7 replies to this topic

[HeroOfFire]

Link really needs to stop rafting in storms...

After a storm, you find yourself shipwrecked on Mirage Island. Not much is know about this island, and the few residents seem unwilling to help. They do have a lot of items for sale though...

Scattered across the island are a bunch of houses. You start in one of them, and can find some pretty helpful stuff in the others.

There are also a small number of structures on the island. These may lead you to various Shrines, which are filled with treasure and dangerous monsters. Some Shrines are much more hidden however.

There are also rumors of an Elder Shrine, guarded by the Island Elder. If you can impress him, he'll let you into it. What could be hidden in such a place?


...but we can drop the antics now. Mirage Island is a little different from other quests I made with randomizers. For one, there is no such thing as a "default" or "not randomized" mode. Every playthough will be different, from the items you find, the Shrines you explore, and even the locations of the various caves and houses.

For those expecting another Zelda 1 style quest, look elsewhere. There is no triforce to be seen, no Ganon, no Zelda. Just Link, a large island, and a bunch of Shrines. The Shrines themselves can be optional depending on where key items appear and what you need to enter and complete the Elder Shrine. Of course, you can choose a random option that forces you to complete all the Shrines to enter the Elder Shrine.

There are also some interesting items and mechanics already in the quest, with plans to add more. I suggest doing at least 2 playthroughs to see the potential of the varying content.

The First Demo should be up shortly. The quest is possible to complete, and even get 100 major items (basically 100%). Only the final boss is custom right now, but I intend to have all Shrine bosses be custom in a later update. There will also be more randomizer options coming. A current run can take up to 4 hours for 100%, but if you get lucky with the Elder, you could be in the Elder Shrine in under 2 hours easily.

A few tips to help you get started:

You always start in a house, and the houses in the overworld always connect to a house interior. You'll want to check out all 16 houses as quickly as possible.

The next place to check is that 8 dungeon-like structures. 2 of these will always lead to a low difficulty Shrine.

Sword, Bomb Bag, and Candle are items you want to find early. However, I have seen a seed place some of these items later than you may expect. This does include checking the low difficulty shrines.

There are a handful of items used for overworld exploration. None of these will appear in the most difficult Shrines.

No key items appear in the Elder Shrine. That does not mean it will be empty, nor should you ignore the chests.

Does my quest make use of all the Ex buttons? You bet it does!

As this quest is a little more rupee loaded than normal, you start with a 500 wallet and can upgrade from there.

Shrines are split into 2 parts. The part you enter at may require some items to explore, depending on how difficult the Shrine is. The later part requires an additional item that is allowed to appear in the first part. Try to explore as much as you can of the first part just in case. The later part is mostly access to the boss key, boss, and maybe 1 - 2 more item locations.

If Shrines can be optional, why complete them? Bosses drop the only Heart Containers in the quest, and the prize at the end of a Shrine is always a nice passive upgrade.

If someone wants rupees in return for information, pay them. They have some useful things to say. They might even say something different each time you pay them.

And lastly, take advantage of a certain feature to help remember where to come back to later.

[Matthew]

Looks promising. I like your usage of Koten.

[Ryunaker]

Settle in after work to see a new quest from one of my favorite quest makers.  Definitely going to give this one a run through, the best I can.

[Epsalon ZX]

Very enjoyable...An Idea.

Given the theme and short length...how about adding a score system? Maybe based on the treasures collected, and final rupee count. The reason is because there are so many ways to earn rupees...and I haven't seen a need to actually spend them all. With the randomizer function...this could work very well.

 

I'm not sure about the rupee limit of the third wallet currently...but maybe cap that at 9999, or make it endless if possible. Players can challenge themselves based on their ability to search for treasure...but also saving money. Maybe add a time score penalty for each hour after four so no one grinds rupees from grass for higher points. I see there is a secret counter too...this could also factor into the scoring.

Taking a step further...maybe script a extra final boss for a especially high score. 

Edited by Epsalon ZX, 04 June 2017 - 05:39 PM.

[Epsalon ZX]

On a second run...think I noticed a glitch. In the Level 9 shrine...I proceeded mostly as normal (minus stepladder areas)...seems like after I grabbed the boss key...the Red Candle stopped melting ice blocks. This was solved by restarting ZC...but I'm not sure how or why it happened.

[HeroOfFire]

Now that there has been some time for playthroughs, I'll talk about future development and some feedback.

 

A lot of the content is randomized between playthroughs (I might make a different thread to list all of them). This makes it a different experience each time. One thing of particular note is the Shrines are also random. In this Demo, you encounter 3 out of 4 possible shrines for each Tier, plus 1 of 2 different Elder Shrines. Shrines have different puzzles, so some items may be required for some runs and optional for others.

 

I've designed the quest to support up to 32 possible Shrines for each Tier, plus 16 different Elder Shrines. While this is not something to expect for some time, this does mean most betas and updates after a 1.0 release will add more Shrines to the mix.

 

More options are coming to the Randomizer. Here are a few to look forward to:

 

Replacing the Heart Pieces on the Island with randomly placed Heart Containers. The Heart Containers can appear anywhere expect the Elder Shrine. This opens up some more locations for other items to spawn in caves.

 

Using Ammo expansions instead of Bomb Bags and Quivers. Rupees are still tied to Wallets.

 

Making the Final Heart Count 30 instead of 20, as well as a Low Heart Mode

 

Making the Random Elder Requests more difficult (often requiring more exploration to complete).

 

A difficulty option for how key items are placed in Shrines. The logic in the demo is actually the hardest setting, with easier settings placing key items earlier and ensuring completion of all the shrines in order of difficulty possible.

 

 

Boss Hearts now count as both items found and locations checked.

This means the item total is now 112. This number can change based on some of the other options.

 

I will eventually replace the Z1 bosses with Custom Bosses.

 

The Final Boss in the Elder Shrine will also be random.

 

Some disappointing secrets will no longer be disappointing.

 

There will be some more items added. Many of these will be variations of other items and randomly appear instead of those items.

 

There will be a proper ending instead of the NES one. It can give a summary of your performance, including number of Shrines completed, items obtained, and item locations checked.

 

 

Since the quest is still early in development, there are a few features I can modify a little. Here are a few things I'm wondering about right now:

 

Right now, there are 3 swords in the quest. Given the length and number of item locations, I could up the count to 4. This additional sword could be an upgrade to Sword 3, or placed between Swords 2 and 3.

 

While First Sword is Wooden, later swords are randomly default White and Magic, a variation with higher Melee damage but weaker Beams that only work with Peril Beam, or a variation with lower Melee damage but stronger Beams at 60% hearts of higher. With an additional Sword level, I could start the variations at Third level, or make all 3 upgrades random.

 

I think I might make obtaining the first bow also give you wooden arrows, instead of having to find first bow and first arrows as individual items. Upgraded Arrows and Upgraded Bow would still appear normally.

 

Also, first quiver is always in a random house shop, and first arrow expansion (for that option) is always outside on Island, so early arrow ammo capacity is not a problem.

 

The new Low Hearts mode may need some adjustment. Right now, it removes all the Heart Pieces and downgrades the boss hearts to Heart Pieces. Doing the math, this means 6 hearts total per run. This sounds fair, until you realize you need to complete 4 shrines per new heart. You are forced to be 3 hearts for at least one Tier II, and forced at 4 for TWO Tier IIIs (where 2 and 4 heart damage sources are getting common). I think there should be a few heart pieces on the Island so the total is a little higher and you don't get stuck with so few hearts for too long.

 

The current inventory gives you 20 different items you can use. The last 5 items are random each run, grouped into different types (Melee, Ranged, Bomb, Arrow Damage, and Magic/Tome). I would not be surprised if some of these scripted weapons are too good to have only appear 20% of the time (and this will go down as I add more custom items to these groups). Also, 25 useable inventory items does not sound too cluttered (another quest had 36 in a 6 x 6 work fine). So I'm proposing adding 5 more items that appear every run, and any of these five items could be one already in the quest that only appears on some runs. A few I'm considering are the Slingshot and Bombchu, plus adding the Lamp item as seen in other quests (and is not in the quest right now, as it really doesn't fit into any of the 5 random types). Also, since they appear each run they could end up as key items for puzzles or have upgrades.

 

Currently the quest does not use Flippers, Feather, or Damage Preventing Boots. Of these items, Flippers could be added, but it would required redesigning several water rooms and also obsoletes some other key items. I guess it could be a secret item.

 

I've already doubled rupee capacity from normal values, and 2000 is still possible to hit easily. There are some rupee sinks, but most of them are be skipped since they are information that doesn't change much between runs. I could add another Wallet with 4000 capacity, which should hold most rupees you find even without the sinks.

 

 

There are a few other features in development I'll discuss later. Glad to get some feedback, and that this demo was enjoyable.

[Ryunaker]

For the swords - I like the idea of a fourth one.  Will make it easier to find one, as swords are one of the most important items you can need.  As for if it should be between two current ranks, or a fourth rank, that is up to you.  I didn't have too much trouble, so far, with the level 3 sword.

 

First Bow + Arrows vs. separate items - I don't know.  I did get all the way through the Elder Shrine in a run, with over 60 items (by my recollection; unfortunately, a hard drive failure lost my save, so I cannot be certain, now), without the bow or the arrows, but I didn't blame them being separate items for that.  (I was like "I made it through the final dungeon without a bow!  Wait, what's...*headdesks*"  Stopped, right at the boss door.)  Keeping them separate is traditional, in a way.  I'd say it is up to you.

 

Low Hearts - Remember that there are rings to help mitigate the damage.  Maybe make ensuring one / or two are available before tier III an option?  Remember, there are people that enjoy 3 heart runs of the original Zelda.  Then again, those COULD just play the game without picking up any hearts...(but then it wouldn't be 100%!)

 

5 more items - I'm one of those people that thinks 5 more items wouldn't hurt, but then again, I would often play your games that went over 300 item totals, and look forward to that.  In the end, follow your best judgement.

 

Flippers - They always made obsolete the raft, and many locations that needed the ladder.  But there are also places that feel like they are begging for diveable secrets.  Much like 5 more items, I'd say it is your choice.

 

Rupees - Ah, rupees, the item that no one can seem to figure out, in the end, what to do with.  Probably connects, some, with "Some disappointing secrets will no longer be disappointing."  I actually played most of the time not getting the rupee rewards just because there was little to no point, as my rupee count was full.  I wish there was actually more to do with rupees, but am not sure what to suggest.  Epsalon's suggestion isn't bad (though I hate time limits to get 'the best ending'), but...meh, most of the things you could make available to buy, I would just avoid using, most likely, except to get one for completion's sake, most likely.

 

Anyways, this is my 2 cents on your current concerns.  I really do like this quest.  I'm going to have to start over, but that's part of the point of randomness, is it not?

[grayswandir]

The one big disappointment I had was that the random boss rooms only gave you rupees, combined with the dearth of rupee sinks.

You could possibly add a sixth special item slot that always used rupees as ammo? Or maybe just some rupee variants of existing magic items that randomly show up.

 

Marking the map up with colors is really neat, but I'd appreciate small symbols as well (like an X or a check in the corner). I'm somewhat colorblind and have a hard time telling some of the colors apart, and it's also kind of hard to remember what colors I used for what. Still really useful, though.

 

One thing I'd really like to see is more variation in the standard items. Like maybe, add an extra tier to all of them, but only have one or two show up per game. You could also have a "Nerf" special mode where 2/3 the standard items start out a level below normal (which you'd have to make for each). Also, maybe have a variant for the fire and ice rods? Like Fire Arrows, and a Cane of Byrna (Ice).

 

Also, I realize you probably can't/won't do anything about it at this point, but I dislike having a secret on every single screen. Setting it up so you could have random games where you don't get the bomb/hammer/whatever and simply can't access their secrets would be interesting.

 

You could also randomize enemies a bit by, say, randomly deciding to give all ropes in this game +4 HP when they spawn.

 

But overall it's really fun so far. I'm impressed.