1375 replies to this topic

[Eddy]

Haters gonna hate?

Looks pretty horrible, look at that atrocious tileset! It's horrendous! Please give up ZC

(Jk obviously, real criticism down below)

 

That looks amazing, I love the design and it's a majestic map. The only gripe I have is the yellow rocks (which has already been mentioned lol)

[KingPridenia]

Here's some usage of Koten to remake the area around level 1 of Adam's Quest:

 

 

Here's the original boring bland map for comparison:

http://www.mediafire...xtq85u77tzg.jpg - Done due to size of the map

[KingPridenia]

Adam's Quest - The original level 1 map and how it looks now in Koten and remade:

 

[Eddy]

Those are some pretty neat maps! I see quite a lot of improvements already. Keep up the good work!

[KingPridenia]

Current Overworld status:

 

 

Level 2's map

 

[Eddy]

Looks pretty neat! I'm already seeing plenty of improvements here and your use with this tileset is actually pretty good. Keep up the good work.

[Russ]

I'll be completely honest: I'm not the biggest fan of the dungeon. It has four different walk-through walls, which is four too many in my opinion. I'd really avoid using those unless you absolutely have to. The rest of the dungeon... well, it's kinda just a typical Z1-style dungeon. Not bad, but nothing we haven't seen before.

The overworld is a bit of a mixed bag. The foresty area is simple, yet effective. I like it. The other part though... one of the big advantages Koten has over Classic is that it can handle elevation much better than Classic. But when I look here, I really don't seen anything but a typical flat Classic overworld. You're constraining yourself too much to the standard set by Zelda 1, when you can do so much more than that. I mean, if you're trying to go for a very authentic NES Zelda type quest, you've nailed it. But we've seen so many of those. We want to see your own spin on things. Try mixing it up a bit. Use the tileset in ways Zelda 1 would never dream of. Give it some personality. Give it your own personal touch.

[KingPridenia]

@Russ: I don't know how to make it look elevated and two, this IS meant to be a Z1 quest. And you ARE told that you will be expected to check walls to see if you can walk through them or not. That's more than could be said for Z1's 2nd quest; they didn't tell you AT ALL. You had to figure out you could do that either by chance or reading a guide. Here, a guy actually tells you something like "Hey buddy, sometimes you will need to pass through walls to progress. I realize most people dislike the genre and that it's just running through the motions, but that's just how I am. I have made it less boring than the original in a lot of ways; the old maps would have made you cry from how bland they were. I literally used just mountains and trees with the occasional water feature. No bunching up trees like above, just lazy having a ton of trees together. Perhaps you could give me a good visual example of what you were suggesting?

[Russ]

Sure think. I think the download page actually has soon good examples.



This is what I mean by elevation. In your map, mountains are nothing more than obstacles. They could be replaces by trees, or rocks, or what have you, and the map really wouldn't change it all. But if you look at this screenshot, you can see that's not really how Koten mountains were designed to be used. They can give an illusion of changing height. In addition, most of your overworld screens in the mountain area seems more or less like squares carved out of a chunk of mountain. It creates an overworld that feels very segmented and doesn't really come together as a whole.

As for the dungeons... eh. Even if you tell the player there's walk through walls, that doesn't necessarily mean you've cleared all the design flaws of them. It's like if I tell the player that not all spikes damage you and you can find secret paths if you throw yourself into ever spike pit you find. Even with forewarning, it's still just not very good. Trying to walk into every single wall really isn't that fun, and I don't see any reason why this dungeon actually needs them. Furthermore, and I guess this is more of a genre choice, but I don't get why you're limiting yourself to the Zelda 1 style. The set can make dungeons like this. So why have something we've all seen a million times over and could just as easily experience by playing Zelda 1? Even knocking out a few walls and replacing them with pits/water, or moving a few doors off center would make it all feel much fresher, even if the gameplay is functionally identical.

[Binx]

Well, to be fair, isn't this a reskin/update of an existing quest? I mean, I agree on the use of mountains, but arguably, the dungeons SHOULD be kept true to their original form from the original quest, shouldn't they?

[KingPridenia]

Well, to be fair, isn't this a reskin/update of an existing quest? I mean, I agree on the use of mountains, but arguably, the dungeons SHOULD be kept true to their original form from the original quest, shouldn't they?

 

He's right. Just because it's a remake doesn't mean I should make the same design errors. I ended up removing all of the walkthrough walls except for the one that leads to the Bow. Even then, you'll have the map and you can't go through the wall from the left of that room, so that narrows it down. The original was flawed because you had to walkthrough the left wall at the start and bomb the right wall to get the Boss Key. Now, you get the bow and backtrack to the room right of the entrance and shoot the lever to get the Boss Key. Not to mention the original had 2x Dodongo for the boss. This time around, it's a Red Gohma, which makes the dungeon item more relevant.

 

In light of Russ' comment, I have decided that once I have most of the overworld made, I'll go back and get rid of the flatness. Besides, it'll help me work on my weakness of crappy overworld design. I'll have to show the god-awful level 4 area before and after once I get to it. The original was literally copy/paste of the same screen over and over again. Same 2-3 block wide walkable area, same 4 Blue Goriyas on every screen with the mountain just being plain boring. Like for all you know, it was just one massive rock you just walked around instead of scaling a mountain to find an ice cave that was the 4th dungeon. So yeah, I'll worry about beautification later.

 

EDIT: On second thought...

 

I feel like the shading where the 7 tile high dark area is with the 2 tile high stairs is incorrect in retrospect. Either way, posting this to see if I'm on the right track or if I still don't get it.

Edited by RedmageAdam, 09 February 2015 - 10:52 PM.

[peteandwally]

Adding the steps helped a lot. You could try to add a few mountain corners along straight regions of the walls to give them some character. Like -----\/--\_/-- instead of -------------- across the whole screen, if that makes sense.

[Shane]

If I have to be honest, I prefer the old version. No perspective is better than a wacky perspective.

[Eddy]

WIP Lynna Village:

 

 

As you can see, I'm trying to create maps as similarly to Oracle of Ages, so some design styles may be present here. However, do note that this is actually not a remake. It may seem like it at first, but trust me, Lybranna will change... a lot.

 

Yes, I spotted the weird tree to water transition on the bottom-right corner, but haven't got to fixing that yet (or I may leave it because Oracles lol). I also still need to add a few more NPCs here and there, but for now, this is what I've got done. Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.

Edited by EddyTheOliveira, 11 February 2015 - 02:23 PM.

[TheLegend_njf]

the weird tree

Yes! It's true! I have nothing better to do.