4964 replies to this topic

[Lejes]

Hurray for custom bosses! Maybe the best part of 2.5? Praise Saffith. I am really looking forward to this thing you are making, Aevin.

 

I did some more work on my own custom boss today. Got its death animation looking mostly right, and did some stuff with custom knockback. But this time it's Link that gets knocked back. Stopping him from phasing through walls is hard you guys. Also did some work on the boss's movement pattern, but that's going to be a beast to get right.

[kurt91]

I took a look at the the Firebird tileset, now that it came out. I pretty much fell in love with the mountain tiles in the "extras" folder, so I'm trying to incorporate them into my existing tileset. The problem is, they weren't designed for the palette I'm using, so I've been having to not only learn how to rip tiles through ZQuest instead of by hand, but also figuring out the best way to re-color them into something I can use. I'm not overwriting my existing mountains, so that I can try a few screens and see how they look before committing to the new graphics.

 

I'm also wanting to use the castle tiles as well. My existing castle is made from ripping the one from Minish Cap, and removing some of the detail since it was getting very difficult to figure out how to draw it in. The Firebird version looks very similar except with additional detail added in, a bit better perspective on things like the drawbridge, and uses less colors than the Minish Cap one did, so I shouldn't have any problems using it.

 

I tried remaking a couple screens of my quest entirely in the Firebird tileset to see how it would look, and if they would even work, and while it does look rather nice, I had some difficulty finding a compatible replacement for my grass decorations. Instead, I'm going to stick with just picking out individual tiles that I like and adding them into what I've already got. When I've got some more finished, I'll post a before and after picture and try to get a few second opinions on which version looks best.

[Shane]

Had heaps of fun in Firebird today!

[Jared]

I made some screens today. Woot!

[KingPridenia]

Funny how I'm thinking about end-game stuff when I STILL after 2 months haven't even started level 6 yet. The only problem is that I really need to come up with a creepy colored palette in default NES graphics to give the vibe of a "Nightmare World" that is supposed to be completely overrun and corrupted by evil. Or in short, a place deadly enough to make a Red Ring wearing Link with a main weapon that's basically in between Magical and Master Sword strength want to cry for his mother. Also, I almost feel like taking a stab at requesting a MIDI or two to be made. I'd use the Endless Stairs, but it is just way too short, despite giving the creepy atmosphere of a twisted demonic overworld. Maybe if I work on more end-game stuff, I'll have the ability to come up with the in-between parts?

 

Also, I think I'm going to nerf the battles in my quest with myself because having as much HP as a Splitting Darknut that early with a Wooden Sword and Spin Attack is kind of too much. Contact is 1 heart, the sword beam is 2 hearts and you have a lot of dodging to do against statues that will chip away your life 1/2 heart at a time. Yeah, kind of unfair, considering your lack of equipment at that point. I think the second one is balanced since by then you'll have the Magic Shield to block the fireballs, although he now uses a 3-way fast flame attack. If you didn't upgrade your defense, the fires do 4 hearts of damage and bumping him 2 hearts. Considering you probably would have 8-10 hearts at that point, that hurts a lot. The third one...I think I have some major nerfing to do with him. He's BRUTAL.

 

Spoiler

Essentially, he moves at 150 Step Speed instead of 100. His weapon damage is 24, although his contact damage is a mere 8, which by this point, you should have the Red Ring equivalent. He shoots flames in all 8 directions. Like the previous fights, he's shielded on the front, although currently you wouldn't know that without finding out the hard way. He is really a PITA to kill and even once you slay him, he splits into three of level 2 versions of himself that shoot the 3-way flames. Odds are you're too weakened from the level 3 version to defeat them successfully. However, I haven't really tested and when I did several months ago, I was fighting him very stupidly.

 

Other than that, I'm going to hand draw new sprites so that you don't have like 8 different Goriyas with them all just being palette swaps of each other. I did consider adding a very rare "Gold Elixir" drop into the drop sets which basically functions as an instant full life recovery item, but I worry that it would make the game too luck based and could turn a fight with an enemy that otherwise was going awful around instantly. For reference, I do have a lesser "Elixir" that is represented as the Elixir sprite from Faxanadu and functions as the Fairy replacement. The Elixirs instantly recover 5 hearts worth of life and sometimes drop after defeating mini-bosses and are found in item cellars within certain dead-end rooms. Do you guys think that "Gold Elixir" would be overpowered if you could in theory have 1 / 18 hearts left then all of the sudden you're instantly healed to full?

[Evan20000]

I slit my wrist and bled into a .z file hoping it would appease the Zscript gods. It didn't work.

[Lejes]

If you want it to be true to Faxanadu, you should put a bottle of poison that takes away hearts into the drop set. It would look exactly the same as the elixir, of course.

 

I tried to cheat my way out of using global variables today and everything went wrong. Now this boss dies in one hit for mysterious reasons.

[KingPridenia]

If you want it to be true to Faxanadu, you should put a bottle of poison that takes away hearts into the drop set. It would look exactly the same as the elixir, of course.

 

I tried to cheat my way out of using global variables today and everything went wrong. Now this boss dies in one hit for mysterious reasons.

 

I could do that, although I remember it being glitchy last time I tried having negative life recovery items. I haven't tested with 2.5.5's Launcher (2.5 Final/Build 24) but I know the ZQuest that came with the 2.5.4 Launcher had some major bugs with those items. I don't know if they're fixed in the stable 2.5, but the glitches were:

 

1. Suppose I have an item take away 1 heart. Without having "gradual" checked, if I had say 1/2 heart left, it would actually reset my life to full. If I had the exact amount of life however, I got a game over as normal.

 

2. With the items set to gradual, I noticed that the loss would actually continue to affect me after a game over. For instance, say the poison jar takes 5 hearts away gradually and my life is at 2 hearts. I'll die, game over, but when I continue, I lose another three hearts.

 

Again, I haven't tried this in 2.5 build 24, but I remember having things like that act funny. What would be even more faithful to Faxanadu though would be if it would say "I've touched poison." every time you pick one up and it knocks Link back as if he got hit. Meh, I don't know to be honest. I remember one junk quest I had with 2.5.4's Launcher (again, don't know if that was a Beta or RC build of ZQuest) I had enemies drop poison jars that gradually hurt Link for a full heart. I also had a schmuck bait shop at the start that eggs you on into buying a potion that actually deals 3 hearts of damage to you over time, killing you if you're stupid enough to buy it. I remember making a lot of god-awful quests in that bug ridden mess of a ZQuest build. That and I didn't know how to make custom enemies or items at the time, so I just overwrote existing enemies. How about 5-way magic shooting Stalfos that can only be killed with bombs and are stunned by reflected magic that moved at 150 Step Speed but had a very slow walk cycle?

[Lejes]

import "std.zh"

// "You touched poison." string is D0. Meant for pickup script slot on poison item.
item script Poison
{
	void run(int message)
	{
		Screen->Message(message);
	}
	Game->PlaySound(SFX_OUCH);
	Link->HP -= 48;
	if (Link->HP < 0)
	{
		Link->HP = 0;
	}
}

// Also meant for pickup script.
item script Elixir
{
	void run()
	{
		Game->DCounter[CR_LIFE] = Link->MaxHP - Link->HP;
		Game->DCounter[CR_MAGIC] = Link->MaxMP - Link->MP;
	}
}

I don't know if life rolling over when it's negative is still a problem in the latest version of ZC, but here you go. These probably compile? Didn't actually test!

 

I did some work on that boss again today. Fixed the problem with it dying after one hit, and got custom knockback working through dark magic. I don't know why this block of code doesn't execute properly when the FFC's combo is 0, but it doesn't. The FFC isn't even running a script, I'm just using its velocity and Misc[] values for ancillary purposes. ZC is bizarre sometimes*.

 

*all the time

[Jared]

I made a LOT of progress on my quest today. One section of my main overworld is almost completed.

[Eddy]

Just took a look at some sprites someone is making for me, and I'm really impressed! I'm hoping to see more progress on this and eventually I can implement this on my quest!

[Shane]

Getting back into swing, making some field screens. I really need this area out of my way!

[KingPridenia]

I was thinking about working on other overworld sections before continuing with level 6. To TK8305; soon man. Soon. (20 years later...Adam STILL hasn't started level 6). I actually have more end-game ideas than ideas for what is at the end of the forest maze where level 6 resides *cue that Forest Maze theme from SMRPG that hasn't been used a bajillion times before*. I am considering making a new 8x8 grid in Paint and redoing the maps because 77 rooms over two floors is kind of overkill. I'm overwhelming myself before I even attempt to make the dungeon! I'm thinking about trying to redesign the dungeon to have around 50 rooms so it's both less of a hassle for the player and less daunting for me. I do have a few concepts; perhaps I should try working backwards this time around? Like start with the boss and rooms leading up to him, then slowly reverse engineer the dungeon?

 

By end-game ideas, I'm talking like where level 9 will be and all of the hellish monsters that just boil down to enemies made hard simply because of terrible balancing. I swear I really wish there was a Floating Monastery MIDI from Quest 64 out there. That song would be awesome for the final area.

[Eddy]

Made the video for Enemy of the Month #5 this morning, final product was pretty awesome!

 

Just hope it's good enough now...

[Jared]

Made a few more screens last night. It's coming along slowly but surely!