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[Twilight Knight]

This is the thread for my first quest, enjoy reading all this and playing the demo.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
Hidden Mysteries
Story:
Very long ago, there existed a land called Hyrule. It was a happy place and almost everybody lived in peace. There were no wars and enemies, everybody was friends and there even didn’t existed hate between races. But on one stormy day, there came monsters from the tallest mountains, deepest lakes and biggest swamps. They came crawling out of volcano’s, caves and even tree branches. The Hyruleans were no longer safe outside their hometowns and there was a huge short of soldiers, so eventually, monsters broke into people’s homes. The King of Hyrule demanded all men to become soldier. So they became soldiers, and they stood all honor full on the village edges, all watching to the horizon for the monsters to come. However, the monsters were powerful and they were able to kill hundreds of soldiers. The Hero of Hyrule was traveling around the world and once he came back to his homevillage, he saw a Dark Warlock, wielding the Legendary Blade. Quickly he grabbed his own sword to duel with this maniac, but the warlock already held up his fist showing a shape of three triangles put together, glowing eye hurting white. The hero knew that he must have stolen the mighty Triforce, the power of the gods. The hero was clueless; there were burning houses, millions of monsters and this warlock. He went into attack, but the warlock was still wielder of the most powerful sword of the universe and he quickly stabbed the hero, so the hero died. The warlock conquered Hyrule and became insane of his might. All Hyruleans were his slaves and needed to work day and night, or else they would be slaughtered, all of them. He eventually experimented with the power of the Triforce so much, causing it to shatter in pieces. All of in sudden, the natural forces became severe and they were spreading the world with Tornados, Tsunamis and floods of Lava. At the very end, a terrible volcano spew out all of his last might, the biggest amount of Lava ever and it burned Hyrule to ashes, along with the Warlock and the monsters…
… From those ashes, a new land rised: Rozala. It was again a land of harmony and peace. Well, you guess, monsters suddenly appeared all over Rozala, fields filled with them. The King of Rozala decided that there no time left and search for a new hero directly. That hero should be guided to the most sacred and holy places of Rozala to discover it’s deepest secrets, because Rozalians knew what could happen. The Dark Lord will return…

Close Progress:
So far [8] Planned Locations finished!
Western Grassland: ||||||||||||||||||||[20/20] Done!
Twinleaf Cellar: ||||||||||||||||||||[20/20] Done!
Oak Village: ||||||||||||||||||||[20/20] Done!.
Northern Rozala Field: ||||||||||[10/20] Lagged.
Rozya Road: ||[2/20] Lagged.
2nd Dungeon: [4/20] In progress.

Planned Locations at the moment:
These are in ascending order of Accessability! The "X" stands for where I'm now, all the before is finished in that case.
Eastern Plains, (partly)
Rozala Beach,
Bloomsville,
Rozala Field, (partly)
Myst Forest,
Twinleaf Cellar;
Western Grassland,
Oak Village,
Rozala Field, (partly)
2nd Dungeon;X
The Great Sea,
Zora Domain,
3rd Dungeon;
Rozya Road,
Rozala Field, (partly)
Iretron City,
Krotos Desert, (partly)
Lahir Swamp,
4th Dungeon;
Rozala Field,
Krotos Desert,
Death Wasteland, (partly)
Eastern Plains,
5th Dungeon, ->1;
6th Dungeon; ->2;
1. Icebreak Mountain; (partly)
2. Icebreak Mountain,
7th Dungeon;
Death Wasteland,
Death Mountain,
Dt. Mt. Crater,
8th Dungeon;
Gerudo Fortress,
9th Dungeon;
If I plan more locations, I'll put them in.

Features:
TLoZ: HM will contain the following features:
-A good and complicated story, explained trough out the whole quest with big twists.
-Many, different themed overworld areas.
-Overworld size of at least 5 Maps big.
-9 Main Dungeons of at least all a full 8x8 size.
-A few subdungeons.
-At least 1 cave in EVERY overworld area, including towns.
-At least 5 Human Race towns and at least 2 Other Race towns.
-Multiple sidequests, which involve several subdungeons or new areas to explore.
-DoR 2.0 Tileset, with various new custom tiles and sprites.
-Nice MIDI music, adjusted to the right volume and loop timing.
-Custom SFX.
-Multiple scripts.
-Customized Enemies.
-Custom Bosses.

Screenies:






Maps:
Eastern Plains
Map

Gameplay Videos:
1st Boss Battle
Moonlight Cavern Gameplay

Credits
Radien: Creator of DoR Tileset.
CastChaos: Design Help, Support, Betatesting, ZQuest Help, Graphics, Area Name Suggestions, Design Suggestions.
Joe123: Scripts.
VgMusic: Game Music.
Pokemon Sapphire: Graphics.
Gargoyle Quest: Graphics.
PureZC Community: Graphics, Support.
Twilight_Knight: Quest Author.
Masterofpigs: Bug killer.

Demo:
1st Demo(right click+save as!)

Any suggestions, critics, comments or found bugs are very welcome!

Edited by Twilight_Knight, 28 June 2008 - 06:00 PM.

[CastChaos]

Finally! I was curious what are you doing instead of killing my bugs in ZQuest.

Let's see...
Why do you mention the possibility of the story being lame? I love it! Especially when natural forces cause chaos... I love that part... All other elements are great. I see some serious uniquity here. The only problem is, that I recently learned that (Almost?) anybody can whip up a great story and it isn't neccessarily followed by great gameplay.

As for the screens...
You say it's unfinished. I say it's unstarted. You laid the base layout with overusing trees in a mono choice way. I guess it has something to do with you saying that there are no screens yet.

Feel free to post as much information as you can desire. I hope some extreme uniquity not only in story. For example, if it's a new land that was created upon Hyrule's ashes, you have all the reasons to make it completely new...

[Twilight Knight]

Haha, yes this was what I was doing mainly on Zquest. I did betatest a little bit and got you some bugs, I guess I'll PM you tomorrow about it.

For the story, well lame, just in case you know. Good Story=>Good Gameplay? I don't believe that's true either.

The Eastern Plains is unfinished, not unstarted. Like you said, I made a layout and I slowly work it out. The circular trees (or something) are the main type in that area especially in the northern part. I do think about making more types for it, but I don't want to change the areas characterism. These trees gives it a quick feel, and the 6 six types of colors fit nicely in the palette(which looks fantastic I think(it's nostalgic)). The Southern part is only accesable later on and don't need to give you the quickie feel. Still, you are right about me not being done.

I'll try to post some screenies later, but now I've gotta go.

[Twilight Knight]

I added "Close Progress", "Planned Locations at the moment" and "Demo Info". I also corrected some stuff in the story.

[Aslion]

Story is ok, I don't care about the names of your areas... and then there's the map.

You were lazy with the grass, I can tell. It also looks repetitive.
Also, you used 1 type of tree. No. Also, none of your corners are covered. Lack of detail is EVERYWHERE.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but I suggest starting over the overworld and screwing around with DoR a bit more until you get the hang of it.

[Twilight Knight]

I stated it was unfinished gray0x, I'm about to add more flowers and stuff and I already made the curly trees less common. This area has this tree in common, but it's rare in the rest of the overworld. I'm busy improving the area and I will put on the done version sometime.

[AgentLym]

Well, I like it.

(you now have my "two-cents )

[Twilight Knight]

Thanks, AgentLym, and "two-cents"?
I updated the map of Eastern Plains, listening to both CC's as gray0x advices.
I made the trees less common, made trees in the corners(no problem since I use smart scrolling), made the grass less random and made loads of flowers(maybe a bit to much).
Let me know what you think, guys. I want to improve it as much as I can.

[CastChaos]

The new tree layout is wonderful! But I still don't see these screens close to finished. There's ground layout, tree layout and ground detail. Which means your screens' template is finished. Now it's time to add interactives (there's already tall grass, but you should add some objects into it to avoid monotonity), like small tall grass patches, bushes, or overworld pots, or slashable leaves... or anything else that disallows the player to simply walk through, or some reason the player want to go there. Elevation would be a great tool for it, but since it's a field and exactly the edge of it, it's not required. (not like you couldn't add small few tile big hills and depressions/valleys) And anything else that makes the player revisit or just do something there. Small pond, standout object, hookshot gap, ladder gap or any obstacle that is removed by an item.

While using DoR, people tend to think a template screen is enough... but this mixed detail/nodetail is strange. Not directly in your screens, rather in all new DoR screen.

Look at my Hyrule "field". There are gaps to be crossed with ladder, some hookshot areas and some ways are opened by using an item on something. The player needs to experience something.

[Twilight Knight]

Well, the player needs to swim over the water(need flippers) and there is a dungeon there+a secret cave(I add one in every area), but yes, I just only made a template and not really a landscape. I'll add some bushes here and there and I'll make some simple use of gaps etc. Thanks for the advice CC!

[Twilight Knight]

Update! I've added some screenshots and once again updated the Eastern Plains map. I hope it has enough interactives now.
I'm going to work intensively on Rozala Beach and hope to put up a map of it soon! (Like CC said about Eastern Plains, I've set up a layout for Rozala Beach already, now doing the details)

[CastChaos]

Very good looking screens and good field map. I love the holes scattered around. The enemies look good, too... what I really like are the Pokémon grass and that cave screen. I wonder if that small Triforce inscription has any meaning.

[Twilight Knight]

Many thanks, my friend. (Really, I think you're my best friend on this site.)
And yes, it does have a meaning. It mainly is a spot where an item appears, but it also means that the item was hidden there by the goddesses, to help Link on his journey.
And me likes teh p0k3m0I\I Qraz t0w! It's also my best submission on this site so I'm very happy with it. Also, I shouldn't forget crediting Joe123 for the Tall Grass script(it's not cuttable and has a more custom grass ripple thing sprite) and to have the Chuchu enemies have the same effect too (same Chuchu's from Trimasters quest, so gracias Trimaster and the original creator of the sprites).
So the Eastern Plains are finished now??? I only have to create the secret cave for this area yet (The cave screen in the screenshots is in Bloomsville, I should make a (few) screenies of that area too, not a map, that would spoil the whole game.)

[Ricky of Kokiri]

It's looking good so far, just try not to make your screens too cluttered. CastChaos has a point about there needing to be interactivity and all that, but too much so becomes more of an aggravation and can even look just as lazy as an empty screen if there's little or no sense to the mess.

So... yeah. My two cents. >_>

Edited by Ricky of Kokiri, 18 April 2008 - 08:21 PM.

[Twilight Knight]

In that case, I'll erase some of the bushes and gaps.
Now I still don't know what "two-cents" means...