303 replies to this topic

[Moosh]

To quote someone else:

This new quest has Lost Isle and Ballad Of A Bloodline and Super Bust A Move 2.

Lol. Just replace that with the names of about every quest in existence.

Schwa: I want you to read this text aloud while patting yourself on the back:
YOU ARE A SCRIPTING GOD
Those goryas are genius as is every other scripted aspect of this quest. I eagerly await its release. Consider this quest the very top of my ZOMGWTFBBQCAN'TWAITTILITCOMESOUT list.

Edited by Pokemonmaster64, 09 January 2011 - 05:37 PM.

[Schwa]

OMG! You... just... blew... my... mind. You have left me completley spellbounded by your scripting knoledge. Even the devs have trouble competing with your scripting prowess. If I had to fight ten of those highest level Goryas or ten regular Deathknights in a quest, I would choose the Deathknights.

I would imagine suddenly getting caught, right outside a screen with a savepoint, by him and getting killed when he unleashes his dagger; all of it after making some huge acomplishment before I could save, having not remeber that he could appear at almost anytime in your quest. Things like this helps you to stay on your toes and places bigger stakes so you HAVE to know what your are doing 99% of the time or a huge amount of progress could go down the drain due to one little mistake.

Oh my God, please, thank you Orin but I am in no way *better* than the Devs, and for that matter I don't even like to think of ZC as a question of "better than" or "worse than". I believe DarkFlameWolf and I had a minor argument a few months back about this... ZC isn't a competition. I design this as a fun hobby-- and I must be a bit of a masochist for saying programming is a "fun hobby", but that's the way it is~ :XD: And I hold the Devs in high esteem, both for being great people to learn from and also for being just all-around great people (c'mon, how common is it for game developers to be in direct contact with the community? You almost never see that kind of love, but you see it from these guys :love: ). Saffith has saved my hide so many times lately, it feels like... Geez, I would be so permanently lost without them, you know? Unless I went back to 2.10 or something...

And don't get your hopes up so high about the Goriyas until you've witnessed them! :P First off, Death Knights are a joke. Not as in "easy", but just in terms of their concept; often it basically comes down to sheer luck when fighting one, whether you survive or not. These Goriyas were designed with skill and strategy in mind, like many good game designers strive for; you have to watch where the Boomerangs are while fighting with the Sword so you don't forget to dodge the return-trip, and even more of an issue is minding other threats while on guard against the paralyzing Boomerangs. The last thing you want is for a stray Boomerang to collide with you while you're taking on two or three Blue Hornets, for example, 'cause that's three seconds where two or three fast-as-lightning melee opponents are kicking you around helplessly for 1 full Heart per hit. :eek: (Hey, now that I think about it, I should try testing different dangers paired with Goriyas, see what kind of gameplay it generates...) The Slingshot is quite effective on them, since although their Boomerangs are tricky attacks, they aren't fast, so you'll be able to move around and avoid them more easily.

Also, as for "highest level Goriyas", don't think ahead too much, 'cause I haven't even thought too far ahead. ;) All I have are the Red and Blue Goriyas. The Red ones, being the weakest version, only throw one Boomerang at a time, but the Blue ones throw two at a time in rapid succession when they pause to throw, and their attacks are flung at randomly narrow or wide angles. Other, more advanced colors will have different patterns; for instance, I want one that throws REALLY FAST boomerangs, one that throws extremely unpredictable speeds or angles, or maybe some other patterns I haven't thought up... except, I did get one crazy idea, and I'd probably have to write a brand new routine to get it to do this, but I thought maybe the most powerful-color Goriya (black) could throw gigantic, slow-moving, devestatingly powerful 2x2 boomerangs that always fly the width or height of the screen. But these are just ideas... for now. :)

Epic! The goryias can stun you! Schwa you are awesome!! I really love your ideas and scripting skills! I just read the whole topic. You're creating a ZC-masterpiece! :awesome:

I AM creating a masterpiece, and I AM awesome! :awesome: :w00t: Thank you for agreeing with me! :lol:

Just some heads-up, though, I might disappoint you later and I make no promises that I won't. The only thing I promise is to do my best at the whole ZC thing, for my own sake. If you find comfort in the happiness I make for myself, though, that's a nice cool little bonus I suppose. :kawaii:

Oh and I promise something else. No matter how big or how small, and no matter how positive or how negative, your opinions all matter to me. :) I say this to you not as a ZC-user, but as a philosopher and a person who is proud to always be a deep thinker.

Schwa, has anybody ever told you you're a ZC god? That sounds seriously amazing. You're definitely using 2.5 to its full potential. I can't wait to see these guys in action.

On a side note, I love how excited you get. With most people, it's "Here's an update", which elicits a "Meh, neat" response from me. But with you, it's like "GUYS I JUST FINISHED THIS AND I'M SO EXCITED IT'S AMAZING!", which makes me go "WHOA THAT'S AWESOME I WANT IT NOW!" Your enthusiasm really spreads easily. Which is a good thing. :P

Keep up the great work!

No, nobody has yet! Kinda funny when I think about it. Though I personally don't think I'm a god at ZC... If I had to be a god at something, the only thing I'm a god at is my own life, in my opinion. Nothing more than that, thank God. :kawaii: And I can't wait to show you! But I want it to be a video, not screenshots, 'cause the static screenshots can't do the dynamic boomerang behavior the justice they've earned.

Ahahaha, you're right, I'm a total drama queen~ :lol: (Yay, drama queen! DON'T STOP ME NOWWWW I'M HAVIN' SUCH A GOOD TIIIIME... JUS' GIMMIE A CALLLLL~) Sometimes I hesitate a bit before posting, but not so much as before, because I think "Hey, this reflects how I'm feeling at the moment, so I shouldn't feel the need to regret it". Oh, and listening to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann music, or Bayonetta music, whenever I celebrate a victory probably contributes to my mood... :awesome: (I really do that, I'm not making it up :P I AM SUCH A NERD WAHAHA... I'M TRAVELIN' AT THE SPEED OF LIIIIIIIGHT, I WANNA MAKE A SUPERSONIC MAN OUTTA YOU~)

To quote someone else:

This new quest has Lost Isle and Ballad Of A Bloodline and Super Bust A Move 2.

Lol. Just replace that with the names of about every quest in existence.

Schwa: I want you to read this text aloud while patting yourself on the back:
YOU ARE A SCRIPTING GOD
Those goryas are genius as is every other scripted aspect of this quest. I eagerly await its release. Consider this quest the very top of my ZOMGWTFBBQCAN'TWAITTILITCOMESOUT list.

Oh my God, Bust A Move is SO FUN :love: Been ages since I've played that~ *lovesloves*

Okay, thank you bro, I like the sound of "genius" a lot better than "god". I'll take that. ;) A god I am not, though. See "Chapter 3: Quote = Russ" for further details. Although I am starting to worry that my ego will get almost as big as Steven Colbert's at this rate... help me someone~ :lol:

Just be prepared to wait a long time while I get this work to be juuuust right! :P If you're as impatient as any of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl fans before that game came out, then "get used to disappointment" </maskedwesley>.

I will say one thing, though.

...BURRRNIN' THROUGH THE SKYYYYY, YEAH, TWO HUNDRED DEGREEEES~

EDIT - I feel bad that I haven't given you guys any screenshots after so long. So, in an attempt to both remedy that and be completely and utterly random, here's something almost as cool as Goriyas, and just as evil in a whole different kind of way:



OH MY GOD THAT THING IS HUGE GET IT AWAY FROM ME

There, now I'm satisfied. <3

....BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

EDIT #2 - Before I can release a video, I need to do something about the subscreen. The standard one is just too ugly, and it clashes with the rest of my game, so today and yesterday I spent time starting the new Passive Subscreen, or at the very least the minimal sufficient data (Life Gauge, Rupees, etc) needed to play the game right.

I just created a new Life Bar, via scripting, that is an actual bar instead of hearts, one that is always the same size no matter how many Heart Containers you have, gauging your remaining HP as a percentage of your max HP. It also changes color as you take damage. Works great too, and the most important thing (and perhaps my one big reason for adding this) is it frees up a potentially HUGE amount of space on my Subscreen I can now use for other things. :D

Edited by Schwa, 10 January 2011 - 07:08 PM.

[Banjo7J]

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!! Stupidness aside, that thing is freaking huge. I like the fact that in you sig, you say their the size of elephants even though they're only like twice as big as the normal bees...which are the same size as a human...Hyurle has some really messed-up bees.

[Nightmeres]

those bees are huge. nice scripting and screens

[Russ]

The bees... Oh no... Run for your life... It's like the Japanese giant hornets... Only worse...

That looks awesome, but incredibly freaky. Please tell me it's slow and doesn't home in on Felix too well.

[Schwa]

Thanks guys. Thanks so much.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!! Stupidness aside, that thing is freaking huge. I like the fact that in you sig, you say their the size of elephants even though they're only like twice as big as the normal bees...which are the same size as a human...Hyurle has some really messed-up bees.

Either that or some really messed-up elephants.

Heyyyyyy, that gives me an ideaaaaaaa...

The bees... Oh no... Run for your life... It's like the Japanese giant hornets... Only worse...

That looks awesome, but incredibly freaky. Please tell me it's slow and doesn't home in on Felix too well.

It is very very fast.

But, it doesn't home in on Felix too well.

Good thing, too, because I gave it immunity to the Wooden Sword. You either get a better blade or hit it with something else, such as the Slingshot, to kill it. I plan to only put a VERY small number of these in the game, and they will drop extremely great items, but... probably not a good idea to farm those great items, as they take out three Hearts per hit (if they hit you), and taking it out from afar with the Slingshot might be more of a waste of Rupees than the prizes are worth...

What I might end up doing is just have this guy drop a Heart Piece the first time you kill it and normal items after. That way you don't have to concern yourself with it too much. Just run afterward before you get unnecessarily plastered.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I BRING THE HEAT.

EPIC SUBSCREEN DANCE GO.


I've got the basics of the Passive Subscreen done! Well, half the basics. It's missing a Rupee counter, or other various counters for example. What it DOES have, however, are those two little Item Gauges up at the top? Those are Fuel Gauges.

In the second shot, Felix fires off the Kindle Stone. With each use, that Fuel Gauge goes down.

But it's far more than meets the eye.


Here we switched the Kindle Stone to Button A instead of Button B, and equipped the Raven's Feather (which grants temporary transparency allowing you to avoid harm) to Button B in its place. Note that, in the second shot, the Gauge KNOWS WHICH BUTTON now has the Kindle Stone, and gauges its Fuel like it ought to.

In the first shot, the Raven's Feather is in use (Felix gets a flickering midnight palette too ), and in the second shot, we fire off the Kindle Stone while the Raven's Feather slowly recharges its energy automatically. The Kindle Stone does not recharge; when you go to the next screen, it gets all three of its shots back, whereas the Raven's Feather nets you a 6-second invunerability period and takes 12 seconds to fully recharge (but can be turned back on again while in the middle of recharging if need arises).

So basically its two seperate items, with VASTLY different behaviors in EVERY ASPECT, and the game not only handles these behaviors distinctly, but it KNOWS WHICH ITEMS to gauge the Fuel of in each Fuel Bar depending on which item is assigned to which button. No matter what.

And believe in me, this script didn't go down without a fight. It was like playing with napalm.

Now take a look here!


Fighting in a swampier area, Felix takes some hits fending off Like Likes and Blue Octorocks. When damaged, and the Life Bar decreases, the lost life will flicker red as it disappears, indicating how hard a hit it was. The Life Bar also changes color from green, slowly to yellow, then to orange and red, red meaning you're very very close to an ended game.

What the screens don't show, though, is that this Life Bar never changes in size, even as you collect more Heart Containers. But you will still have more max health. That's right, the bar is always gauged as a percentage of your current health to your max health. When it's exactly halfway full, it'd look the exact same if you had 3 out of 6 hearts as it would when you have 10 out of 20 hearts. This will save me a LOT of room on the Subscreen to put other stuff instead, and trust me, I have ideas crazier than this thought up. Ideas I can't spoil.

I think the thing I love absolutely most about the Bar systems is the arcade feel it generates. I think that's what this Quest is primarily shooting for in terms of atmosphere. General gameplay is so much more intense than any typical Zelda game, and there's a lot less "absolutes", for example you can destroy any bush on the screen with the Kindling Stone and walk over it, and you can turn invisible with the Raven's Feather to completely avoid harm... The environment is extremely freeform, allowing you total freedom to master the game in the style you personally play the best.

Oh right, forgot to show you one other thing.



Signposts! And yes, I scripted these myself, even though a Signpost script has existed in the database for ages. Did you know I can hardly read any script that I didn't write? They're all organized weird to me.

Oh, but this does point out one minor problem. Whenever the screen is scrolling, or messages appear, etc., the Gauges all vanish, because they're all drawn with primetives every frame, and scripts don't run during moments like those apparently. This isn't a big deal, really, at least I don't think it is... Maybe it'd be a problem if people wanted to check their HP and stuff during a before-boss cutscene and couldn't, so if it comes to that, I could always add a more traditional Life Gauge on the Active Subscreen so people can pause and look.

Maybe later. Anyway I haven't done any of the Active Subscreen yet, and it'll probably be a while before I do.

[Russ]

Stop Schwa. Stop. Any more of this and I'll charge over to your house and demand you give me everything related to RCS. This is beyond amazing. Seriously. I swear, you have to be spending more time on scripting alone than actually working in the editor. Everything likes awesome!

So, will there be a gauge on the active subscreen that shows how many heart containers you've collected? I love the life bar, but I'd still like to be able to see just how much total health I have from time to time.

[Schwa]

Stop Schwa. Stop. Any more of this and I'll charge over to your house and demand you give me everything related to RCS. This is beyond amazing. Seriously. I swear, you have to be spending more time on scripting alone than actually working in the editor. Everything likes awesome!

DON'T, STOP ME NOWWWW, I'M HAVIN' SUCH A GOOD TIIIIIME~

So, will there be a gauge on the active subscreen that shows how many heart containers you've collected? I love the life bar, but I'd still like to be able to see just how much total health I have from time to time.

Absolutely. There'd be a small "pseudo stats" counter on the Active Subscreen, maybe even the Passive one too, where "Vitality: 3" would indicate you currently have 3 Heart Containers, for example. I'd probably do a second stat for the Magic Meter, once I decide fully what I'm using it for, and maybe a third one for something else, just so it's not blaringly obvious I'm disguising the Life and Magic gauges. Not sure yet.

[Avaro]

I think you should just use normal hearts and not gauges. In my opinion quests with heart gauges are too un-zelda-ish.
But it's your quest. Make it, how you would enjoy!

[Orithan]

@ Avataro: It is funny that you metioned that, but did anyone complain about the health gauge being used in AoL? (correct me if i'm wrong)

@ Schwa: I agree about the idea of the custom health/magic meters. I really struggled to find space on the passive subscreen to put the extra Heart Containers to add up to a grand total of 36 for Diamond Quest, and then for a magic meter that's 12 Magic Containers long. I now have hardly any space for things like counters in Diamond Quest.

[Schwa]

@ Avataro: It is funny that you metioned that, but did anyone complain about the health gauge being used in AoL? (correct me if i'm wrong)

True, but you know, AoL is the most looked-down-upon in the whole of the Zelda franchise... Technically even the CDi games get more love because those games are a joke, so they've become a meme, but ZII is good enough to be taken seriously so it doesn't get such breaks. ZII is personally my all-time favorite Zelda game, but that's highly abnormal of most Zelda fans. I'm abnormal.

@ Schwa: I agree about the idea of the custom health/magic meters. I really struggled to find space on the passive subscreen to put the extra Heart Containers to add up to a grand total of 36 for Diamond Quest, and then for a magic meter that's 12 Magic Containers long. I now have hardly any space for things like counters in Diamond Quest.

Hmmm... Alright, here's one idea you could try: Put your Heart Containers on top of other ones, make them different colors, and make them invisible when they're empty.

For example, Heart Containers #1 through #9 are the normal Red kind, and are hollowed-out black when they're empty... Heart Containers #10 through #18 are drawn on top of #1-#9 but are dark-purple in color and maybe a little larger in size, or shiny or something, and they are entirely invisible when empty, so say if you have 12-and-a-half Hearts out of 18, your first three-and-a-half Hearts are dark-purple and the rest are red, and when you lose more health and have 9 or less Hearts left, there won't be any purple ones left and then your red ones will start disappearing again.

Then put containers #19-#27 on top of THOSE ones, and make them blue, so that your gauge is 3 layers thick, and finally, #28-#36, the max amount, are a brilliant emerald green, and the player with all 36 Heart Containers in the game basically has a Heart Gauge that "empties" four full times before it's completely empty, slowly changing color from green to blue to dark-purple to blood-red to indicate how "strong" your hearts are.

It would certainly save you space-- you'd be cutting the Life Gauge down to 1/4 its size, and still making it look nice! Feel free to use my idea or change it up, if you want to, and no credit is needed (unless, again, you want to).

Minor spoiler here, but when I do Boss HP Gauges, I'll be layering it like that, though in the same bar format you see with Felix's Life Gauge. I got the idea from one of the greatest and most amazing video games of all time, Viewtiful Joe, though this graphic effect has been around way longer than that.

Edited by Schwa, 15 January 2011 - 09:00 PM.

[Avaro]

@ Avataro: It is funny that you metioned that, but did anyone complain about the health gauge being used in AoL? (correct me if i'm wrong)

@ Schwa: I agree about the idea of the custom health/magic meters. I really struggled to find space on the passive subscreen to put the extra Heart Containers to add up to a grand total of 36 for Diamond Quest, and then for a magic meter that's 12 Magic Containers long. I now have hardly any space for things like counters in Diamond Quest.

I did not play AoL. My only NES-Zelda was LoZ. And I still think it's un-zelda-ish.
This game is gonna be awesome! I'm definetly looking forward to it! Kind of arcade wich I like!

Edited by Avataro, 15 January 2011 - 09:08 PM.

[Orithan]

@ Avataro: It is funny that you metioned that, but did anyone complain about the health gauge being used in AoL? (correct me if i'm wrong)

True, but you know, AoL is the most looked-down-upon in the whole of the Zelda franchise... Technically even the CDi games get more love because those games are a joke, so they've become a meme, but ZII is good enough to be taken seriously so it doesn't get such breaks. ZII is personally my all-time favorite Zelda game, but that's highly abnormal of most Zelda fans. I'm abnormal.

@ Schwa: I agree about the idea of the custom health/magic meters. I really struggled to find space on the passive subscreen to put the extra Heart Containers to add up to a grand total of 36 for Diamond Quest, and then for a magic meter that's 12 Magic Containers long. I now have hardly any space for things like counters in Diamond Quest.

Hmmm... Alright, here's one idea you could try: Put your Heart Containers on top of other ones, make them different colors, and make them invisible when they're empty.

For example, Heart Containers #1 through #9 are the normal Red kind, and are hollowed-out black when they're empty... Heart Containers #10 through #18 are drawn on top of #1-#9 but are dark-purple in color and maybe a little larger in size, or shiny or something, and they are entirely invisible when empty, so say if you have 12-and-a-half Hearts out of 18, your first three-and-a-half Hearts are dark-purple and the rest are red, and when you lose more health and have 9 or less Hearts left, there won't be any purple ones left and then your red ones will start disappearing again.

Then put containers #19-#27 on top of THOSE ones, and make them blue, so that your gauge is 3 layers thick, and finally, #28-#36, the max amount, are a brilliant emerald green, and the player with all 36 Heart Containers in the game basically has a Heart Gauge that "empties" four full times before it's completely empty, slowly changing color from green to blue to dark-purple to blood-red to indicate how "strong" your hearts are.

It would certainly save you space-- you'd be cutting the Life Gauge down to 1/4 its size, and still making it look nice! Feel free to use my idea or change it up, if you want to, and no credit is needed (unless, again, you want to).

Minor spoiler here, but when I do Boss HP Gauges, I'll be layering it like that, though in the same bar format you see with Felix's Life Gauge. I got the idea from one of the greatest and most amazing video games of all time, Viewtiful Joe, though this graphic effect has been around way longer than that.

Thanks, Schwa. It works like a charm. I was thinking of doing something like that once. Btw, I'm using DoR: the hearts are already shiny.

Back to your quest, the Giant Bees are definatley monsters (BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!). Are you going to have them stun Felix if they hit, so they can inflict twice the pain, making him think twice before he even goes near them!

[SpacemanDan]

ZII is personally my all-time favorite Zelda game, but that's highly abnormal of most Zelda fans. I'm abnormal.

I'm in the same boat; I loved Zelda II myself as well.

Now, I'm sure you don't need to be told again, but what you've got cooking up here is simply amazing. Every time I look into this thread, I always look forward to reading what creative ideas you've implemented into your quest. It's actually very inspiring. Keep it up, man. Definitely one of the most original and creative quests I've seen around. (No offence to anyone else, of course. )

[Banjo7J]

I got the idea from one of the greatest and most amazing video games of all time, Viewtiful Joe, though this graphic effect has been around way longer than that.

You know, I was actually thinking of that game when you were describing how to turn 36 hearts into 9.