
And here I ran outta bombs one room short of this place, and had to go to the bomb shop to buy more to explode open the entrance to find...A bomb shop.
Irony.

All that's left now is to buy some stuff in the shops to see what it does.
Except I don't have access to cheats right now. :(
So I can only buy some of the stuff.

Ah, looking at the map on the menu screen...The problem that causes it to go off the right side is simple: it starts to far to the right. There is enough space to the left of the green dot when it starts for another 5 or so rooms.

Ok, investment thing brought to the house with the mute guy gives a potion guy!
That is not entirely obvious though.
Also you can re-buy the investment thing if you want to? Is there gonna be another insolvent business on the second island?
That's everything I believe.
KingTwelveSixteen
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Hey Shemp, you don't mind if I start working on the second island using FireSeraphim's unfinished island thing, do you?
Doctor Shemp
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Sure, if you'd like. The reason I haven't started it yet is because people's commitments to and progress on the late-game dungeons seemed a lot sketchier than the early-game ones so I wasn't sure what would and wouldn't be in the final game. If you want to go ahead anyway then feel free. If you want any of my workfiles where I was working out CSets and enemy balancing then you can.

By the way, I have read your review of the latest draft of Island 1, I was just holding off on responding to it until I had a new version and I've been a bit busy recently.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

It has occurred to me that with the second island being named 'Shade Island' and the first town being named 'Sunset town' that we have a bit of a theme going on here.

Just thought I should note that.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

I hadn't even looked at the Island 2 draft when I started mine. I named the town Sunset Town because it was on the west and decided to call the buildings on the east Sunrise Town. I can't remember if I put that in any of the strings though.
EDIT: I also thought it was thematically appropriate that Sunset Town was where you started and Sunrise Town is virtually deserted given that the plot is that everything's falling apart. You're starting at the end of the day and the beginning of the night. Speaking of which, some of the strings represent an altered form of the plot that I thought up. I'm heading out soon so I can't post it now but I'll do it when I get back.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Hm.

Here's the current version of island 2, still missing about 1/3-1/4 of it (the rightmost parts of the island).

Just so you know what's going on with it currently.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Link to the new version of the overworld.
KingTwelveSixteen wrote:CONTINUATION:

Responses in bold as always. Sorry it's taken so long.
There is discolored water at the point where the bridge and the screen above it meet, on both screens.

Woah, 4-4 has a fairy and a bridge now?
Neat.
Ha, walk on the bridge, get healed.

4-5, discolored water on the bottom-left.
Fixed.

The maintainer's dagger dialogue has a weird space before dagger.
Also dagger? Not sword?
Considering how big the Maintainer is, it's a dagger to him.
And is 'strong' really the right word here? Maybe 'experienced with combat' or something...unless the later swords are gonna use things like 'the strongest' and 'Absurdly strong' or something as their descriptors...

...Maintainer's dagger cave, when you exit, shoves you on top of a mountain.
Fixed.

I bought the left scroll at the teaching place and it didn't do anything!
Or at least anything that I can see.

Ouchies. I forgot that flame octoroks explode when you kill them.

The arrow shop in the graveyard has no dialogue.
Fixed.

Ow, I died again.

Hm, it occurs to me that whenever you die you always start all the way to the left...
...I don't know why I noted that here.

6-4 is scary!

Ugh! And I just died exploding a fire-octorok again!
Apparently I don't learn from my mistakes.

6-5, discolored water at the bottom.
Fixed.

6-4 doesn't have a secret at the place you can jump to. :(
It does now.

Oh! The thing I bought was 'fire-lazers when at low health'!
I know, because I just reached low health and started firing lazers.

Bluh, I'm dumb and also dead again.
I never had this much trouble beforeI had the white-sword, and now I am! How annoying.

Aw, no magic octorok yet.
Still no but rest assured that without Island 2 equipment and a buttload of hearts you will die within seconds anyway.

That weird line of grey mountains at 8-4 still looks weird. It would be fine if they were tan mountains, but they aren't.
They're now green.

...The heck? Did you put permanent no-second-item enemies here in grey-land?! Because that is really annoying. Especially since there's nothing nearby that can cure you of it.
It is meant to be brutal bonus land. The fairy is a fair way off but if you buy the Whisp Ring from the shop that sells you wizard relics then permanent jinxes become temporary. Island 2 should also have an upgraded version of the ring that stops you from being jinxed at all.

That line of graves still looks weird and puzzley. Why did you block off all the entrances to the lost-forest except from the bottom anyway?
Because Zelda Classic only allows for one direction to be the one that makes you leave the lost forest instantly, with all others being possible maze paths. I thought that intuitively a player would assume the "give up" exit is the same path as the one they entered by, which means I had to make it so that there was only one possible entrance.

Gargoyle's Domain has a great song.

Woah, C-5 has an enemy that looks like a boss-creature!
It's a total chump though, I just wrecked it. 8-)

...Why is the life-counter reversed inside the leever dungeon? Your injuries dissappear hearts from the left inside it, but from the right outside it.
Weird.
Wouldn't have a clue.

Aw, no secret at A-4.
Now it has one and another one close by.

Um, I bought the blue staff.
What does it do???
Because it doesn't hit enemies when I whack-em, and it doesn't fire a projectile either.
I got no clue.
Whoops, I forgot to include magic in the game. Now it works and uses one magic for each use. Currently you start with 3 and there are 2 more to find on the overworld currently (1 is in a shop).

Is it possible to turn off the ladder's thing where it prevents you from going perpendicular to the direction it's facing? Because that's annoying when you can jump over water and you're just using the ladder to extend your reach.
Not that I know of.

Whuh-oh. It is possible to buy the same scroll at the warrior-teacher multiple times!
Or at least already bought scrolls still appear.
There is a script to customise all shops and make some items one purchase only. I don't know how to implement it though.

I got the ability to hold out my sword, and also spin attack!
The sword doesn't go shiny when the spin-attack is charged though. Weird.
Oh well.

Heeeeey...The second bomb shop...I think it might be identical to the first one!
And here I ran outta bombs one room short of this place, and had to go to the bomb shop to buy more to explode open the entrance to find...A bomb shop.
Irony.
The trick is to learn which enemies drop what. I'll include a reference list at the bottom.

All that's left now is to buy some stuff in the shops to see what it does.
Except I don't have access to cheats right now. :(
So I can only buy some of the stuff.
Cheats are now included. See the bottom for details.

Ah, looking at the map on the menu screen...The problem that causes it to go off the right side is simple: it starts to far to the right. There is enough space to the left of the green dot when it starts for another 5 or so rooms.
I don't know what's causing this or how to fix this.

Ok, investment thing brought to the house with the mute guy gives a potion guy!
That is not entirely obvious though.
The only default way to implement this kind of behaviour is with silence until you have the letter.
Also you can re-buy the investment thing if you want to? Is there gonna be another insolvent business on the second island?
See the note above about preventing re-buying.
That's everything I believe.
Reference lists for item drops (only including enemies found on Island 1 overworld):
Likely to drop bombs:
Darknut
Moblin (dark blue kind only)
Octorok (blue & fire kinds only)
Vire (both kinds)
Likely to drop magic:
Darknut
Gel (cloning variants only)
Leever (blue kind only)
Lynel
Octorok (fire kind only)
Tektite (blue kind only)
Vire (darker blue kind only)
Zol (cloning variants only)
Likely to drop rupees:
Ghini
Leever (both kinds)
Lynel
Pols Voice
Rope
Tektite (blue kind only)
Zol (all kinds)
Standard drops (useful for general farming):
Lanmola
Moblin (orange kind only)
Octorok (normal red kind only)
Peahat (if you have incredible reserves of patience)
Stalfos
Tektite (red kind only)
Zora
Happy hunting!

Cheats list
Entering a cheat lower on the list will also give you the abilities of all the cheats higher on the list. Enter them by pressing Esc then going to Cheats and enter them, then use their abilities from the same menu.
earlgreyhot
Refill Hearts, Magic, Bombs, Arrows and/or Rupees at any time via your new replicator.
thisisn'tevenmyfinalform
Set your current level of Heart Containers, Magic Containers and/or Max Bombs. You can also make yourself invincible.
hammerspace
Pull any item in the game out of your pocket.
iambecomedeath
Allows you to set noclip on. Also gives you the option to instantly kill every enemy on screen.
KingTwelveSixteen
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by KingTwelveSixteen »

Hah, those are good cheats. :)
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by raekuul »

White sword screen puts me in the middle of the butte when I walk out of the room.
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Nabe »

Shemp, what are the things that require custom graphics?
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Re: AZCT Overworld

Post by Doctor Shemp »

I think, at the minimum, a dirt path running from the main town on the west side to the minor town on the east side, another dirt path running from the main town on the west side to Wizzrobe's House, bridge graphics to replace the current method of dungeon tiles across water and broken bridge graphics.
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