End of an Era

The Vintage Dreams Tileset start as a project all the way back in 2017, the six year anniversary passing just a scant two weeks ago or so.

Zelda Classic as an engine was in a very different state back then.

I can't speak for any of the other contributors or authors that have worked on the tileset, but I went into the project with two very specific goals in mind:

Make a tileset that has packed in scripted features.
Making a GB tileset with better organization and structure than EzGBZ 2.5

It's arguable how well either goals was achieved. The more ambitious scripted features of the tileset such as the support for two more item buttons and the mandatory scripted subscreen that comes with that... fell to the wayside. Generally I think there is quite a bit of quality and value to a lot of the packed in scripts that have been included, but I can't deny that I wish there had been more to it. As for the organization, I personally think that goal was reached. There are plenty of people who prefer the structure of EzGBZ instead, which is perfectly fine. The fact that there are more options means that people can pick what they feel is best suited to their needs.

But the year 2017 was a very different space for this community. A large reason for my first goal was that I wanted to make scripts more accessible to people. Back then most engine features and additions focused on opening up the engine and making it more powerful for scripters, while little to no new features were built into the base engine. And, I think that was good; it was what the engine needed at the time. The database got filled with plenty of good and ambitious scripts... many of which were far out of the reach for the average user since just combining two scripts and compiling them was a task onto itself.

2023 seems to mark the year that 2.55 is finally feature complete. And what a ride it has been! Plenty of new in-engine features; many of which makes a large number of scripts and busywork obsolete. Moosh's packed in NPC script feels a lot less critical with the inclusion of the signpost combo type in the engine. In-engine pits means that a pit script is no longer needed either!

With all of these changes and improvements to the engine I wish to update the tileset so it's compatible with all the benefits that 2.55 offers. As such...

Consider this an announcement for Vintage Dreams 2

This isn't something that is going to be finished overnight, but when it is finished it will be a GB tileset to match the features of 2.55 fully. Why the "2", you might ask? I'll be leaving the old version of VD behind, there might be those who at some point want to use it for a 2.53 project. I feel that might be slim, but I'd rather not delete it from existence.

My feelings and my goals, however, have not changed!

This is not going to be the tileset for everyone. I doubt I could make a tileset to match what my detractors would wish; and to them I encourage to make a GB tileset that fits their vision, I doubt they are alone in their feelings.

As such, these are the primary goals:

Build in support for 2.55 features.
Revise the entire script header to cut out tat and obsolete features.
Inclusion of more graphics produced by the community. (Ether's portraits, for example)

These are sorted in order of importance. 2.55 Lets you easily strip a tileset of built in scripts when loading it in, so adding in support for 2.55 features is higher priority. There's a lot of stuff to go over and managed, the first release will not be for a while I think. I also don't expect the first release to be the final either, far from it. I'll be doing sporadic releases when I feel there is enough changes to warrant it.

Currently the work is being put towards an Oracle style subscreen, what with subscreens now supporting pages. This will make it less bloated and better support all the items that the engine has. Palettes are also being restructured, CSet 1 will now also be level specific. CSet 12 holds the colours that CSet 1 used to have, since they were used for things. Still undecided to what purpose CSet 13 will serve by default.

But yes, this is just an announcement for the future of the tileset. If you're curious about updates in the future than there is now a thread in the PureZC's discord server where I will post updates as I work on the tileset.

Vintage Dreams Tileset

#1 Mani Kanina

#2 Avaro

#3 Mani Kanina

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