42 replies to this topic

[The Satellite]

Xiion slapped me in the face with my weak point: I'm a sucker for some good Classic. So I voted him.

Migo's is also spectacular, as Joe123's may have been if it weren't so small.

CastChaos's was Meh, average, billy ronald's is pretty good, but there's not alot of screens, and nicklegends... yours is kinda repetitive.

[Zemious]

My vote went for Migo .. although Xiion had a very very nice submission. I almost voted but I don't like the graphics.

[Ricky of Kokiri]

billyronald: Looks pretty good, but nothing really stands out about it. This isn't a bad thing, mind you- it looks like it would be fun to run around this map. It just looks a tad... basic. That lonely cloud is a tad out of place- why aren't there any more clouds?

CastChaos: Whoops, should have thought of this before I clicked. Heh- I haven't reached the Inverted World yet in your demo. Oh well, I get a sneak peek! First, I like the elevation in the top-left section- I didn't really notice that in-game, but it works really well on the map. Personally, I find your screens too cluttered- there's too much stuff thrown on them, and seeing the whole thing altogether kinda makes it a little worse- as if crumbs have been falling on a table and it needs to be brushed off- but to each his own. The light colors of the town make it look.... really out of place with its surroundings, but maybe you were going for that. The thing that gets me is the castle. The entire map is the standard above view. That castle looks like it's lying on its back. The quasi-above-view of 2D Zelda simply does not lend itself to depicting a building's height very well, and your attempt to make it do so kinda fails in that regard. Overall, though, the map is fine.

Joe123: It's a desert. I have a hard time finding things to like with deserts. Don't know why- I just find them... bland. You've done a good job with this- it's big, it's wide, and it's not just sand. So... yeah. Nothing against you. I'm just not a fan of deserts.

Mikokalle: Wow. I love forests, and this is an awesome forest. The temple in the south looks cool... the forest somehow looks alive. I don't know why- I almost expect to see animals springing out from behind trees any second now. Awesome job!

nicklegends: It's too dark, and a little basic. There's nothing that really stands out here. It's not bad, per se... it just needs something more. Maybe some inhabitants, perhaps? Or maybe it shouldn't be so big?

Xiion: Okay, now to see what everybody's raving about........ wow. I didn't know Classic was capable of doing that. I've always wanted the mountains of Zelda Classic to have more... height to them... to actually look like cliffs and drop-offs and such. I don't know, I've never gotten that feeling from most of the mountains we play around with, and certainly never from the Classic tiles... how did you pull this off? I usually don't even like the Classic tiles, but this just looks superb!

Bah. It's a hard choice between Migo and Xiion.... a really hard choice.

*compares the two maps side-by-side*

Migo's is more vibrant, and is a great use of the DoR set, but Xiion has pulled off something you don't see everyday with the Classic set... I'm leaning towards Migo, but that's mostly because Classic's palette can't hold a match to DoR's...

Bah. I'm nulling. Those were both great maps.

[Schwa]

Xiion, hands down. Migo's is pretty good, but Xiion has proved to us you don't need some fancy-pants big-city tileset to kick ass with some serious ZC mappage. Classic 0WNS. Way to go, man.

[CastChaos]

CastChaos: Whoops, should have thought of this before I clicked. Heh- I haven't reached the Inverted World yet in your demo. Oh well, I get a sneak peek! First, I like the elevation in the top-left section- I didn't really notice that in-game, but it works really well on the map. Personally, I find your screens too cluttered- there's too much stuff thrown on them, and seeing the whole thing altogether kinda makes it a little worse- as if crumbs have been falling on a table and it needs to be brushed off- but to each his own. The light colors of the town make it look.... really out of place with its surroundings, but maybe you were going for that. The thing that gets me is the castle. The entire map is the standard above view. That castle looks like it's lying on its back. The quasi-above-view of 2D Zelda simply does not lend itself to depicting a building's height very well, and your attempt to make it do so kinda fails in that regard. Overall, though, the map is fine.

Good you mention, I need to check the palette of the town, because there were some serious changes about Inverted World palettes. The "too many things thrown on them" is quite required in a senselessly magically modified world. Crumbles from Mt.DeadEnd, radioactive liquid from underground, strange water geography, etc...
The castle is a separate history. It's NOT as you will see in the game. There won't be scrolling near them, it will give the impression that you see the same part of the wall over and over except that it's closer and closer to the "camera". How else could I solve a kilometres tall magical building?

[Bourkification]

Xiion, wow man! I usually hate Classic, but you have made it into a beautiful masterpiece. Migo, I thought yours was great as well. I really loved the castle tiles. And I can see perhaps my MC boulders . Good work to everyone, it's great the everyone can come together and make these wonderful maps, maybe I'll enter one soon. Maybe.

[Eddard McHorn Van-Schnuder]

Yep... Those stones are infact the ones you made... and they rock
Or... rather, the ones you ripped... :3

[nicklegends]

Yep... Those stones are infact the ones you made... and they rock

...That was the worst pun ever. Anyway, I voted for Xiion.

Joe123's looked promising, but was too small to see some of the detail which would have helped it contend with the other maps.

Xiion's was magic.

CastChaos' was big and complete, but I didn't like how square some of the areas were. Some areas were also repetitive or empty.

billy ronald's was too busy and disorganized.

Migokalle's was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, but just barely came short of the reworked classic tiles. It's really a pity since this map was as expansive, colorful, and well-designed as it was.

Nicklegends' was decent, but admittedly didn't match up with the others' in terms of creativity and color. He also talks about himself in the third person way too much. (Trivia: a screen from this map was featured in SOTW 107.)

[Xiion]

Wow... umm...

Joe: I like it, its nice and big, with places to explore. Nice amounts of detail, maybe a bit shy of too much, but the variety helps. The only real gripe I have is that your pits(?), for whatever reason, just don't stand out as pits. In some spots, they look more like rises in the sand, and that gives a bit of ambiguity to the terrain. If you did something about that (perhaps adding more shadow to one side, and take out some on the other), it would definitely help. Other than that, my only wonder is: that's a lot of plants for a desert, don't ya think?

Castchaos: This map is similar to your previous map, and I already touched on the details there, and most of them carry over to this one. But for whatever reason, those issues don't seem to stand out as much with this map. Might be the pallete's doing. You have an amazing amount of detail there, lots of little things I like. You've already said something about working on the castle, so I'll pass over that for now. Also something to fix: a couple screens right of the top-right house in your town (the 2 story white one)you have a misaligned tree stump. Might want to fix that.

Billyronald: You've got the beginnings of a good looking map. The cloud is.... well, if its not alone, it might be pretty cool, but if thats the only one... try adding more and see how it looks. Can't wait to see how the rest of it works together.

Migogalle: I love it! Seeing beautiful maps like this using that tileset is the only reason I'm still debating what tileset to use for my next quest. Plenty of places to go, dead ends to explore, good stuff. And enough detail to make it all look good. The only bad thing I can say is that you have a misalignment in your riverbank a screen or two north of the east bridge.

Nicklegends: Its not bad, not amazing, but not bad. One thing I could suggest: get some variety. You use the same tree, and the same mushroom quite a bit, maybe replace some of the mushrooms with small bushes, get a second kind of tree. You might also consider using a second ground type to break up the grass a bit, maybe a mud or even just some normal grass (that's assuming that all your grass there is tall grass, can't really tell without walking on it. If i'm wrong, flip this statement around) Also, you appear to have some weather effects. Thats cool, I like that. I'd comment more on it, but not being able to see it in motion makes that hard to critique accurately.

As for mine... Well I really don't know what to say... Thank you for the praise. I'm glad you like it. The map turned out about as I had originally envisioned it, perhaps just a bit path-y for my tastes, but I was working with size constraints, so whatever. I might add some wind effect to it later, but for now, its pretty close to finished. I just hope it's not TOO pretty (not to sound conceited or anything), otherwise it might throw Alestance's quest through a loop...

BTW, if you're interested in using those tiles, let me know, I'll be more than happy to share. At some point I'll get around to re-submitting them...

[Windfish]

I'm stuck between Migo and Xiion. I my vote goes to Xiion because I love how it uses the classic tileset along with some awesomely made graphics! I love it !

[Red Phazon]

My top three are Xiion, Migo, and Nicklegends.

Xiion - I was amazed when I first saw this one.
Migo - The color and layout draws me into this.
Nick - I love that type of area. I've seen the map before, and that screen you posted and I want to play through that area and listen to the music for it. Are you going to get back to work on this quest? The design is great, you're just lacking detail. And I want to see that mist in action!

[Radien]

Migokalle, I am very happy to see my tileset used so well. You've picked all the best tiles from DoR, used them well, and made a few good additions of your own to give it "flavor." Good job, and keep up the good work.

Joe123, you did a great job, too. It looks very natural. The only thing I'd say is that you don't need to feel quite so shackled to the sand ridges...you're treating them like mountains, when in fact it's okay to have them end suddenly without making them go around full circle.



I may not have mentioned the rest of you by name, but I overall, I really enjoyed seeing your maps. I hope this competition continues because it requires more technical skill in ZQuest than individual screenshots do. Also, it seems that all of you are at least improving. Nice work!

[bigjoe]

I vote for Xiion. Best use of classic I've seen in awhile. Joe123 and Migokalle would be the runners up. Theyre all pretty nice looking though. Some are big, some are detailed.

If only I could see Nicks.

[nicklegends]

If only I could see Nicks.

For the sake of clarity, when you said that, did you mean that did the picture not show up (broken link), or that it was it too dark?

[bigjoe]

Too dark. I'll try turning up my moniters brightness and contrast to see if that helps.