8 replies to this topic

[Shane]

Hey everyone!

The past few days I have been working hard on this project and I realized I have a new vision in my mind. This vision I have will be more ambitious and will require a bit more time and effort to finish but the end result will be far superior to the original vision. These will be massive changes and all content I've shown before this update regarding the project will be subject for huge change. I won't state these changes (and additions) right now and as result I am going to keep quiet about progress until the expo. That's right, the quest will be at the expo with a playable demo all the way to the end of Spellbound Temple complete with a proper trailer with the updated version of the project. I know this change might sound like a major setback but I am more than confident in this change. Most of the changes have already been done anyways! The additions may sound like the result of feature creep (And you're most certainly correct! ) but I think the additions are necessary for a much better product that I hope meets the anticipation this project has been gathering which I am truly grateful for.

Let me put it this way: the original vision was rushed and I intended on completing it for the sake of completing it. I would of went with that if it had not be for the said support I have been getting a lot in these past updates. Any questionable design choices I had done was met with a shrug and I moved on. Now that I have most of the quest designed, I am doing major touch ups that I felt were needed very early on in development. If I had done this earlier the quest would of been stuck in development hell but now I have a template to work with to truly polish, change and add to this original vision of mine and create something I didn't foresee when I started this project.

The biggest change I feel is the non-linearity being removed in favor of linear progression. Now hear me out on this, I wanted non-linearity (Why else would I have gone for it?) but I feel this quest doesn't truly benefit from it. It's hard to explain without playing the quest but I don't want all the temples easily accessible side by side with no effort required in reaching them. I want players to explore the overworld and overcome few obstacles along the way to the temples. You might say that recent Zelda games have allowed non-linearity but they still seem to contain obstacles you must overcome in order to reach their dungeons. I want this in my quest and adding linearity is the easier way to obtain this. Now I'm not saying the quest will now be huge as I imagine the quest will still have ~5-10 hours of gameplay (Maybe more if you tackle the bonus content!). So it's sorta still a miniquest, but not really. I guess we will see when I complete the darn thing.

So yeah, I want to make this clear: All information and content (project description, screenshots, maps and teasers) shown before this update will be or has been heavily changed for a much better product. A demo will be out in this expo showcasing everything up until the end of Spellbound Temple. Also no updates until the expo I'm afraid!

Thanks for reading and I hope you all look forward to the demo. I apologize for yet another major setback in development but I think the new changes and additions will certainly make up for it. Oh, and for those who are worried about the demo possibly not making it I have good news for you as the demo is already almost complete! And I will be gutting out all the areas and content that will be irrelevant to the demo so you can't look into anything beyond the demo. Oh and did I mention the demo will be unpassworded? I am now simply rambling so I should really go back to working on the quest now...

[Mani Kanina]

#ContentCreep



From what I have seen though, it looks good. Just don't iterate too much or you'll never be finished.

[Shane]

From what I have seen though, it looks good. Just don't iterate too much or you'll never be finished.

Yeah I won't so don't worry. I'm far more happier with this and I really don't think I can expand or change the plans any further or else it will feel like a bit too much.

[Matthew]

If you are happier with it, I'm sure it will be infinitely better. Plus, I'd rather you spend more time to make it better than just rush it subpar as well. So yeah, good luck, I'm sure this is a smart decision. More time to improve things never hurt!

[Russ]

And so it begins. The infinite progression of "But wait, I can go back and make this better!" The black voice which sucks in quest projects without mercy.

Nah but seriously, I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how you're changing it up. Linearity isn't necessarily bad compared to non-linearity; it all comes down to how you handle it. I worry that, since the overworld was design with total non-linearity in mind, that the final product may feel a bit odd, like a dungeon sequence was stapled on to it at the end, but I have confidence you'll make it work.

Remember when you were halfway done back in March?

[Shane]

Yeeeeah, I assumed it was halfway done but I realized dungeons take more time to perfect in terms of flow, puzzles and even the simpler things like enemy and music choices. And as a result, it took a while to develop them in between breaks to do school work and such. It's still technically over halfway complete (majority of the main/bigger dungeons have been completed) but I'm going back and polishing/changing up the overworld and dungeons quite a lot. There was a dungeon order but I allowed the freedom to break it which I guess now that I think about it more doesn't make too much sense since if you played a dungeon intended to be last before a dungeon intended to be first the player might notice a decrease in challenge and size. I will be changing up some of the dungeons past Spellbound Temple though so they have more variety in puzzles based on the items you currently have.

 

There's still a lot of work to be done such as the fourth main dungeon (which will get a makeover since I have a far more unique concept in mind), the final dungeon and bonus dungeons. Maybe even sidequests. But I feel I'm at that point in development where there's no turning back. No more changes from here on out after I make all these changes too. I was always skeptical about the current state of the project but these changes are making me very satisfied and more confident about the outcome of the final product.

[Eddy]

As long as this won't end up like Lost Historia's constant changing it should be all good

 

But yeah, nice to see this is getting changed up. I'm definitely looking forward to that playable demo at the expo. I've been dying to try this out so maybe I can finally get a taste of what you got to offer with this quest!

[Shane]

Well, just letting people know that I might not be able to enter the expo. I'm currently in a bad storm and power might go out for an entire week. The storm is going to get worse in a few hours so I think my internet and power is only temporary so I thought I'd update you all on the current state of things. I will release a demo regardless, but there's a huge chance I won't make it to the expo. There's still days of production left to do and with the storm... yeah.

[Eddy]

That really sucks to hear man Hope you stay safe during the huge storm and I hope that issue clears up soon! (I'll still try the demo out though, regardless if it makes the expo or not)