44 replies to this topic

[Deedee]

Hookshot can pass through the lower walls I hookshoted sideways.

 

There is a reason they call me "Breaker of Worlds". (Okay, it's a self nickname, but still.)

Edited by Dimentio, 08 April 2016 - 10:37 PM.

[Shoshon the Elegant]

I've finished all of them except for Noels. I'm stuck because I used all my bombs, and it's seemingly impossible to get more.

RedTribeLink: Splendid dungeon design here. This dungeon is filled with good game design and balance. I'd personally say it's the most balanced one here.

4.7/5

Maikeru: I came in expecting something bad, because SotW. But it was actually pretty okay. In fact, I guess you can say it was...



3/5

Noel: I like it for being unique, yet dislike it for feeling a bit old-school.

3.5/5

NewJourneysFire:


Man, it sure is fun getting stuck inside walls!

...Okay, bugs aside, this is my favorite entry. There's so much charm to it, and it's pretty fun too. The dungeon length is great, the puzzles are nice, and the bosses are fun. I expected a Hookshot 2 inspired quest, and I got that and more. The only thing I would tone down would be the flies, and the backtracking. Other than that, fantastic job!

4.8/5

Thanks. xD I honestly consider myself pretty average when it comes to screen design. And sometimes bad.

I feel like I can express myself more easily with a dungeon though.

I suspect that dungeon may somewhat suffer from first dungeon syndrome, but they'll get more complex after level 1.

Out of curiosity, just based on that first dungeon, would you make any suggestions or things to keep in mind for later on?

[Deedee]

You might want to fix a certain warp error over on the left side, and maybe add a couple custom enemies.

[Shoshon the Elegant]

You might want to fix a certain warp error over on the left side, and maybe add a couple custom enemies.

Alright. I'll have to see what I can do. I used the first dungeon more as a showcase of what I can do with Secret Combos, Flags and the Permanent Trigger Script.

How was the volume on the music?

[Deedee]

Alright. I'll have to see what I can do. I used the first dungeon more as a showcase of what I can do with Secret Combos, Flags and the Permanent Trigger Script.

How was the volume on the music?

 

Music volume was alright. I don't think it needs to be changed.

[TheLegend_njf]

I'm gonna try out the other entries there now and see what they are like, and I'll give feedback as well. 

[TheLegend_njf]

RedTribeLink:

 

This makes me think back to the very first time I made a Hyrule Dungeon type level in Souls of Wisdom. How bad was my attempt at making a dungeon back then. lol Anyways, what we have here is a solid standard dungeon. However, there are a lot of unfair traps... That is until you realize that the feather is actually intended to avoid these traps. So I'm not sure if I could say that was your bad or my bad. lol My first complaint is about your poor use of portals. It almost seemed as if you just placed portals just for the reason people don't press F6, and while that's fine, you probably would have done better creating "return portals" as well, it just helps making the dungeon smaller and creates better flow. I found some of these "return to start" warps in general mostly unecessary and at times lazy considering there were just better ways to approach this. Also, what's with these unecessary gold portals that warp you to the other side of the room? This could have been solved by designing your room differently. The green statues I find a little cheap. They attack without warning. I can tell these are scripted, so I suggest scripting in a spark or something to telegraph the attack. I also believe your "lowered spike traps" should not take damage, again for telegraph reasons. When people see the spikes coming, that serves as their warning to move. I believe floor spikes should only do damage when they are almost fully surfaced. I made this same mistake in HR until Jamian pointed it out. Anyways, despite the criticism that may have came off a tad harsh. This is a great dungeon. It just has overall design flaws that can be fixed with a few minor adjustments.

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 11 April 2016 - 11:39 AM.

[TheLegend_njf]

Maikeru D. Shinigami:

 

This dungeon serves as an okay Zelda 1 type dungeon. There are certainly problems here. There's one room filled with water I got trapped in by a shutter, and the enemies were not in my swords reach to attack them forcing me to F6. Why were there even shutters in this room in the first place? This dungeon is quite linear and full of easy block puzzles, and the music kinda reminds me of Minecraft or something. You can also get trapped in the room where you get the feather if you so happen to fall in and you are forced to F6. If you enter the room with the boss door without the boss key, you can get trapped in here and are forced to F6 to get back out. LOL at the Triforce Room.

[TheLegend_njf]

Noel: This dungeon is gorgeous and is a shining example of Noel's artistic approach as a spriter. This dungeon seems to be as if to show off his tileset more than anything else. This dungeon is solid and strong. It may suffer from being a bit too old school for modern ZC tastes, but I'm old school myself and can appreciate old school design. Overall, I have to say this one is my favorite for what it offers. My only complaint is how the bomb replenish tree only worked once... You'd think it would work more, but oh well. This dungeon is less ambitious than the other entries and it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to achieve. This is definitely a submission worth playing. It's such a shame that he decided to leave out images and a description in his submission.   It really was a missed opportunity here considering how beautiful this dungeon really is. Oh, also bonus points for using one of my favorite video game themes ever as your music of choice. lol Anyways, in the end I had to stop playing because I couldn't figure out where to go. I'm assuming there's probably bombable walls that I needed to blast and I already ran out of bombs. Oh well.

 

(Note: All these posts can be merged into a single post. Can a moderator do this for me? I posted these at separate times, but we don't need this many posts. I should have just used the edit option to be honest)

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 11 April 2016 - 11:43 AM.

[Naru]

I think noone is really bothered by your doubleposts. Also am playing Noels dungeon and like the tileset a lot (exluding this hilarious link). They may be not too obvious, but there are bomb cracks in Noels entry. Also the octopuses drop bombs.

[Edit] Is Noels Dungeon from his Prophecies Quest? Than I think I will prefer finishing the dungeon there since I have pretty big problems with the manhandela and prefer doing it not again... Have seen enough for rating. From what video game is this theme, I seem to know it and this is rare regarding how few games I play beside zelda games. Also it is funny how it completely keeps me from building up adrenaline during a boss fight

Edited by Naru, 11 April 2016 - 04:34 PM.

[NoeL]

[Edit] Is Noels Dungeon from his Prophecies Quest? Than I think I will prefer finishing the dungeon there since I have pretty big problems with the manhandela and prefer doing it not again... Have seen enough for rating. From what video game is this theme, I seem to know it and this is rare regarding how few games I play beside zelda games. Also it is funny how it completely keeps me from building up adrenaline during a boss fight

Yes it's from Prophecies, although that quest never made it past the "demo" stage (this was the only dungeon, though there was a town and forest area too). The main dungeon theme is the overworld theme from FFIV (though I didn't know that when I picked the music. XD ) EDIT: You can grab the demo here if you're interested.
 
I was aware of the bomb tree bug that was introduced going from 2.10 (the original quest) to 2.5 (I upgraded for compatibility reasons) but didn't realise it'd cause so much of a problem. Unfortunately my computer doesn't like ZQuest anymore and crashes when I try to do just about anything, so I was only able to do a quick and dirty fix. Since the link in the OP goes to my dropbox I was able to patch it myself, so just redownload if you want unlimited bombs (though you might need to start a new save file if you've already collected the bombs).
 

That's one of the problems with just dropping a vote. Feedback is much better. I mean, how is Noel gonna get any votes when people are voting on pictures.

Well it sounds like most people don't like how out-dated it is so might not've gotten any votes anyway! It's also a pretty punishing dungeon, and playing it through again when I decided to submit it I was able to see some pretty poor design decisions from a young NoeL (that stupid laser eye in the block puzzle room just before the "manhandla" was probably my biggest "What was I thinking!?" moment).

 

People voting based on screenshots is a problem, and I was considering not updating the description to have it be sort of an experiment, but decided it would be a pretty bad experiment since you'd never know if the lack of votes was from the lack of screenshots or just that it wasn't the best dungeon. So I'll PM Anthus with some old screenshots since I'm too lazy to capture/upload new ones.

Edited by NoeL, 12 April 2016 - 01:09 AM.

[Shoshon the Elegant]

I personally don't mind it being outdated. It's pretty fun and I like the visual aspect of the dungeon. It gets a thumbs up from me once I find the dungeon item and actually finish it.

I've still only 100% completed RedTribe's cause I haven't had the time the past few days.

Maikeru D. Shinigami:

This dungeon serves as an okay Zelda 1 type dungeon. There are certainly problems here. There's one room filled with water I got trapped in by a shutter, and the enemies were not in my swords reach to attack them forcing me to F6. Why were there even shutters in this room in the first place? This dungeon is quite linear and full of easy block puzzles, and the music kinda reminds me of Minecraft or something. You can also get trapped in the room where you get the feather if you so happen to fall in and you are forced to F6. If you enter the room with the boss door without the boss key, you can get trapped in here and are forced to F6 to get back out. LOL at the Triforce Room.

Thanks for pointing these things out as it gives me a chance to fix them.

I'll remove the shutters from that one room. Since I don't want anyone ever getting stuck in my dungeons.

The puzzles were mostly cause I like puzzles. But I didn't want them to be too hard in the first dungeon. xD

The music is actually the piano theme from the Casper movie. I don't remember the name but it sounded kind of mysterious with a hint of eerieness in my mind so I liked it.

These last two I'm not sure of though. You got stuck in the room with the feather? I might need a description to see this one cause I thought I fixed any places you could get stuck.

And the room with the boss door? Might need a description on that too.

The Triforce room was fun. I wanted you to use all your items. Easy as hell but I'm wanting to have puzzles to get to the triforce instead of the usual walk up and grab triforce thing. It might be removed later if I don't like it.

[NoeL]

Ok, I've given all of the dungeons a play through and here are my thoughts:

 

RedTribeLink - Hyrule Castle: Sewer Prison

This was the only dungeon (besides my own) that I was able to complete, so well done there! If I hadn't entered the competition this would've gotten my vote.

 

First Impressions: Nice, clean, straightforward design. The enemies in the very first room were a bit cramped to start off with, but other than that it's nice and solid.

 

The Good: It was very much a puzzle dungeon, which I like, and it was (for the most part) very clear with what needed to be done to solve the puzzle. No real "Wtf?" moments. The fear rooms were a nice addition, and I loved that you explained what was going on so as not to confuse the player. All in all it was a joy to play.

 

The Bad: NO MAP (that I could find)! I found the compass tucked away but it was completely useless without the map. If there IS a map it's too well hidden. The "teleport back to the entrance" bits weren't particularly intrusive, but lazy design. The abundance of red/blue blocks throughout the dungeon strongly encouraged F6-scumming (which I did). One particular screen in the bottom left had an easy path through blocked in red, and a hard path blocked in blue, which incentivised going back to hit the switch and open the easy path. But taking the easy path leads to a dead end on the next screen, meaning you have to go back and hit the switch again then take the hard path. That was a bit obnoxious.

 

But overall it was very solid, and very good. Well done.

 

Maikeru D. Shinigami - Level 1: Stalfos' Lair

Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete this one so I can only comment on the bits I was able to play.

 

First Impressions: Mostly clean, pretty basic screen design, good enemy difficulty. Nice but simple.

 

The Good: The choice of enemies was a good fit for a starter dungeon. Not too hard, not too easy, not too few or too many - you got this pretty spot on. Some fun switch-flipping elements freshened up the fairly straight-forward design. Hiding the bombs under the trap was interesting.

 

The Bad: I ran out of bombs and have no idea where to go. Pushing the right block on the first screen doesn't seem to do anything. The flashing skull screen is pretty irritating, and the one mis-coloured tile confused me. I tried bombing it but nothing happened. There was also a blank square on the screen above that that I couldn't find a use for. Having the map visible but in an inaccessible part of the room isn't inherently bad, but I should be able to find my way to that part of the room without NEEDING the map, and I wasn't able to do so in this case. There was a room on the right side of the map with a lot of water, and entering from the left causes the shutter to close behind you which only opens after beating the enemies - but you're on a tiny bit of land and can't reach the enemies to kill them. It was essentially a trap room that I had to F6 out of, which isn't good. After getting the bombs there was only one wall with visible cracks, and that only lead to a heart container (which I couldn't reach because of water). I tried a couple of other walls but nothing broke, and I didn't have the resources to go bombing everything.

 

Overall I didn't find the dungeon engaging enough to want to persevere through the trouble I was having with it, sorry to say.

 

NewJourneysFire - Danger Candy

Didn't finish this one either, so again it's not a comment on the dungeon as a whole.

 

First Impressions: WTF IS GOING ON!? What does this do? What does that do? "Moosh"!? This is a very overwhelming dungeon in isolation, though hopefully if it's a later part of a bigger quest yo would've eased the player into all the elements.

 

The Good: Lots of variety in pretty much everything - enemies, environment, traps, even mixing up top-down and side-scrolling perspective. It's obvious a lot of time and effort went into this. I was very impressed with the originality of everything - tons of stuff I've never seen in ZC before.

 

The Bad: The graphics - and no, I'm not just being a graphics whore. I found it very difficult to discern what the hell was going on in a screen a lot of the time, with blocks of various sizes and textures that give no immediate indication of how they're different to any other block. A couple of room were just filled to the brim with different kinds of blocks and it was way too visually messy for me. I have no idea what the moosherang and boot icons in the first screen are for, since neither seem to be required in any of the subsequent rooms (in fact I never found a use for the boots, but I'm sure there's something later on). The switches in the first room were also confusing. Hell, almost everything was confusing, which is why I didn't particularly enjoy this dungeon despite the obvious effort. The disappearing blocks in the side view section with the falling lava had really annoying timing patterns, making me have to sit and wait for several cycles before being able to cross. The "pick a hole to fall through to the level below" screen seemed like a bit of a crapshoot (though I didn't look particularly closely at the "holes" so maybe I missed it) but I picked lucky anyway. I didn't like that. I walked around the level again trying to find out where the hell I was supposed to go after that, but I couldn't find anything and wasn't having fun so left it there.

 

Overall there was a lot of interesting ideas going on, but from a gameplay perspective it was a bit too much of a grind for my liking.

[Shoshon the Elegant]

NoeL:

The bomb wall is the only place you need the bombs. The white (blank) tile floor was an indicator that that was a whistle tile. It was meant to be something to say white tiles mean whistle tiles.

The water room I will fix before I finish the game. The miscolored tile in the flashing skull room was supposed to somewhat mirror the map to give you the solution to a block puzzle. But I'll keep the flashing in mind and probably change that too.

Edited by Maikeru D. Shinigami, 12 April 2016 - 01:20 AM.

[Naru]

@ Noel - I confused your Hero of time quest and your prophecies quest, but a demo is better than nothing. Also while the shooter before the manhandela is pretty mean I kind of like it, I am really bad at avoiding shooters but I think it is makeable. Also the music helps a lot to avoid throwing your things . Beside the bomb-tree the dungeon seems perfect, like it a lot and cannot see how this is old/outdated. Also Shinigamis dungeon (that name is too long to tip on handy) is not a Z1 - dungeon, most rooms have tiered secrets often just hitting one switch after the other. On a side note I tried a long time ago to download your loose tiles, but even with a older zc-version I could not open your zgp's.

@ Shinigami - I was not bothered too much by the red combo, but it is not the first time I encounter a hint for a puzzle in a quest that confuses me a lot more than the actual puzzle, especially if I cannot conect the puzzle with the hint and think I missed something out. Also while I got not stuck in the feather room, I died because of the spikes and I don't see how you get through them without sacreficing 2 hearts, jumping through does not help. After that I got to the room before the boss w/o the boss key, stuck beteeen a 1-way-shutter and a locked boss door.