90 replies to this topic

[Jared]

I did it! Amazing quest, FlameCursed. Will definitely play again someday. 10/10 from me.

 

[Lüt]

Congratulations, you've earned one of my epic mega-posts!

 

First off, I quite liked it. As far as map design goes, I think you've got the notion of balance down good. I like how the overworld was segmented into different sections, each unique in their own way, but also clearly belonging to the same layout. I found the sizes of the areas to be both large enough to hold an adequate amount of design variety, as well as small enough that they don't exhaust their welcome. The dungeons didn't seem to grow too much larger as the quest progressed, but there's something about being able to clear smaller areas fairly quickly that keeps the game addictive - and keeps me up hours late thinking "I'll just do this next area and be done" 10 times in a row

 

I might be getting a bit wimpy lately, but I did appreciate the relatively easy/medium difficulty, as it let me focus more on exploring than on fighting (and dying) - and even if the dungeons didn't grow much larger, they did adequately step up the difficulty. Providing the optional item dungeons is a personal preference of mine that I always enjoy seeing, and in this case, it also helps a 6-standard-dungeon quest feel more expansive than it sounds. And to that extent, I'm not sure I'd suggest raising the difficulty in the main dungeons - whenever you give optional items in such a way, you have to plan for people who don't pick them up. I did, and so I found the difficulty to not raise too high too fast. But if I had skipped them, I could see things being a fair bit more challenging as the game progressed.

 

I also enjoyed the variety of themes you brought into play. Not just the overworld, that I mentioned, but the way the dungeons went well beyond the usual color-changed variations on the same stuff, and into having some kind of unique graphics and freeform layouts for each one. It really helped make them identifiable and memorable (even if I don't feel right referring to the sky one as a dungeon heh).

 

So yeah, I quite liked it.

 

And, because I liked it, I have to bring up a few things that could use improvement or tweaking, as well as a few personal suggestions that you may or may not find worth considering.

 

First, there's a couple things that seem like bugs, or errors in your layouts.

 

* So you've got this room where you can push the reflection mirrors:

 

 

I thought it might have served some kind of strategic purpose, perhaps to move the top ones out of the way and get the MirrorRobe to redirect its magic up toward the two gray torches. I figured maybe you just forgot to set the undercombo. But after pushing them around the room a bit, I eventually ended up with this. I doubt that was your intention, and even if it was, you probably know you can only have one undercombo, and that leaving a thing like this in place can essentially let the player wipe out your entire floor design. And since defeating the MirrorRobe in the regular manner opens the shutters anyway, this just looks like a bug.

 

* The whirlpool trap near the top center of the overworld. You've got this whirlpool warp here by the shoreline:

 

 

The problem is, you give the player the ladder before the flippers, and since the whirlpool is only one tile away from the ground, you can cross over to it with the ladder. However, once you take it, you end up here. And without the flippers to swim off it and back onto it, all you can do is repeatedly fall into the water until you die and get the choice to continue.

 

* Sometimes, you get see-through spacing between the overhead bricks on the doorways:

 

 

That's because the tiles are using the blank color (first in the palette) rather than a black color. Just find whatever tiles those doorways are using and color the blank color with a black color from further down the palette.

 

Second, there's some things that seem like design oversights or inconsistencies.

 

* So there's this hookshot post at the top of the screen here:

 

 

Thing is, Link's pretty good at wiggling his way around corners, especially with diagonal movement enabled, and you can edge around the corner and far enough up that you can hookshot onto that post. I took the screenshot from the wrong side, but it works there as well. I don't know, maybe you were aware of it and don't mind it. But if it wasn't your intention, the best solution is to make a copy of the corner combos from the mountain tiles and fill in the solidity of the corners. I had to do that myself a few times to prevent players from getting stuck on the 2-way ladder below a river.

 

* This block at the end of the spike maze:

 

 

You've established earlier on, multiple times, that such blocks are the "heavy" push blocks. The arrangement of the spikes here seems to indicate you can walk over and push it up to continue through the door. Nope. And yeah, I see the whistle tile to the right, but if you're going to have consistency, you should use another tile to block the door. Besides, most players know you can have push blocks and whistle secrets in the same room.

 

* You may or may not have an overlap issue with your overworld areas.

 

There's this side-warp at the far west that takes you to the sacred grove, with Link's position marked by the X:

 

 

After which, you end up here, again position marked by the X:

 

 

So you've got your bottom two rows of screens overlapping. And it's not that I'm somehow opposed to the notion. It's a magic world, and if you intended it to be something that might make the player be like "hey, that's funky," then cool. One of the earliest stories I ever read had a door standing by itself out in the middle of a field, and when it was opened, you'd step into a new world, and you could look around the door frame and see a totally new area in place of where you once were, and vice versa. But, I just thought I'd mention it, in case you didn't catch it and wanted to extend the entry area rightward to line up with the eastern edge of the grove.

 

* Stair steps or stair warps? There's a lot of staircases in dungeons that don't make sense. For one, check out this downward staircase in King's Crypt. I'd expect the next room to be on a lower level, especially since it has a matching upward staircase - but in fact, I've only ended up two rooms higher, and on the same floor no less. For another, this downward staircase in Temple of Light seems to take you upward to a rooftop tower, but not only is the matching staircase also going downward, the tower is only the screen directly below. And then, in the same level, you have an actual blue warpgate in the middle of a block maze, which serves the exact same function, and makes me wonder, why not just use warp gates instead of stair steps since they each do the same thing?

 

Third, a couple things relating to enemies.

 

* Enemy priority. There's a lot of examples relating to this, but here are two:

 

This room has a number of Vires and three Bubbles:

 

 

Kill all the Vires, and you're left with three bubbles. Cool, but step out of the room and back in. The three Bubbles have been replaced with three Vires instead.

 

And then this room has some Wizzrobes, Darknuts, and Zoras:

 

 

Nice, so eventually I bring it down to one Zora left, and kill it. But step out of the room and back in. In place of the Zoras, the Darknuts have returned.

 

The order in which you place enemies in the room's enemy index is the order in which they will appear. When you place enemies that always return or don't count as beatable enemies (or both), they have to be listed at the top of the enemy index, or else they'll be replaced by whatever else is at the top when you step out of the room and back in. Which is why you should always place Bubbles or Zoras first - because they're still enemies, even if they're not beatable, leaving the room will count them as still existing. In the first example, because you have three Bubbles, you'll always leave the room with three enemies counted as "undefeated" - and when you go back in, the game will spawn the first three enemies in your enemy list - which, in the case, are the Vires. However, when you place the Bubbles first, they'll always be the ones to continually respawn. (It's worth noting, that because of this, any room with Bubbles in it will ensure that other enemies never return until the player leaves and re-enters the level.)

 

* Splitters return.

 

Some people have commented on the need for repetition when dealing with block puzzles, and although I didn't seem to be as bothered by it as some others, I did have a problem with this room in particular:

 

 

Mainly because those splitting Darknuts return every time you have to leave the room to try again. I know it's the default behavior, but there is a way around it. Checking the "does not return" box for the splitting enemy itself does nothing. However, if you make a duplicate of the splitter, as well as make duplicates of the enemy it spits into, you can set the enemy it splits into to "not return," then set your new splitter to split into those no-return enemies rather than the regular ones, and that'll keep it from returning once you kill the splits (and I set the splitter to "does not return" just because I hate it that much).

 

Not necessary in every instance, but very useful in rooms like this.

 

* Flag 96 & 97.

 

I see this all the time. These are the "Block Enemy" and "Block Ground Enemy" flags. It's good to go through your maps and make sure to identify where you don't want certain enemies spawning or moving.

 

Here's an example I always try to prevent:

 

 

Leevers look fine when they're emerging from sand or dirt floors and sinking back into it... but rising out of solid tiles? That's what Flag 97 is for. Block the Leevers from moving onto the tiles, while still letting the Peahats fly over them.

 

Another example:

 

 

The Octoroks don't look particularly good passing through a half-solid tile, but in addition to that, they can hog your space while you're healing, and you'll take unavoidable damage the instant your control returns. Kind of undermines the whole healing notion.

 

And this certainly came up a fair bit:

 

 

Can. Not. Hookshot.

 

Flag 96 or 97 all over this room. To make an exception, use enemies that can be killed by the hookshot - Keese and Bats for example - then you can use it as a long-range weapon without having to switch items around if an enemy does get in your way.

 

Fourth, NES Dungeon settings.

 

Check this stack of screens:

 

 

 

The position I'm standing in is the position I ended up in when entering the room and before gaining control of Link.

 

The thing about NES Dungeon screens is that they function according to their wall configurations (when you press F6 to choose the setting for each of the four walls), so that no matter what custom tiles you draw on these screens, these wall settings determine the way you enter the screen. In this case, I'm guessing you didn't change the setting from "Wall" to "Open," and just started drawing your own tiles on top of a standard room template. Setting the wall to "Open" only bumps you inward one tile rather than two. For freeform dungeon screens like this, hit F6, set the lower/upper walls to "Open," then replace the newly-drawn wall tiles with your custom ones. Now you won't get pushed in so far.

 

Fifth, some design tweaks.

 

* Layer the waterfalls:

 

 

You have standard animated water everywhere, except for beneath these waterfalls, where it remains perfectly still. I know the default tiles don't have an animated option, but there is a way. Take the main waterfall tile string (from above these base tiles), copy it to a new row in the tile page, and remove the bottom half by using the blank color in the palette. Then copy the main base combo to a new combo, and set its tile to the new tile string with the bottom half removed. That goes on the main screen - then make another screen with your animated water in the same position as the half-waterfall tile, use it as Layer 2 (F12), and in the Screen Data menu (F9), check the "Layer 2 is background" box. Now you'll have your animated water beneath your waterfall. Reference from when I did it.

 

* Possibly layer some other stuff too:

 

 

I'd take these cactus tiles, remove the background so it's only the cactus, and layer it on top of the regular sand tile. You do lose how it stands out a bit when the brown cactus is placed over a similarly brown streak of sand - but I'd choose that over the sand streak cutting off around the cactus in a perfect square. (Alternatively, you could use green cactus tiles on the layer instead of brown.)

 

 

You have two-tile-tall pillars in your dungeons, in which you can walk underneath the upper tile. For consistency's sake, I'd use the same setup here. Or else, given the angle of the pillar as well as its solidity, it'll just look like it fell over.

 

* Tall walls:

 

 

This is a solid wall that I can't pass. That's fine, except that the exact same floor tile is used in other nearby places, and I can walk over it perfectly fine. Besides, it's been a standard floor tile ever since the game existed, so it can be awkward and unexpected to randomly bump into it here and there. I'd suggest a different top-of-the-wall tile, so that it can be distinguished from every other time it's used as a standard floor tile.

 

* Erase the dungeon tile part of this step tile:

 

 

Ditch the gray line on the top so it looks like a standalone staircase (or color the full tile so it actually looks like a tile and not a stray border).

 

* Single eyes:

 

 

The double eyes look very awkward next to each other, and they don't even match in the middle. There's a single eye option that looks a lot better over two-tile-wide dungeon entrances. Reference.

 

Sixth, miscellaneous odds and ends.

 

* Shield 1 color:

 

 

I'm probably dumb, but based on the color of the shield, along with it being a shape I rarely see, I thought it was some kind of magic item like the container next to it (and went through a chunk of the game without it as a result). The second shield is the proper brown color, and not to mention, once you buy this green shield, it's brown on Link's sprite anyway. So I'd suggest changing its color to brown, if only to match the Link sprite once you get it. And for people like me.

 

* Text flow:

 

I may be one of the few, but I prefer to divide my text strings based on sentence structure, rather than how many words can fit in a single box. For example, this string box looks rather full... only to be followed by this. I'd cut the first box off at "...shops in the town," and bump the rest back so that the second box reads "as well as locals who are eager to help you."

 

Similar for this and this. Just move the "we've" from the first box into the second and it'll read a lot better.

 

Also, it's "recommend," not "reccomend."

 

Finally, dungeon maps:

 

 

Please. The fill-as-you-go map is gone from the subscreen. The minimap is too vague for reference. I can't tell what rooms I've been in and what rooms I haven't. I spent a lot of time going back and forth finding places I'd been before and missing places I had yet to go to because I couldn't see the difference between the complete minimap and the incomplete fill-as-you-go map. I know it's probably too much to ask to redesign that thing back into your subscreen, so at least turn on spacebar maps in the dungeons. You did it for the final dungeon, and it was very nice. Just do it for the rest of them, and it'll be much nicer

 

OK, well, that's all I've got for you. Hope some of it helps.

 

(I played v1.7 BTW.)

[Matthew]

Thanks so so much for all this advice, Lut! I'm very glad you took the time to make such an exhaustive post and pointed out all those inconsistencies. I'm taking notes of everyone's suggestions and soon, I'll be rolling out a very large update that aims to fix all these issues. It will probably take me some time, but the update will be all the better for it thanks to your assistance! 

[pixcalibur]

Here's some of the PM content I sent Flame for others to peek at.  Good to have various views of things.  I tend to be more of a gameplay analyst vs graphic things

 

Random points along the quest:

- I think the room in level 1 with boss key is not a marked square on the map grid

- room with hammer in level 2 maybe can have blue darknut spawn in a far corner of the room so that you have time to react given the room is a bit tight on space when you enter.  As an alternative, could consider replacing it with a few regular darknuts if desired.

- I don't think you have to buy the bow given you get L2 bow right before fighting gohma in Nexus.  Depends if you plan to make it required to buy regular bow first. 

 

=====================================

 

Note the fire octoroks look a bit out of place, especially given this is way early in the game right after level 1.  4 hearts explosion damage at this point is a bit much.  (Obviously ignore current equipment state, lol)

 

 

 

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Lol, only need to beat level 5 to be able to complete the game.  Probably need one of those "triforce checkpoint" type rooms

 

 

 

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[Matthew]

Thanks for finding those things, Pix. As of now, I've fixed all those oversights, added some new music tracks, added new scripts, redesigned the interiors, and even added a surprise area. The update should be rolling out soon!

[Matthew Bluefox]

Good jub on finding all of these meowstakes. ^^ The patch will be great, I'm sure.

[Lüt]

Thanks so so much for all this advice, Lüt! I'm very glad you took the time to make such an exhaustive post and pointed out all those inconsistencies. I'm taking notes of everyone's suggestions and soon, I'll be rolling out a very large update that aims to fix all these issues. It will probably take me some time, but the update will be all the better for it thanks to your assistance!

No problem, glad to help.

 

Again, some of the later stuff is just suggestions, I'm not going to be disappointed or offended if you don't feel like working with it

 

But good to see a lot of the fixes going in. Now with pix's advice, you ought to be good for a long time to come 

Note the fire octoroks look a bit out of place, especially given this is way early in the game right after level 1.  4 hearts explosion damage at this point is a bit much.

Oh yeah, that was another thing I thought of while playing.

 

There's actually two ways around it.

 

First, what you're saying - save them for later.

 

Second, and this is a thing I did - edit your Magic Shield to block Flame 1.

 

There's a number system that you can calculate to decide what attacks the shield blocks or reflects. The default Block Flags under the Magic Shield entry in the item editor add up to 191. If you change that number to 255, you'll be able to block Flame 1 attacks, and therefore protect yourself when the Octorok explodes (or breathes fire at you).

 

The reason I did this, apart from making things less annoying, is consistency. See, Flame 1 is the candle-like flame that extends 2 tiles then sits there for a few moments. Flame 2 is the exact same thing, except it extends across the entire screen until is disappears past the edges. For whatever reason, Flame 2 is already blocked by the Magic Shield, but Flame 1 isn't. I had an area where I had both Fire Octoroks, as well as a Lynel variant that used Flame 2 for a 3-spread attack as well as a 8-directional spread when it died. It was awkward for the Magic Shield to block the Flame 2 Lynel attacks while succumbing to the Flame 1 Octorok attacks. So I "fixed" it. (Plus, it also helped in a dungeon where I had some Flame 1 shooter statues, even though I don't recall see any of those in your quest.)

I tend to be more of a gameplay analyst vs graphic things

And that's probably the place I'm least critical 

 

I'm pretty much accepting of any style of gameplay, as long as it's not something like Impossible Mario - and even then, I can appreciate the trolling. If I find something really easy, then I figure the author was aiming for the beginner/intermediate audience, and I tell them good job on that. If I find something really hard, then I figure the author was aiming for the advanced audience, and I'll say congratulations on that too (and also realize that I might not be part of that audience heh).

 

Of course, a lot of gameplay styles aren't for me, but I'll never blame a designer for that, rather just assume I wasn't their target audience. I feel the only way that I can adequately critique gameplay is if the author tells me exactly they're aiming for - then I can say it's too easy/hard for their target audience. Or that their intended difficulty ramp turned into an exponential curve

 

I guess it's a little something I picked up from beta-reading people's stories. At first, I wanted to tell them what story to tell. Eventually I moved on to just helping them tell the story they wanted to tell in the best way they could. Seems that carried over to my game playing too.

 

Though, from the videos I've seen of yours, you also seem to be rather accepting of a wide variety of gameplay styles (or at least, you don't really complain about disliking it too much).

[pixcalibur]

Tiny tidbit on one of the pay for info hints:  "The Adamantine Sword is forged among frozen drifts, while the Tempered Sword rests among sandy ones..."

When I was first playing this, I thought the Tempered Sword was the level 3 sword.  Nothing major, but could reword it like this:  "The Tempered Sword is forged among sandy drifts, while the Adamantine Sword rests among frozen ones."  The rest of the hint is ok.  Thus, as one reads it from start to end, it'll be assumed to go from level 2, then 3, then 4 sword.  Wondering if that might have tripped up some people, as I've seen questions regarding having only a level 1 sword going into level 4.

 

Yeah, game play I'm not that picky about, as long as it has good flow to it.  Most good quests won't have any real issue with this.

[Matthew]

Don't worry! I've caught that too. I'm just going to do one more play-through and then release the 1.8 update.

[pixcalibur]

Ooh, 1.8.  Gotta see just how much that's changed from 1.7 given the number of bugs and stuff already posted.  Will give that a quick test to see if anything on my end

[TK8305]

I've finished LPing Tale of Lyria a couple days ago.  Whole LP is uploaded & scheduled for May.  w00t!

 

When the sequel comes out Flame, I will cover that one too.  :3

[pixcalibur]

**cough** I should LP this and upload it sometime in April, assuming the 1.8 version comes out around then **cough** :tard:

[Matthew]

Sorry Pix! I'm working on it o_o;

[pixcalibur]

Lol, was joking around with TK given he's fairly adamant on getting to it ASAP.

 

In reality, not much time to record in general.  Can test stuff out first to get it ready for recording later on.  Will record a run in due time, but that won't go up for some time due to queue list on other runs.

 

So once 1.8 comes out, would test run to make sure major bugs are smoothed out.

Edited by pixcalibur, 31 March 2016 - 04:56 PM.

[Matthew]

1.8 has been submitted to the database, everyone! See the changelog for more!