[T-Bone]

Most of you have already played the demo of The Legend of Zelda: The Inquest. I hear that even a small group of you have played the original release of the Demo many years back on other forums which I'm completely shocked the few of you still remember that.

Back in 1999 close to when i first started working with Megazeux i tried to replicate the old NES Zelda game into MZX; since there were many built-in elements in Megazeux that reminded me of the game (perhaps Greg created these elements perhaps to commemorate the game).

Such elements like: Chest, hearts, gems (rupees), signs, snakes, thieves, potions and whirlpools.

The original graphics in the game weren't that great and the game play didn't really give that good old NES Zelda feel. The game was distributed to about only one forum from that i can recall (don't remember which one... might of been mworld or zeuxworld)

During my high school years i started working on the old Zelda game again; improving the graphics and game play. I ended up scrapping it and going back to my first big project which was Super Mario for MZX.

Only recently did i decide to go back and start finishing up the old Zelda game, which title changed 3 times through-out the years.

Zelda Megazeux
Link's Quest
The Legend of Zelda: The Inquest -> Final Title

The Legend of Zelda DEMO

- The Town -


- The Forest -


To play the demo, Click Here

I'm currently working on fixing up all the flaws that were found by Pyro and Guy, after playing the demo version of it:

Guy:

Quote

- "missing the palette for the outdoors!"

- "... better if the player walked instead of just hovering over things!"

I've created palettes for more than 3 sections of the game now. I'm also working on Link's walking animations.

Pyro:

Quote

- "ingame music was a terrible mutation of the Zelda theme"

- "the hearts didn't function very much like Zelda. just one heart per health. not that you need quarter hearts, but it would've been alot closer."

- "don't even have black spaces if they're not going to function like zelda pits."

- "the enemies seemed like robot variants of standard mzx enemies." they even

- "if it's a zelda game, it should feel like a zelda game."

I'm looking going through some good tracks from Nintendo for some better music. The enemies will soon have AI and a radius of sight for some. The pits will act like real pits all in good time

I'm also redesigning a lot of the game too:

Pyro:
[quote]- "all link needs to survive in his house is tables, chairs, and arrows. and the bakery looked more like a restaurant, with lots of tables and chairs. but no customers. maybe it was a restaurant that went out of business so someone decided to buy it and turn it into a bakery. oh well."

Link's Old House (original design, slightly modified since the 1999 version)


Link's New House (new wall design. Interior not complete yet.)


Link's SNES House (Now if only i can emulate this into 1x1 chars...)


EDIT: I know Link's house looks pretty bare right now but soon i'll add a fireplace and a bed + maybe more.

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 13 August 2006 - 06:33 AM

[CHEZZY]

This is turning out well, T-bone.
Yes, I think you should use Links new house (the SNES house)
And lower those damn enemy's health!

[KKairos]

Yes, use the new Link's house. Make the floor darker if possible, I'd say.

[Pyro1588]

looking alot better, esp. link's house. now it needs the shelf full of stuff and possibly the fireplace thingy in the upper-right. i admit, i was overly-harsh about the house; there's not a whole lot you can add in a small building like that, so i shouldn't have jumped on it so quickly.
overall, it's looking improved. keep up the good work!

[djtiesto]

Word of advice on the house - try to make the table/chairs stand out more, it's hard to see against the brown floor... looks good tho.

[Tixus]

I think the walls look better if their background color is dark brown rather than black. The floor should also be darkened, and Link's house could use some other things as well. I recommend using a separate charset and palette for indoor areas, that way you can have a little more diversity with the colors and objects indoors. Seeing the same two colors (not counting the black and yellow) can get dull pretty fast.

[T-Bone]

All homes will have one charset
All dungeons will have one charset
All of the overworld (outside) will have one charset
All caves will have one charset

So that's bout 4 different charsets. Also, each of these locations will have their own palettes too.

[T-Bone]

I modified the colors a bit and also tweaked the chars. I played around with 3D like dimensions. Also, the dimensions of the room itself are smaller now and a lot more realistic to the size of Link's house. Link's house will not contain any other doors nor a secret bomb away wall. I've done this mainly just to test out the perspective.

Quote

I think the walls look better if their background color is dark brown rather than black. The floor should also be darkened, and Link's house could use some other things as well. I recommend using a separate charset and palette for indoor areas, that way you can have a little more diversity with the colors and objects indoors. Seeing the same two colors (not counting the black and yellow) can get dull pretty fast.

I decided to port the chars and colors into separate files. This will allow for some awesome graphics per board. Oh! And in terms of the flooring of the house I decided to lighten it instead of darkening it. Do you that was the right approach?

EDIT: What do you think about the bed? I just whipped that together real quick.

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 15 August 2006 - 06:34 AM

[T-Bone]

Correction:

Quote

Do you THINK that was the right approach?

Latest Update:

The original Nintendo, SNES and N64 sound effects have all been added now to the game. Plus I've got some more of the original Super Nintendo music added to the game.

EDIT: I'm currently working on the AI for the enemies plus the sword engine. I'm having quite a lot of problems creating a sword engine using Sprites. I think I need help

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 21 August 2006 - 10:05 PM

[T-Bone]

Pyro has provided plenty of help recently.

SWORD ENGINE

Here's what i came up with using his engine

Attached File(s)

•  Z_TEST.zip (186.43K)
  Number of downloads: 93

[hob nado]

Speaking about that house screenshot, I think you should use color more dynamically to make things stand out. The pattern editor will only get you so far - your characters are really intricate but it's all a mess of brown on brown that doesn't really draw attention to itself. I honestly liked it better when your wall background color was black, there was at least more contrast. If you're going to stick with brown on brown, though, make that darker shade less green - you've got red-brown on green-brown, which clashes with the neutral gray and the Play-Doh greens/yellows and it's all kinda ugh =)

Things are looking good, though, on the whole. Lookin' forward to seeing what you come up with.

Edit: In other words, I would use patterns only in deference to colors that work. For example, rather than have a half-character window that has to be brown or else it looks like doggie doo, try a full-character window that can be bright blue or whatever else you'd like it to be. Sometimes it's better not to do the limbo around the natural gridlines of MegaZeux. Another example, that bed looks neat, but can the player move onto it without things looking weird, or does it just sit there being a CustomBlock and taking up space on the board and your character set?

[T-Bone]

Okay! I've got the sword engine pretty much completed, thanks to Pyro's and his friendly helping hands which im sure are busting with sores from all that coding.

In terms of the color shemes in "Link's House", your right, the brown on brown just doesn't seem to be looking pleasant for the eyes. I'll try to practise with a bunch of colorful variations. Perhaps modify the values of the browns themselves or change the colors up entirely.

As for beds in the game.... I guess i'll just make the bottom parts customfloors and keep the bed heads (top of the beds) customblocks.

I attempted the fully colored windows but they just turned out odd. I may poke around with them again. I only tried it with one char... maybe i should try for two chars... big wide window.

Anywho, here's the latest sword engine test download for you guys to play around with. Please give me feed back. I needz it in order to complete this project... i can't just test it on my own

EDIT: Thanks a lot Esdemo for your input. I'm taking everything said into consideration.

Attached File(s)

•  Z_TEST.zip (210.49K)
  Number of downloads: 86

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 23 August 2006 - 06:45 AM

[Pyro1588]

looking good so far. as es said, a little more contrast would be nice. also, i'll fix the sword engine so that it doesn't break when the player gets pushed around.

[steel_dragoon]

Wow, this is awesome. Keep up the good work, don't give up. It really does manage to capture the Zelda feel.

[steel_dragoon]

I posted this in the game release section but I suppose it would make more sense to post it here. I really like the way this is coming out.. I would like to suggest that you modify the arrows so you can only shoot one arrow and then have to wait a couple of seconds to shoot another one, to make it more realistic. If the sword and bow both have there pros and cons (aside from arrows running out), it can make things more interesting.

[T-Bone]

Terrible News....

I accidently saved over this game without saving. The backed up versions are very old. I'm set back now a couple of months. Sorry folks its gonna be a while till i get everything back the way it was heading.

EDIT: I spend a lot of time and hard work on this game and now that its all gone i really have lost a lot of the energy i initially had for getting done. Wish there was a better auto-saving feature

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 07 September 2006 - 11:44 PM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Why didn't the auto-save feature suffice?

[T-Bone]

I'm not sure what prompts the auto-saving to take place. But it made three copies of a blank new world. But the good news is, I still have all the exported files. Such as a few MZM's of structions and overlays and the CHR and PAL files.

[steel_dragoon]

Don't give up! I'm actually really looking forward to playing this!

[T-Bone]

Good News than, my friend. I've recovered most of the changes and have also emulated the transition effect for when you move off a board (off the screen) that can be seen in the original Zelda games; Most commonly in The Legend of Zelda for the SNES.

To clarify, remember in the original Zelda games when you move to another section of a level the screen would slide ahead of link to the next section of the level? I?ve basically emulated that perfectly.

Also, I made all interior sections of the game about 4 times smaller than I originally had them. Making homes in the game more realistic to the size they appear outside versus inside.

So have no fear this game is not going to be scrapped anytime soon. But perhaps thrown on the back-burner, since I've got quite a lot of projects stacked. I really got to get my MZX priorities set.

EDIT:

I?ve noticed that statistically, in most Megazeux games? houses -- the interiors are more than double the size they appear on the outside. Perhaps one day i should constract a Megazeuxer's Designers Guide and detail how to make your MZX game as realstic as possible, despite all limitations.

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 11 September 2006 - 10:10 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Actually, that's pretty standard in games of a lot of genres, not just MZX games.

[asiekierka]

T-Bone and Esdemo1 should team up to do "Megazeuxers Game Designing Book".

And, pretty good idea for Legend of Zelda clone, but the wall could be more like SNES color one.

This post has been edited by asiekierka: 11 September 2006 - 01:44 PM

[hob nado]

T-bone6, on Sep 11 2006, 04:05 AM, said:

Also, I made all interior sections of the game about 4 times smaller than I originally had them. Making homes in the game more realistic to the size they appear outside versus inside.

EDIT:

I?ve noticed that statistically, in most Megazeux games? houses -- the interiors are more than double the size they appear on the outside.

Okay, but...

T-bone6, on Sep 11 2006, 04:05 AM, said:

Perhaps one day i should constract a Megazeuxer's Designers Guide and detail how to make your MZX game as realstic as possible, despite all limitations.

No, and no...realism has its place, but it's not the be-all-end-all of game design, and especially not in MegaZeux. Just a reminder:


Exhibit "A"

Why would everybody want their games to be as realistic as possible all the time? Not only would that suppress a whole plethora of artistic styles, we play games because they're not real life! Write a manual that encourages people to be themselves and have fun.

T-bone6, on Sep 11 2006, 04:05 AM, said:

despite all limitations.

This is the part of the phrase that really bothers me. I don't think it's good to be constantly fighting MegaZeux's limitations (especially in deference to "realism!" Please refer back to Exhibit "A") It's one thing to push around them in some special cases to do something neat here and there, but it's another thing to design your game in direct opposition to the limitations of MegaZeux; I mean, if that's how you've designed it, why be using MegaZeux? It's a limitation, something that limits you.

I think it's better to understand what MegaZeux is good at and what it's not so good at and just accept it, as long as MZX is your platform; and emphasize the things it can do well over struggling to make it do a lot of things it can't do well. (At least not a whole game's worth - maybe a rotating D20 or something if you're Logicow.) If you allow yourself to just flow with what MegaZeux is and what it isn't, you'll make a happier game more quickly.

[T-Bone]

I see your points clearly Es. I'm just trying to say for those who want to make their games as realistic as possible that i'd be interesting to do a write up about it.

But i truely,
I see what your saying and i think over the years i seemed to have lost track with the whole meaning of Megazeux and what we use it for. Its not for making games to compete with the latest video games of today, in terms of "realsim".

In my eyes its actually its own art-form. A medium in which we can create what we've always dreamed of creating and i wont say "but just on a smaller scale". We were given the oppurtonity to create a world with ease to express our wildest imaginations.

I tend to focus too much on how to replicate physics of what is in real-life and not enough about actually completed something that would most likely in the end be more enjoyable to play. This could also be the reason why I've actually completed very few games.

But at the same time i still wouldn't mind teaching people about how to include physics into their game and how to create various perspectives in their top-down games.

[hob nado]

Sorry, I kinda went off unnecessarily. Of course, there's a place and time for everything - so if "realism" and physics is your bag, I guess then by all means, play around with it and have fun =)

"My philosophy is long, and in surround sound!"

[Koji]

Bread goood! D:<

On another note:

Limitations are meant to be pushed ... to their limit, go figure, however, you can't fit a round peg into a square hole no matter what you do. Sometimes you have to hack that peg into a suqare.

[T-Bone]

This project is on hold till I get Tardnation and Super Mario for MZX completed. Sorry folks!

[Frobozz]

I just downloaded the picture you put up for the SNES version of Link's home. I used Irfanview to dither the image down to 16 colors and it didn't look all that bad. Shouldn't be hard to get the same quality.

[T-Bone]

This would perhaps work only if i was converting the game to 2x2 char blocks, or port to a different MZX mode. But I actually would like to stick with the traditional single characters for this game. But maybe some day I or someone will attempt to make a conversion from 16 colors down to 1 + background.

With Super Mario I didn't use any secondary programs for ditching or any of that business. I just simply viewed the pixels from the Super NES sprites and created a pattern or flat design that i thought would work best for that individual character. Its very tedious but the end result is quite beautiful. Also, most of the NES and Super Nintendo sprites do not fit within two chars. So I had to modify them in such a way that they are squeezed into the chars without having to give them an extra char space for a couple of pixels.

One of the main reasons why i want to keep this game (Zelda) in the format that its in now is so that I can get more done quicker without having to worry about mega sprite coding. But you do got some good points there... some of those original background designs from Super Mario could work well in MegaZeux. So you never know I may decide to actually do just that and convert some of the graphics straight from Super Nintendo to MegaZeux. Things like trees, water, grass and other environmental elements and objects that wont make link appear as if he's the size of a mouse.

Depending on how quick I complete all the projects I have before me, I may find the time to create a little Link demo of him as a 2x2 sprite with enemies the same size. But for now my full concentration is on completed some of my other major projects such as Super Mario and Tardnation.

EDIT:
Almost forgot to acknowledge your efforts in testing that out. I will consider it for a possible future project or take some elements and incorporate them into this game.

This post has been edited by T-bone6: 06 December 2006 - 07:35 AM

[Pyro1588]

if you decide to go 2x2, i offer what help i can in coding. i can do the sword thingy again if you want...