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Bombable walls


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#1 Jenny

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 01:45 AM

One of the things I don't quite enjoy are bombable walls, and this is because it always seems you either have to make them completely hidden, or completely obvious.

 

Either you use a specific tile to indicate that something is bombable, or you just have random spots bombable.

 

What would you say the in-between is? Do you have a preference?



#2 Castelia

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 02:15 AM

Bombable walls really do just feel like they're there to waste Bombs, especially when they're clearly marked and it would make no difference if they were open entrances. I guess the in-between would either be putting a small marking on something to indicate a bombable tile to reward players with keen eyes, or putting certain kinds of floor decorations in front of bombable walls to do essentially the same thing.


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#3 Russ

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 04:02 AM

I find that bombable walls typically work when they're very subtly hinted at. Having a random bombable wall in the middle of nowhere's no fun, cuz there's no way of knowing. Giant cracks are also a no-no, cuz then it's just a "use one bomb to proceed" check. Ideally, there should be something hinting at it in a non-obvious way. Maybe an overworld path leads to a dead end at a cliff face. Or perhaps the dungeon map shows that there's a room over there, but there appears to be no way to reach it. Something of the sort where the player has to put together that a bomb is the solution without it being completely spelled out.
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#4 Alucard648

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 05:32 AM

It all depends in what`s behind bombable wall. Imagine finding a very hard to spot bombable secret only to find a money-losing minigame or expensive door repair behind it.



#5 Timelord

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 07:09 AM

I like looking for the little hints on any kind of trigger, and bomb spots are no exception. How dull would quests be if there were no secret entrances to uncover?

 

I agree that there must be a degree of subtlety, and that you need red herrings, such as spots that seem like they could be bombed, but are not bomb spots.


Edited by ZoriaRPG, 27 July 2017 - 07:10 AM.

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#6 TheRock

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 07:37 AM

What I like to do is mark them from a different screen. So, the screen you need to bomb it from you would never know it was a bombable wall. 


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#7 Cukeman

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 07:45 AM

Floor patterns, objects in the room, and wall torches can all be non-crack hints. Another way is to make the room design symmetrical AFTER the wall is bombed open- the undestroyed wall can be the one thing that ruins the symmetry. Dead ends can make people suspicious if done right, and NPCs or signposts/gossip stones can let the player know that bombs are useful in the area.


Edited by Cukeman, 27 July 2017 - 07:46 AM.

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#8 Moosh

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 10:46 AM

I'm no expert on bomb wall placement, but I'd say something to avoid is placing them in the middle of long linear stretches of your dungeon. A bomb wall in a dead end is usually the player's fault if they miss it. A bomb wall in a room with two other exits depends on how well it's marked. When the game holds the player's hand for a section and leads them down a linear path, it's very easy to miss a bomb wall branching off from it. I'm also not fond of branch bomb walls before the map is obtainable, unless very little of the dungeon is available to the player from the start. Before you find the map, there's a lot of guesswork invovled and also spacial awareness which not everyone is great with.
 
Of course given the option between marking and not marking, I'm finding my favorite style is overmarking. This is the thing ALttP does where all the bomb walls are marked but some walls that aren't bombable also have cracks. This narrows down the number of possible bomb spots significantly while also keeping the element of guesswork/logic from Zelda 1.
 

What I like to do is mark them from a different screen. So, the screen you need to bomb it from you would never know it was a bombable wall.

This can be a cool idea in moderation, but tends to get annoying when used repeatedly, due to all the backtracking. Same goes for hitting a switch that triggers something inaccessible on the current screen so you have to walk around the dungeon to reach it.


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#9 Saffith

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 12:09 PM

This was kind of a big thing in Antiquity, since there aren't a lot of puzzles possible with NES restrictions. I tried to hint at them in a number of different ways. Half a room blocked off with no doors, a single side room visible on the map, or just literally nothing else to do. There are also some that are just shortcuts or bonus rooms, but those generally aren't hinted at.

There are a few examples of that in T8O, but mainly I've been using them to demarcate side areas where more difficult enemies guard significant but non-essential rewards (magic containers, seashells, or money). There's no challenge in finding or opening them; they're basically just a special type of door.
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#10 Nathaniel

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 12:35 PM

I like clues that are somewhat dependent on the environment, at least when they are outdoors.  In a grassy part of an overworld, a little dirt path toward a wall might be a clue.  In snow, the same could be applied to foot tracks.  Dungeons are probably a whole different thing going on.  Perhaps even item triggers that don't directly open something, but rather reveal a clue (and I'm not talking about the Lens of Truth).  Thus secrets that require the usage of more than one item.



#11 Cukeman

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Posted 27 July 2017 - 02:56 PM

Another tactic is to place an obvious bomb crack shortly before the unmarked one so that people will already be thinking about recent bomb secrets the next time they hit a roadblock.


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#12 Moosh

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Posted 28 July 2017 - 10:05 AM

Another tactic is to place an obvious bomb crack shortly before the unmarked one so that people will already be thinking about recent bomb secrets the next time they hit a roadblock.

I'm not a fan of this tactic because it establishes rules for the quest and then proceeds to break them. When I see a crack, rather than reinforcing that I should be on the lookout for unmarked bomb spots, it indicates to me that I'm playing a quest where bomb walls will be marked by cracks. Unless you have some clever way of showing the player that both cases are possible where there's no way for them to miss it...



#13 Cukeman

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Posted 28 July 2017 - 12:48 PM

What about a one-way door into the room where you get bombs, and then you have to blast your way out of an unmarked wall?

 

Sure it assumes you'll be needing a bomb bag before you can carry bombs. Don't ask me how to prevent F6/save/reset though.




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