5 replies to this topic

[KingPridenia]

NOTE: Still collecting feedback for Demo 1.1. Going to do that for another two weeks or so before moving along and continuing to design my quest using my best judgment based on said feedback.

Welcome back everybody to another round of “Help Adam Improve His Maps” with your host RedmageAdam! This time it’s a double header; we have the level 4 overworld area from back in the original Adam’s Quest and level 4 itself. Before I begin, I'm sorry if the updates are becoming too frequent. If they are and I'm breaking forum rules, then I'm sorry and won't do it again. Anyway, let’s start with the overworld:

Level 4 Overworld Area

Spoiler

Yeah, that’s some epic design right there, isn’t it? It’s Map of the Year candidate for sure. I mean I totally didn’t just lazily copy/paste screens left and right and make an unnecessarily long raft path. And that tile error where the ground goes from blue to cream color abruptly...brilliance at its finest. Adding an unreachable Heart Container you can’t get without the Flippers only adds insult to injury. Now originally, the raft path spanned a staggering seven screen transitions to the right then down one more. Not to mention it’s a very bad transition going from default overworld palette to CSet 7 madness. Oh and the “mountain” is quite the work of art, huh? Sure gives expert Firebird and DoR tileset users a run for their money.

Okay, let’s be honest and stop being sarcastic for a moment. The design of this 4x8 area is god-awful. I literally did copy and paste the same screen for the perimeter of the flat rock, err, I mean mountain and just lazily craved out boring shapes for the “mountain”. Every screen around the edge is the same enemy formation as well; they’re all 4 Blue Goriyas + 1 Zora screens. The raft paths just lead to a broken shop (Silver Arrows this early for only 300 Rupees and Super Bombs just 40 Rupees each? Sign me up please!), level 5 and a mini-dungeon you have to go through for the Whistle (both dungeons require one of level 4’s dungeon item to access).

I think anyone can guess the out of place specks clue you in to bomb the mountain to reveal the stairs that lead up it. The mountain itself is just bad. Three Dodongos guarding 50 Rupees, a super hidden end-game mini-dungeon for the Master Sword, another Heart Container cave, an old man that offers you free money and only gives you 1 Rupee, then just south of that is a Manhandla guarding 5 Rupees. Um, yeah. It’s no wonder when TK8305 did an LP of the original Adam’s Quest, he eventually started to say “Adam’s Manhandla fetish continues!” every time I put one in. Oh and there is another 50 Rupee secret for killing some Red and Blue Lynels, IF you have the Stepladder from level 4!

So yeah, I don’t need to be told twice how to fix this. However, I do want some ideas. I want a cave to connect the western overworld to the eastern half of it and namely this mountain region, which will be mostly landlocked off from the rest of the world.

Level 4

Level 4 has a lot of the same problems that level 3 did. Again, it’s very linear and tedious. It’s another enemy gauntlet with every death making the player cringe in disgust having to more or less redo most of the dungeon. Given the map’s shape, there isn’t much I can do to avoid it being boring and linear, but I could do the same thing I did with level 3 and redo it completely, which seems to be effective. But, how would I go about it? Or is there a way I could salvage this boring linear enemy gauntlet to make it less of a pain? Oh, and bosses were abused again. See spoiler for the map.

Spoiler

Once again, I have labeled the map for your convenience. Here is my thought dump on bad or otherwise questionable rooms:

Room D1: This room was stupid. You’re fighting a Super Darknut already in level 4. Forcing you to hug the water to stab at him is kind of stupid as well, but at least you’re completely safe.

Room E1: Bad design. Two problems. First of all, it’s one of those rooms you lose Rupees or a Heart Container. Secondly, how the hell would you know to go down to avoid it? The problem is that the room below it, E2, is in an unmarked portion of the dungeon map.

Room A2: Fighting a Patra this early AND in a movement restricted room is bad. Granted now with 2.50 I could make its damage more fair, but a bad idea is STILL a bad idea.

Room E2: Unmarked 10 Rupee room you can come from F2 as a shortcut. Or you could just use F6 instead and get fully healed...

Room G2: Four fireball shooting statues and two Red Lanmolas. Fun. How about no?

Room C3: Speaking of Red Lanmolas, they debut here. A bit early for Lanmolas, don’t you think?

Room A4: Red Darknuts and a Manhandla. Enough with the boss spam.

Room F5: The room that Gel Tribbles debuted. Not really sure if the water tiles that spell out LOL is a good idea or not, though. Also, 50 Rupees for free just killing Gel Tribbles? That’s a bit too generous.

Room G5: Boss spam because why not? Oh, and a couple Wallmasters along with 4 fireball shooters. At least the unmarked bombable wall is pretty obvious to try.

Room B6: What are trees doing in a so-called “Ice Cave”? Oh well, at least Blue Darknuts aren't too awful to fight this early.

Room E6: Pointless room. Just kill two Blue Gohmas for 50 Rupees. I think this would have been better used as a shortcut room to E5 than a pointless room that hands money out like candy.

Room F6: Enough bosses already; I’m tired of killing Manhandla!

On another note, the ice has no effect on your movement at all. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Lastly, when I made this quest originally, I named this dungeon after my now ex-girlfriend. The full name of the dungeon is “Mount Saint Emily’s Ice Cave”. Mount St Emily was meant to parody Mount St Helens, but was poorly thought out.

In other news...

1. Should I add light coming in at the dungeon's entrance, similar to how it's done in Link's Awakening and the Oracle games?

[kurt91]

Well, looking at your overworld, the winding water area makes me think of the Raft minigame in Link's Awakening. Maybe do a similar setup and make it a sort of Arctic raft maze? The current tiles from LA should fit in with Koten, considering they're only two colors and a four-frame animation. The surrounding area is blank enough that there isn't much to go with off of with what's there. You're pretty much just designing an area from scratch, with an Arctic theme. The only real advice that I can give would be to think of what kind of gimmick you can play with using the theme, and basing an area around that. For example, and this is a bad example so don't take it as a suggestion, you could make a large number of Lost Woods-type areas with a fast falling-snow overlay and say that the blizzards are so thick that it's easy to get lost.

 

Regarding the dungeon itself, the existing rooms that you have complaints about don't seem that hard to fix. First off, since the area's supposed to be a cave, swap the dungeon walls for cavern walls to match. Doing this will also allow you to add in some white tiles on a translucent Layer 6 to act as light shining in through holes in the ceiling, which would also explain the things like trees. You could also throw in the falling snow in some rooms for a bit more visual flair to break up the dungeon a bit.

 

Your map shows that the Ladder is the dungeon item. If that is indeed the case, then a Super Darknut isn't quite a bad idea in that room, actually. As long as your target doesn't have ranged attacks, you can use the room to demonstrate the Ladder's use as a safe position to strike enemies from. Just swap the room's layout to one similar to those rooms in the original Zelda game where the room is full of water and it has a small sort of maze of pathways around it. The room would be an absolute nightmare to the point of unfair without the Ladder or Slash, since it's all narrow pathways too small to get around the enemy's shield, but the Ladder makes it manageable since you can create safe positions at will. Plus, since you have so many more positions to place the Ladder and you can walk from path to path directly, you're able to chase the enemy around instead of waiting for him to randomly approach your one position in a large empty room. Just make sure that your redesign keeps that area low-traffic, so you don't have to re-fight him multiple times, or you can make that room an Enemies Never Return area.

 

NEVER use "Your Money or Your Life" rooms. Your player stumbles in with little money, they can kiss 100% completion out the window, and that will piss many gamers, including me, off immensely. (Okay, if you had some weird game mechanic going where you can just buy Heart Containers and you don't use them as hidden items, then I can understand using them. But only then!) Maybe have the door leading to the Ladder/Super Darknut room close behind you and not open when you kill the enemy, making it a small puzzle to figure out how to escape? You're locked into an area consisting of three rooms, there's not that many choices and the player is basically guaranteed to stumble across the walk-through wall, especially since your demo shows that you've already established that they will be used in your quest.

 

Your Dungeon Item is a Ladder, can you pick a different boss/room combination to emphasize that fact? Maybe a room with an Aquamentus where you need the Ladder to get around, and the floor tiles rise and lower out of the water? I did something similar in my quest as a first boss, and it was actually a pretty surprising challenge until I nerfed it to the point of only dealing knockback and no actual damage. Since this is a mid-game area, you can expect the player to deal with it, and possibly come up with an actually threatening Aquamentus with no scripting!

 

I don't see a problem with Lanmolas. One of the prior Enemy of the Month contests showed that you can do some creative stuff with them, like spread the body segments really far apart to make it seem like a large group of enemies. Don't like Lanmolas? You've got an Enemy Editor, play with them!

 

Yeah, I agree that the "LOL" room is a bit unprofessional. Harmless, but unprofessional. Big prize for killing a bunch of Gels. I suppose if you really want to be playful and troll the player with this room, you could make the prize a Rupoor.

 

Okay, you obviously like fireball shooters. I've never tried it, but if you were to try and make a moving FFC a fireball shooter, would it still work? It would still be no scripting, and I don't think I've seen it done. Plus, you can have only one or two shooters in a room instead of a full regiment, and still keep an equal threat around the room. Regarding your boss abuse, why not just have heavily-nerfed versions of bosses and just use them as occasional unique enemies? Like, keep your random Manhandlas, but take away the fireballs entirely. It won't be too much more difficult than a normal enemy yet not powerful enough to be a miniboss, and the "speed up as damaged" attribute it has makes a fairly unique common enemy.

 

By the way, having a linear dungeon or two once in a while isn't all too bad. If you feel you can't nail substance very well in a particular situation, just go balls-to-the-wall on style and visual flair. Make it memorable in either category, and you've got a winner. (Of course, if you can manage to hit both style and substance, even better!)

Edited by kurt91, 28 April 2015 - 07:22 PM.

[Lejes]

I've never tried it, but if you were to try and make a moving FFC a fireball shooter, would it still work?

 

This does not work.

[KingPridenia]

Well, the problem is that the Raft doesn't exist in the remake, at least not yet, if at all. I was thinking of having a cave connect the two halves of the map together, using it as kind of a junction. I guess a raft maze could be used later, but I am not sure.

 

I may actually make the Ice Cave an actual cave and go with an Interior style dungeon. Would be nice to break up the repetition of Z1 style dungeons. There are actually two items in this dungeon; the Stepladder and Bracelet. Originally, you had to hide behind the water to kill the Super Darknut with the Ladder being the reward for killing him. I still think that room could have been done better, but now I'm just being super critical on myself.

 

Yeah, I have no plans on using a money or life room ever again. I wasn't thinking straight in 2009 when I made the dungeon originally. Even worse, it was an 8-Bit Theater quote "Your GP or your HP!". Probably as unprofessional as the whole LOL floor room. However, if I go with the fully freeform cave idea versus a typical NES-style dungeon, I wouldn't have to worry about finding a walkthrough wall. If I did however, I'll take your advice in that regard. I also accept that having the Stepladder not be that terribly useful or used much at all wasn't really smart either.

 

Actually, I just had a thought; what if part of the dungeon consisted of caves and another part typical NES-style rooms? Perhaps I could go with a frozen temple/dungeon within the depths of a cave?

 

The biggest thing is that I understand a linear dungeon now and then is fine, but I know a lot of people hate it when they die and have to redo 15-20 rooms of the same crap every attempt. With the Enemy Editor, I can make new enemies or rebalance existing ones as I see fit. For instance, I thought Red Wizzrobes were a bit too much for level 3, so I made two lower level Wizzrobes that shot Fireballs; one teleporting around and another a walking enemy. I thank you for your suggestions and feedback. I just hope I'm not getting annoying with all the idea fishing I'm doing. I guess I'm just that focused on making this a worthwhile remake and putting effort into it.

[Eddy]

So, I finally got a chance to read this thoroughly and I'll try to provide some thoughts.

 

As for Level 4's area...

"an old man that offers you free money and only gives you 1 Rupee"

YOUR MOTHER! (only Adam will get this reference )

 

Seriously though, as far as ideas go, I still don't really have anything in mind. Having a cave go from west to east is a cool idea. I'm just unsure where I would connect it and where the caves should be.

 

Edit: Maybe you could have one cave be at the bottom of the mountain isle. Just throwing out a random suggestion.

 

 

Level 4 was quite the dungeon, I'll admit. In the original game, the only thing I loved with the dungeon was the song (ditto to Level 5).

 

As far as room analysis responses go...

D1 - Yeah I guess it's kind of a bad thing, but it's not too bad for an introduction to the enemy, although it is quite early on (can't speak for myself though lol)

 

E1 - Money or Life rooms in general aren't bad to be honest. It just depends on how much the fee is and if there's an alternative route out (that is seen) if people don't have enough money or they don't want to lose lives. The way you set it up though is kinda questionable.

 

A2 - I don't really see much movement restriction here besides the pool of water to the right. Avoiding patras in that space is still manageable. As far as patras being too early for Level 4, a BS Patra would probably be better.

 

E2 - Yeah, marking that one would've helped.

 

G2 - I really don't see any problems with this screen. It seems perfectly doable and not hectic.

 

C3 - Again, no problems here. Red Lanmolas as early as Level 4 isn't really bad. They're pretty easy to kill due to their slow speed. If they were Blue Lanmolas, then that would be a different story.

 

A4 - Probably should remove that Manhandla

 

F5 - Agreed, 50 rupees for killing gels is too generous. As far as the LOL room formation, I find it kinda funny, so I really don't have anything negative to say about it.

 

G5 - Boss spam pls. Remove the boss spam and you're good to go.

 

B6 - Lol trees. Maybe huge icy rocks would've suited it better.

 

E6 - Agreed on this one.

 

F6 - Look at my response to G5

 

As far as remaking Level 4, like what kurt91 said, a linear dungeon once in a while isn't a bad thing at all. I've seen quite a lot of linear dungeons and some of them are really awesome. Maybe you could have some puzzles associated with ice like rooms where you need to melt them to get to places or something like that.

 

 

As for your final question, it's your decision honestly, I wouldn't mind either way. Light on the entrance door would be pretty cool to see though.

Edited by Eddy, 29 April 2015 - 12:27 PM.

[SkyLizardGirl]

More Overlayers.*

 

and mazes.