6 replies to this topic

[MrPow]

I read that I should stay away from using the NES Dungeon type, because it has limitations of some kind, so which of the 3 remaining types would be best for dungeons?

 

Some specific questions I had were:

 

1. Can I just make every dmap in my quest the Overworld type or are there benefits to using the Interior type for dungeons and caves?
2. Whats the difference between Overworld and BS-Overworld? A smaller map? Why would I want to use BS over regular?
3. What types do YOU use and why?

 

 

[Lüt]

Practically speaking, there's little difference between Overworld, Interior and BS-Overworld.

Size: Overworld is 8x16; Interior/BS-Overworld are 8x8.

Maps: Overworld minimap (typically top-left of subscreen) displays Link's position on a square 8x16 grid; Interior/BS-Overworld display it on a rectangular 8x8 grid. Overworld/BS-Overworld minimap graphic will remain the same whether or not you pick up the Map item; Interior minimap graphic will change when you pick up the Map item. Conversely, all 3 can have their large subscreen map graphic change when you pick up the Map item. Interior displays the minimap in NES Dungeon style; BS-Overworld uses a screen grid that looks like ass on rye.

Side-note: 

Spoiler

If you're designing custom minimap graphics for each of your different maps, you'll need to keep the grid dimensions in mind. For example, the default NES Dungeon/Interior minimap is a blank tan scroll - but when you pick up the map, it adds a blue rectangular room grid to match the rooms selected on your DMap's Mechanics tab. However, these defaults can be overridden: if you go to the Maps tab on your DMap, you'll find a Without Map and With Map tab that lets you select custom graphics for the minimap and the large map. I did it with my stuff - one default map looked like this, but I made a custom graphic to look like this. Doors are open spaces, locks are yellow squares, boss locks are red squares, entrances are white bars, and bombable walls are black squares. Other people may mark keys, items, traps, or whatever else they want. But note that all these use the rectangular 8x8 grid dimensions - if you want a custom minimap for an Overworld DMap, you'll have to design it based on the square 8x16 grid. And if you want the Map item to update the minimap at all, you'll have to use NES Dungeon or Interior.

Functionality: All practical functionality - things like rules regarding enemies/attacks at edge of screen and such - remains consistent across the board. Only one difference stands out to me: any time I exited a dungeon and died on an Overworld map, I'd always start at the screen marked under "Continue Here." However, any time I exited a dungeon and died on an Interior map, I'd always start at the last-used exit rather than the screen marked under "Continue Here."

 

Personally, I use Overworld map types for full overworlds and either NES Dungeon or Interior for everything else. If I had an overworld that fit into an 8x8 space, I'd use Interior - no point wasting half of the 8x16 minimap grid. BS-Overworld I never use, and can't recall seeing anybody else use it either.

 

When choosing between NES Dungeon or Interior, it depends what kind of dungeon/cave/town/arena/ocean-floor/whatever layout you plan to make. NES Dungeon is meant for traditional dungeons with passageway options at the center of each wall, while Interior is best for any kind of freeform layout.

 

NES Dungeon allows you to use Door Combo Sets (press F6 to select, go to Quest -> Graphics -> Door Combo Sets to edit). These keep track of the attributes of each of the 4 dungeon walls individually; whether they're solid walls, open doors, locked doors, boss-locked doors, shuttered doors, bombable walls, or walk-through walls. Further, they transfer their attributes to the opposing wall in the next room, so unlocking the door in one room ensures that the matching door is unlocked in the other room - no screen state carry-over required. It also allows for 4 separate bombable walls - no script hacks required (as per your other thread) because these bombable passageways are individually stored using the per-wall Door Combo Set basis rather than the screen's singular secret state basis.

 

However, speaking of secret states, an NES Dungeon screen's secret state always resets. It doesn't matter what kind of "Permanent" settings/combo types you choose - NES Dungeon overrides them and resets them every time you leave a room. You can override the override by going to Screen Properties (press F9) and selecting "Treat as Interior Screen" - but note that you'll lose Door Combo Set functionality as a result.

 

Another thing NES Dungeon screens do is bump you inward upon entering the room. This pushes Link into the door-frame so you can see him enter the room instead of leaving him hidden under the door overhead. It also allows him to be pushed through shutters so they can lock behind him. Selecting "Open" for Door Combo Set bumps Link inward by 1 tile; all others bump him in by 2 tiles. This is negligible if you're doing traditional square rooms - however, if you start tearing down some walls, this setting will determine Link's bump-in amount when going from room to room, even if you erase the wall/door tiles entirely. Further, if you need to use "Treat as Interior Screen" to retain a permanent secret, it will be the only screen Link doesn't get bumped into, and the player will probably notice the discrepancy (plus, any player familiar with ZC functionality can assume the room has a secret).

 

Alternatively, Interior screens will retain permanent secrets (if you wish), but because they work off singular screen states, you can only have one set function per screen (i.e. secret, lock, boss-lock, etc.) - so, if you want 2 different locked doors in one room, forget it. You get one lock block to use and that's it - the screen is either locked or unlocked. Of course, you could put both a locked door and a boss-locked door in the same room, as well as do shutters using the secret state, so there's still room to be creative. But then, the point of free-form dungeons is that they break this mold anyway, so you probably won't need that kind of Door Combo Set functionality in the first place.

 

And, like NES Dungeon screens, you can go to the Screen Properties of an Interior DMap screen and select "Treat as NES Dungeon" - you don't have to confine your entire DMap to one or the other. But you do have to choose one or the other if you want the Map item to actually update your minimap, because neither Overworld has that function.

 

So, yeah. Each one will enable you and constrict you in their own unique ways. Just pick them based on how you want your map to play, and switch them on a per-screen basis if needed.

[MrPow]

Wow thank you for this detailed response! I read every word. If my teachers taught this well I would have learned so much more in school.

[MrPow]

So if I made a dungeon as interior, could I stick one nes style room inside to have 3 bomable walls? Or would that not look right?

Actually this brings up another question I had.... In ALttP for example, the Overworld has many bombable walls. How would I be able to accomplish this? By splitting up my overworld into many small dmaps? and limiting the quest to one secret cave per dmap?

[Russ]

Don't use the built-in secret caves. Just have the bombable wall caves warp to a screen on an interior dmap.

[Jamian]

So if I made a dungeon as interior, could I stick one nes style room inside to have 3 bomable walls? 

 

 

Yes. But the rooms on the other sides need to be Nes type as well.

[Lüt]

Wow thank you for this detailed response! I read every word. If my teachers taught this well I would have learned so much more in school.

Oddly enough, I actually had a 4-year gig as a private tutor at the college over here. Granted, the subject was Music - theory, lit, aural skills, class piano - but I guess I got decent at explaining stuff over the years.

 

The place had a lot of good teachers too, which is always a great start. I also had a bad one, but in the end you learn both what to do and what not to do, so I think they both ended up being for the best.

So if I made a dungeon as interior, could I stick one nes style room inside to have 3 bomable walls? Or would that not look right?

Actually this brings up another question I had.... In ALttP for example, the Overworld has many bombable walls. How would I be able to accomplish this? By splitting up my overworld into many small dmaps? and limiting the quest to one secret cave per dmap?

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at...

 

...so let's start with ALttP. The ALttP overworld had a lot of bombable walls, but so does any Z1 overworld. I think you're getting at the fact that ALttP could have multiple bombable walls per section, while Z1 can only have 1 bombable wall per section? Z1 uses very small single-screen sections, while ALttP uses very large scrolling-screen sections, but they're all part of one single Overworld DMap (let's just carry Z1 terminology over to ALttP for now). So, changing any segment of your Z1 game to any variety of DMaps will never change the per screen limits, because those are... well, per screen, not per DMap.

 

I would imagine that the Z1 designers thought that, due to the small screen sizes, using a single secret state per screen would be enough. After all, 8x16 gives you 128 total overworld secrets. By contrast, the exponentially larger scrolling screen sizes used in ALttP would require an entirely different secret state system that supports multiple secrets per screen in order to allow for anywhere near the secret density of Z1. After all, the ALttP overworld only has 40 screens, despite being 3 times as big graphically. And if you bothered to calculate ratios, I'm sure you'd find Z1's overworld has a considerably larger secret density than ALttP's.

 

For now, I wouldn't count on an ALttP-style multi-secret-state system being implemented into ZC. It would be a total reconstruction of the current system, and then you'd have backward-compatibility problems on top of that. In fact, another thing to keep in mind is that the secret state refers to all secrets, not just specific kinds. I remember another user having a problem where they wanted a bomb secret and burn secret on the same screen. They would set the bomb, and it would blow up fine. Or they would burn the tree, and it would burn fine. But if they bombed the wall and left the screen, they'd come back to a bombed wall and a burnt tree, and if they burnt the tree and left the screen, they'd come back to a burnt tree and a bombed wall. You get one secret state per screen, no matter what flags you use.

 

(There are certain brands of sorcery that allow tiered secrets by way of combo cycling, but these are all temporary (see how they reset when he leaves the screen in the video), and they have no practical use in creating multiple bomb secrets.)

 

As for one NES Dungeon room with 3 bombable walls... if you want to bomb directly into the next room over, then you have to do like Jamian says and be sure each of the 3 rooms on the other side of the 3 bombable walls are also NES Dungeon rooms so that each of the "bombed wall" attributes carries over, or else you'll just get caught in a solid wall when you pass through the hole.

 

Alternatively, if you only want to make cave entrances, then keep in mind that you can construct your own Door Combo Sets. If you go to Quest -> Graphics -> Door Combo Sets, you can click the <New Door Combo Set> option and build your own. There are no graphical restrictions, so you can use whatever combos you want in whatever CSets you want. A Door Combo Set doesn't have to pass through to the next room over.

 

Just be aware, these apply to very specific areas of the walls:

 

 

The parts in gray/white are the only parts you can apply these sets to, so whether or not it would "look right," is up to you. Would 3 bombable walls in those precise positions look awkward or unnatural? Depends what kind of screen you're making.

 

If you decide to use these, the Door Combo Set editor can seem overwhelming. You get 10 possible states for each of the 4 walls. But if you're only making bombable walls, then you only need to design the "Wall" and "Bomb" sets - other functions that you aren't using, and other walls that you aren't using, you can leave blank.

 

In fact, this post gave me an opportunity to try something I've wanted to do for a while: take a blank room and make a bunch of whacked-out bomb sets. Check this out - bombing left reveals a cave with stairs and lever, bombing up shifts all the tile CSets, and bombing right turns the wall into a forest:

Spoiler

 

Because why not blow walls into rainbows and forests? And you can even use the lever to make a treasure chest appear (though it resets if you leave the room):

Spoiler

So like I said, there's no graphical restrictions. Functionally, the way the set operates remains the same: the center passage becomes a walk-through path that pulls Link into the wall and off the screen. Combo solidity and functionality are overridden: you'll walk straight through rocks and directly over tile warps and damage combos.

 

Still, if you don't want to pass through to the next room, you can set a Side Warp using the Entrance/Exit type and it'll take you to another room or map like any other entrance would. You could use that to enter your caves, but you wouldn't get the walk-down effect, so you'd have to design your entrances to look like they could be walked into instead of being a staircase.

 

Reading back over this unexpectedly long post, it's not anywhere as complicated as it may sound. I'm just trying to point out the possibilities - once you pick one, it should be short and straightforward.

 

I should probably just start writing wiki articles...