31 replies to this topic

[Giggidy]

Nuvo: This map is an... interesting use of the BS tileset. On the plus side, it certainly looks natural. I can't easily tell the boundaries between where one screen starts and another screen ends. But this naturality is also a heavy detriment: The design is far too busy. Trying to trace out the walkable paths just by looking at the thing is next to impossible. I can't tell where the player is supposed to be allowed to get to and where they are not. As such, it comes out more as a random barfing of tiles than an actual gameplay area.

Ornlu: I can certainly appreciate the effort that went into this. However I've never really been too attracted to using ZC to make non-zelda games, and 100% of the work of this map was into imitation. It's a nice little novelty, but a novelty is all it is. I can't give this good marks.

Lord Settra and Lynker: The maps are so small I can barely see them! This may be a mere side effect of the scale down, but from here I see nothing but endless repetition and, in Lynker's shot, horrible washed out colors and style clash with the trees.

moo2wo: My big complaint here is the gut-wrenching brightness of the colors. My corneas! Tone those down a bit. Colors that bright should be restricted to highlights only, not to be the main make-up of the palette. As well, I'm not digging the lack of detail on the dirt paths as well as the multi-colored trees. Red and Blue leaves are okay for the occasional tree, but the problem is they scream "This tree is really different and important!" They should only be used in instances like, say, a puzzle where you have to find oddly-colored trees in the forest and remember what order they appeared in.

Sheik: I like this map significantly less than your less one: The style clashes with the brick, mountains, and trees are just too great. I know this is the point of the tileset but I just don't think it's a very good idea. As well, the left-most corner 3 screens of the map don't appear to have any particular purpose. The only obvious entrance to the map is the bridge on the right, and the only two landmarks are one screen away from it. Unless there is something there that I cannot see; Like a gravestone that can be pushed out of the way, the screens (which make up half the map) seem to be totally superfluous. Given all we have to judge the maps by is their appearance I can't make any other conclusion. As well, I never did like those trees used in the royal valley, and they clash horribly with the trees used elsewhere in TMC (way too big!). It's also unclear why you used Linkus's gravestones when the MC gravestones are available and closer to a more appropriate style. Finally, the contrast in the greens of the palette is nearly absent in terms of brightness and the light-dark differences are done almost entirely with hue-shifting. While hue-shifting can work, the brightness of the blue undertones just comes out as... awkward.

I've not yet decided who I'm voting for. Probably between Sheik and moo2wo.

[Chakaa]

Is there an option to vote three times

I was having trouble deciding between Sheik, Nuvo, and moo2wo. I voted Sheik once I noticed that it's a floating graveyard.

[Jupiter]

Nuvo, that's a great looking map. I am not a hug fan of the tileset and that bridge in the south is a bit long, but it has a fun, playable look.

Sheik, I like the night/skyworld setting...but I feel like whenever I check in on this site I am seeing skyworld stuff. Plus it is pretty small and simple.

Ornlu, sidescrolling is not my thing. Nothing wrong with it, just not for me. I'm more...Zelda Classic.

Moo, a nice little patch of map, I like the color variation on the trees and bushes. I feel like it is lacking a feature of interest though.

Lynker, bravo! Nice enormous trees! And I really like the layered brush.

[Sheik]

Sheik: I like this map significantly less than your less one: The style clashes with the brick, mountains, and trees are just too great. I know this is the point of the tileset but I just don't think it's a very good idea. As well, the left-most corner 3 screens of the map don't appear to have any particular purpose. The only obvious entrance to the map is the bridge on the right, and the only two landmarks are one screen away from it. Unless there is something there that I cannot see; Like a gravestone that can be pushed out of the way, the screens (which make up half the map) seem to be totally superfluous. Given all we have to judge the maps by is their appearance I can't make any other conclusion. As well, I never did like those trees used in the royal valley, and they clash horribly with the trees used elsewhere in TMC (way too big!). It's also unclear why you used Linkus's gravestones when the MC gravestones are available and closer to a more appropriate style. Finally, the contrast in the greens of the palette is nearly absent in terms of brightness and the light-dark differences are done almost entirely with hue-shifting. While hue-shifting can work, the brightness of the blue undertones just comes out as... awkward.

In general, I agree with you. Because you took the time to make the large comment I'm going to answer open questions.
The style clash isn't too bad in my eyes. BS can work with tMC better than GB with SD3 (->hint at DoR + *facepalm*). That was sort of my reasoning back than. I'd probably not to that today anymore.
Those screens, they actually have a use. Let me explain the map. The overworld area of the graveyard is pretty small, as it's just a "side quest" area, where you were ment to get the Ocarina if I remember that right. At the same time, this tower was ment to be the basement of the villain and Link wouldn't be able to pass the first room without all the quest status items. So I had this area which I needed for a sidequest near the beginning of the game, but after that, it would be pretty much useless. Thus I figured to place the entrance to the final level there, too. The graves. Under the graveyard, there's sort of interconnected catacombs. It's planned as a mini dungeon of sorts. The obvious entrance is the grave with the torches, but the graves with the bushes surronding them (indicating that these gravestones are important) are also entrances to the minidungeon. Than, the grave to the far left with the tall grass in front of it (kind of saying: don't consider me important, there's even tall grass growing in front of me! that's how unimportant I am - like whisteling when you caused trouble) was ment to be a secret-secret entrance to a little gooddie like a HC or rupees. You see, all the screens serve an purpose. The wooden house, by the way, is home to Dampe who has some key that he will give you for another favor.
I was rather fond of the palette back than, but nowadays I'm not too sure either.

Well yeah, hope that clarified stuff.

[Rastael]

Yeah, let's hate my map. XD
I have to say that this is one of my older maps. Next month, I will submit one of my brandnew maps. I hope, you will like them more. ^^
All of the other maps are great.
And sorry for that stupid question, but what means "nulled"?

(sorry for my bad english)

[Sheik]

To "null your vote" means, that you don't vote for any of the contestants but rather abstain.

[Rastael]

OK, thank you.

[chainswap]

voted for Moo2wo i love the colors XD

also sheiks was real good and so was Nuvos
all in all very good maps this time around im not real good with making maps but maybe ill enter in next time...

In general, I agree with you. Because you took the time to make the large comment I'm going to answer open questions.
The style clash isn't too bad in my eyes. BS can work with tMC better than GB with SD3 (->hint at DoR + *facepalm*). That was sort of my reasoning back than. I'd probably not to that today anymore.
Those screens, they actually have a use. Let me explain the map. The overworld area of the graveyard is pretty small, as it's just a "side quest" area, where you were ment to get the Ocarina if I remember that right. At the same time, this tower was ment to be the basement of the villain and Link wouldn't be able to pass the first room without all the quest status items. So I had this area which I needed for a sidequest near the beginning of the game, but after that, it would be pretty much useless. Thus I figured to place the entrance to the final level there, too. The graves. Under the graveyard, there's sort of interconnected catacombs. It's planned as a mini dungeon of sorts. The obvious entrance is the grave with the torches, but the graves with the bushes surronding them (indicating that these gravestones are important) are also entrances to the minidungeon. Than, the grave to the far left with the tall grass in front of it (kind of saying: don't consider me important, there's even tall grass growing in front of me! that's how unimportant I am - like whisteling when you caused trouble) was ment to be a secret-secret entrance to a little gooddie like a HC or rupees. You see, all the screens serve an purpose. The wooden house, by the way, is home to Dampe who has some key that he will give you for another favor.
I was rather fond of the palette back than, but nowadays I'm not too sure either.

Well yeah, hope that clarified stuff.

reading your post really makes me want to play this game your making XD

[William]

Anybody else think that this contest should really be hosted by the Blue Bald Eagle?

[Shane]

Anybody else think that this contest should really be hosted by the Blue Bald Eagle?

What ? Anyways I'm torn between Moo2wo, Sheik91 and Nuvo. I guess I'm going to vote for Nuvo.

[William]

What ?

Today's humor is sponsored by the letter "R".

Anyway, I voted for Ornlu. It's something new, and it looks nice.

[Radien]

Sheik:

Hmmmm, very nice tileset. It looks better for graphical quality, though, as the map is quite simple. But you deserve due credit.

The bush-like trees seem pretty big against some of the other graphics here, though. Like the cabin and the towner. Heck, the bush-trees are even wider than the base of the tower.

Lynker:

This image is way too zoomed out for me to evaluate it properly. What is that stuff enveloping the eastern side? Is it fog? I really can't tell.

I don't encourage putting forest brush on top of forest brush. It doesn't really make sense to me. But whatever, that's my opinion.

Nuvo:

Indeed, this map is a little too busy. It is not at all obvious where the player can and can't go. Perhaps it's easier to tell close up, but you've mixed the walkable paths with the unwalkable areas so closely that a large map is not useful. Also, the way you used those shadows in the center and lower left is really strange. What kinds of branches cast that type of shadow? You have to use canopy shadows with care in ZC since it can't do moving layers the way LTTP does.

Ornlu:

I'd be impressed with this as a screenshot, but I really don't know what to make of it as a "map." There's not much roaming to be had here; you're basically using ZC as a Castlevania level editor. I have some doubts about how well this will work, though. How can you climb diagonal stairways in ZC? Seems like that would require excessive scripting no matter how you look at it. And ZC lacks many floating enemies that'd work well in side view...

Lord Settra:

Again with the extremely shrunken image. This is even smaller than Lynker's; I can hardly make out anthying about it. It's okay for a mountainside, but you have too many flat mountain faces. The same flat mountain tile makes up nearly half of the tiles used on this map. It gets to be really redundant, and that looks really uninteresting with Gameboy mountains.

moo2wo:

Hmm, quite a nice palette and mixture of graphics there. Although I'm not sure about using those mini treetops along with SD's big trees. Both treetops are based on the same MC trees, but are drawn quite differently. And having mini LTTP tree trunks alongside full-size ones is also a little weird.

But overall, a nice map. As for layout, though, the center seems a little too empty/open. But otherwise it looks like it'd flow well in ZC.


I had to decide between Sheik and moo2wo. In the end, I still voted for Sheik, because his and moo2wo's have similar layouts -- simple, open areas with few obstacles and a few mountain tiles -- but Sheik's is slightly more interesting and quite graphically impressive to boot.

[Aaron The Great]

Others are just attempts at getting easy votes with flashy graphics and some are just bland.

This sentence gets:

[Beefster]

Nuvo's is a beautiful use of the BS set. I didn't know it could look that pretty. It's a truly underrated tileset- mainly because it was overused in old quests. (It might be more that I don't like the sprites so much)

[Jared]

So, it's been almost a month, do we get to see the winner now?