Why the "Final Level" is taking so long

A couple of years ago I announced that I was working on the final level, and now even years after, I'm still working on the final level. The reason for this is because of the ambitious level I am trying to create here.

This may or may not be a spoiler, because I have submitted a teaser image of this level in SotW once before. I decided that the final level would be a modern-like city.

City themed dungeons haven't been explored much in Zelda Classic. The only known one I can possibly think of is a Mega Man quest from years ago.

I remember when playing Forbidden City by Jamian, I got myself too hyped for the possibility of a fully fledged out city, but his city was more like of a city in ruins and thematically didn't feel that much different than any other dungeon.

So I wanted to challenge myself to create a city as the final dungeon, but I also wanted to create it in a scale that would make it feel like a fully fleshed out and self realized city.

My plans eventually settled me on an experimental pseudo 2nd world final dungeon. I actually approached this once before in Shattered Courage, where the final dungeon would be one super dungeon containing many smaller dungeons. But my skills with PureZC was not good enough to make it the challenge I desired while also making it a fun gameplay experience.

This time however I have the skill and the patience to complete this task. This city is a conglomerate explorable mini-world more than it is an actual dungeon, but I prefer for people to see the whole thing as one big massive dungeon.

Even though this is a dungeon. There are two big hub areas filled with NPCs, and there are also npcs sometime scattered around some of the dungeons within.

I had originally planned on 8 separate dungeons and 3 mini dungeons within this city, but I have since cut it down to 6 main dungeons due to how long the development has been. One of my reasons for this cut too is because I feel the existing areas have successfully brought out my vision already, and now it's only a matter of designing the remaining dungeons.

As of this day, I have 3 of these dungeons completed, and I have 3 more to do. One of these dungeons I've been struggling how to piece together the way that it would satisfy me. It is a Halloween themed dungeon so I worked at it on October for 3 years. This dungeon in particular was bumming me out, but I recently finished it, and I am feeling so happy about it.

The next 3 dungeons I am feeling significantly more confident about and I feel I might also have gotten over this hump.

Another thing that was holding me back was a big backlog of games I wanted to play. One notable game was Elden Ring which I've played for many hours.

At the moment, I don't have my gaming pc. I damaged the hard drives and the motherboard, so I'll be a long time before I return to gaming. So I'm taking this as a great opportunity to continue this project much more rigorously while using my mother's laptop that she borrowed me.

With my Halloween themed dungeon completed, I'm going to take a couple of weeks break to do things I've been putting off, like putting up Halloween decorations for instance.

In November, I will return to trying to complete the final 3 dungeons of the game, and finally have a finished project here.

Now, I must mention one caveat. Even when I do finish completing this quest, I will still be held back by other things. I do want to take a lot of time to polish the quest. There is also a matter of bosses for this quest too, which I for one do not have the skills to develop the kind of bosses that this quest is now dependent on. Once I reach this point in development, things will technically be out of my hands. But I feel if I can present my quest staff an actual finished quest they feel confident backing to completion, they themselves will feel more motivated to provide as much assistance as they can.

Here's hoping smooth and quick development in the coming months.

TRIFORCE

#1 TheLegend_njf

#2 Lordkronos

#3 TheLegend_njf

#4 Lordkronos

#5 TheLegend_njf

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