22 replies to this topic

[Twilight Knight]

Hi everyone!

Finally, after nearly 2 years of work, the demo of the Argon's Evil Lair remake is released!

Please download it here: https://www.purezc.n...wnloads&id=1051
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the quest! Please let me know if you encounter any problems while playing.

Play with 2.55 alpha 104! Preferably the nightly build of 2022-03-24. Download it here: https://cdn.discorda...ild_Package.zip (from the ZC Official Dev discord)

Quick Overview of Features

• 4-10 hours of gameplay depending on your playstyle
• 3 large overworlds
• 3 large dungeons
• 3 scripted custom bosses
• Several sidequests
• Several mini-dungeons
• Complete the dungeons in any order you’d like

If you don't know about the quest yet, please check out these videos to get familiar:

First 30 minutes of gameplay


World 1


World 2



Please let me know your thoughts on the demo. Thanks in advance for playing it!

Edited by Twilight Knight, 10 April 2022 - 03:39 PM.

[Moosh]

Small bug I've run into, the cave in the graveyard that you can bomb open in Millton gets you stuck in a wall where you have to F6 out. I've really been enjoying the demo so far. You've really polished up the original while maintaining that nostalgic early 2.50 feel. 

 

And another bomb wall in the prison went out of bounds. Wondering, did you link the wrong build?

 

Okay, I think I see what happened. The game expects you to get the first bomb bag in the prison, but one of the quests in the town gives a discount on bomb bags, allowing access to bombs early. So because I wanted to do everything I could in Millton at the start, I had bombs early. Should probably plot gate that bomb shop quest to after the prison escape.

Edited by Moosh, 29 March 2022 - 06:13 PM.

[Twilight Knight]

Small bug I've run into, the cave in the graveyard that you can bomb open in Millton gets you stuck in a wall where you have to F6 out. I've really been enjoying the demo so far. You've really polished up the original while maintaining that nostalgic early 2.50 feel. 

 

And another bomb wall in the prison went out of bounds. Wondering, did you link the wrong build?

 

Okay, I think I see what happened. The game expects you to get the first bomb bag in the prison, but one of the quests in the town gives a discount on bomb bags, allowing access to bombs early. So because I wanted to do everything I could in Millton at the start, I had bombs early. Should probably plot gate that bomb shop quest to after the prison escape.

Thank you Moosh for the feedback!

Getting the bomb bag early should work and actually be beneficial, but I probably made a mistake somewhere. I will look into it!

[DarkFlameSheep]

I enjoy playing this demo. When only the buying sword and shield quest and the Mushroom quest, opening Quest Log sometimes seems to freeze gameplay.

[ZachAttack20192001]

OK so I made it to world 1 of the quest. Saving in the first screen of world 1 took me to the Entrance of the Lair instead of putting me back at the entrance of world 1. Not sure if intended or not?

 

I've run into a bug and have a recommendation (screenshots I sent to you on Discord can't figure out how to post them here):

 

Bug: When I approached the 4 crystal door, I opened the quest menu and talked to the door somehow at the same time. Not entirely sure I can replicate but it froze my game to the point I had to f6 continue.

 

Recommendation: if you reenter the sewers, maybe only have the key block text appear the first time going through the sewers? I think there's a way to do that but I'm not familiar with the ZC creator so I could be wrong

 

I'm really enjoying this so far!

[Twilight Knight]

Thanks everyone for the reports and I'm very glad you are enjoying the demo!
 

Small bug I've run into, the cave in the graveyard that you can bomb open in Millton gets you stuck in a wall where you have to F6 out.

I fixed this. I was messing with the Screen State Carryovers and broke it just before releasing the demo, pretty dumb
 

The game expects you to get the first bomb bag in the prison, but one of the quests in the town gives a discount on bomb bags, allowing access to bombs early. So because I wanted to do everything I could in Millton at the start, I had bombs early. Should probably plot gate that bomb shop quest to after the prison escape.

 I fixed this as well. Simply placed a guard in front of that wall. Thought I covered this scenario way back (more than a year ago), but appears I didn't
 

I enjoy playing this demo. When only the buying sword and shield quest and the Mushroom quest, opening Quest Log sometimes seems to freeze gameplay.

 Thanks a lot DFS. I sadly am unable to reproduce the bug you are experiencing. Do you mean these quests?


 

OK so I made it to world 1 of the quest. Saving in the first screen of world 1 took me to the Entrance of the Lair instead of putting me back at the entrance of world 1. Not sure if intended or not?
 
I've run into a bug and have a recommendation (screenshots I sent to you on Discord can't figure out how to post them here):
 
Bug: When I approached the 4 crystal door, I opened the quest menu and talked to the door somehow at the same time. Not entirely sure I can replicate but it froze my game to the point I had to f6 continue.
 
Recommendation: if you reenter the sewers, maybe only have the key block text appear the first time going through the sewers? I think there's a way to do that but I'm not familiar with the ZC creator so I could be wrong
 
I'm really enjoying this so far!

Thank you Zach, I'm glad you are enjoying the demo. And thanks for reporting these issues.

You are indeed supposed to respawn in Argon's Lair instead of W1 after saving. This is because of technical limitations really, I'd have to set a continue point in W1 and then you'd always warp there when you continue. Which can be abused for fast travel or can be perceived annoying when it respawns you even further from where you died. Though there might be a way to achieve it with scripting, I figured the small walk wouldn't be too bad after saving.

Concerning the Crystal Door I'm not too sure what is happening here, but I will try to reproduce and fix it.

However the thing with the sewers I gave some priority. For those interested, I didn't know Screen->D[] variables were Dmap specific also. When you re-enter the sewers you spawn in a different Dmap. That is why the message appears twice.
Thanks for this report, nobody noticed it so far, while that message was there for more than a year already.

Edited by Twilight Knight, 05 April 2022 - 06:42 AM.

[DarkFlameSheep]

Yes, these quests. I surely encountered freezing gameplay by opening Quest Log but I can't understand the details. I will try to reproduce it, too.

[Moosh]

Played up through the end of Fracture Nest now. I didn't get nearly as lost this time as I did in the original, but I still got plenty lost. The miniboss was a fun little surprise, though his hitbox is ridiculously large compared to his sprite and I'd recommend trimming it down some. I struggled a lot against the boss because of his sheer HP scale. I don't know if he could do to lose any, though. Everything feels pretty well balanced, it's just a longer fight. Perhaps the first phase could do with one less damage cycle.

 

At this point I'm noticing a trend that I'm finding a little worrying. The progression flow going through worlds seems to go as follows: Enter new world -> Explore thoroughly and find I'm not able to do much of anything -> Beat dungeon -> Backtrack with the dungeon item to collect some of the Argon Crystals to unlock the next world. This is fine now that I understand the pattern and will be making a beeline for the dungeons, but it takes a bit of fun out of the first time exploration. I imagine you introduced this crystal collection system to have more Banjo Kazooie like stuff in the quest, but I feel the collect-a-thon elements are being undermined by the linearity of the lair. I rather miss the kingdom flags from the original version which were devilish to hunt down and required careful scouring and observation of the worlds, but also were completely optional.

 

Now onwards to the grayscale field. Oh man, this place sure got a glow up since the original.

[Twilight Knight]

Yes, these quests. I surely encountered freezing gameplay by opening Quest Log but I can't understand the details. I will try to reproduce it, too.

Thank you DFS, that would be much appreciated. I will try it some more as well.
 

Played up through the end of Fracture Nest now. I didn't get nearly as lost this time as I did in the original, but I still got plenty lost. The miniboss was a fun little surprise, though his hitbox is ridiculously large compared to his sprite and I'd recommend trimming it down some. I struggled a lot against the boss because of his sheer HP scale. I don't know if he could do to lose any, though. Everything feels pretty well balanced, it's just a longer fight. Perhaps the first phase could do with one less damage cycle.

I was thinking the same actually, reduce the damage cycle of the first phase. I want the boss fights to gradually become more difficult, but Thundercracker is perhaps a bit too difficult for level 2.
 

At this point I'm noticing a trend that I'm finding a little worrying. The progression flow going through worlds seems to go as follows: Enter new world -> Explore thoroughly and find I'm not able to do much of anything -> Beat dungeon -> Backtrack with the dungeon item to collect some of the Argon Crystals to unlock the next world. This is fine now that I understand the pattern and will be making a beeline for the dungeons, but it takes a bit of fun out of the first time exploration. I imagine you introduced this crystal collection system to have more Banjo Kazooie like stuff in the quest, but I feel the collect-a-thon elements are being undermined by the linearity of the lair. I rather miss the kingdom flags from the original version which were devilish to hunt down and required careful scouring and observation of the worlds, but also were completely optional.

Yeah, I was struggling a bit with this. I don't want the player to get too many Argon Crystals without having items, but I also don't want to force the player to necessarily do the dungeons first. This is something I already improved a bit in world 3 and world 4 (the latter is not in the demo), but I will try to make more Argon Crystals not require an item in world 1 & 2.

But I also must prevent from players being able to progress too quickly. I've got a matrix for that, so with a bit of puzzling it should be manageable. I think improving this will also reduce the linearity, I want to encourage players to visit worlds out of order.

Regarding the flags: I have kinda replaced them with the Void Charms. The Argon Crystals are mandatory and easier to find than flags, but Void Charms are completely optional and very hard to find (most of them).

 

Now onwards to the grayscale field. Oh man, this place sure got a glow up since the original.

Certainly, I hope you'll like it 

[Moosh]

Yeah, I was struggling a bit with this. I don't want the player to get too many Argon Crystals without having items, but I also don't want to force the player to necessarily do the dungeons first. This is something I already improved a bit in world 3 and world 4 (the latter is not in the demo), but I will try to make more Argon Crystals not require an item in world 1 & 2.

But I also must prevent from players being able to progress too quickly. I've got a matrix for that, so with a bit of puzzling it should be manageable. I think improving this will also reduce the linearity, I want to encourage players to visit worlds out of order.

Regarding the flags: I have kinda replaced them with the Void Charms. The Argon Crystals are mandatory and easier to find than flags, but Void Charms are completely optional and very hard to find (most of them).

This makes sense. Collect-a-thon management can be tricky, but I'm definitely rooting for NTAEL to succeed at it in the end. If nothing else because the animation when opening the doors in the lair is super satisfying. 

 

Void Charms I kinda forgot about when thinking of the flags. They do fill a similar role, though gathering 100 of them for the first reward tier seems rather daunting. I can't imagine it's possible to get in the demo, but they're neat, provided the prizes are worth it. One small thing similar to the Argon Crystals, I'm noticing a lot of the Void Charms embedded in statues require an item I don't have. Assuming that's the arrows, but...My sword should be able to poke them out just fine. Just an annoying case of video game logic.

[DarkFlameSheep]

Spoiler

Opening Quest Log sometimes causes freezing gameplay on my PC. I use a DUALSHOCK for PS1 with a converter.

 

[Edit] With 1.1 I didn't encounter this bug yet. This bug was already fixed with 1.1?

Edited by DarkFlameSheep, 31 March 2022 - 11:16 AM.

[Twilight Knight]

This makes sense. Collect-a-thon management can be tricky, but I'm definitely rooting for NTAEL to succeed at it in the end. If nothing else because the animation when opening the doors in the lair is super satisfying. 

 

Void Charms I kinda forgot about when thinking of the flags. They do fill a similar role, though gathering 100 of them for the first reward tier seems rather daunting. I can't imagine it's possible to get in the demo, but they're neat, provided the prizes are worth it. One small thing similar to the Argon Crystals, I'm noticing a lot of the Void Charms embedded in statues require an item I don't have. Assuming that's the arrows, but...My sword should be able to poke them out just fine. Just an annoying case of video game logic.

Thanks a lot Moosh, and I'm glad you like the door animations :-)

Collecting that many Void Charms is not possible in the demo. They are a bit work in progress, I was thinking of adding even more rewards. And I was thinking of making a "Void Charm finder", like there is an item in BotW to be able to easily find Korok Seeds. (there's the inspiration btw, but don't worry the final reward won't be golden poo)

 

Regarding some these statues for example... no, only an arrow is small enough to notch the charm out of the statue eye    

 

Spoiler

Opening Quest Log sometimes causes freezing gameplay on my PC. I use a DUALSHOCK for PS1 with a converter.

 

[Edit] With 1.1 I didn't encounter this bug yet. This bug was already fixed with 1.1?

Thanks DFS for the video. I did not change anything to the quest log in 1.1 I don't believe... But I will check it out if I can reproduce it or find any bugs in code. It might be impossible for me to discover what the actual problem is.

[Twilight Knight]

I've made another update to the demo containing fixes for everything reported to me so far, except for the more freeform-ness in the overworlds as Moosh suggested here the topic (that will happen in the full quest I think).

Fixes

• Abram's quest reward fixed
• Boss hitboxes fixed (I didn't know Ghost_Transform resets the offsets)
• Thundercracker nerfed a little bit
• Can no longer get stuck jumping across some water
• Fixed being able to avoid Argon's welcome speech
• Added snowy footprints in the snowy Argon's Lair area
• Improved the snowy footprints GFX
• Fixed being able to talk to an Argon Crystal door while having the quest log open

Please download the update here: https://www.purezc.n...wnloads&id=1051

Edited by Twilight Knight, 10 April 2022 - 03:39 PM.

[Shane]

Weird bug, but when I open the quest log while walking, when I move around in the log, I hear walking sound effects. 

 

Other than that, I made it up to World 1... I'm really loving this remake so far!

[Moosh]

Forgot to make a post here when I actually beat the demo a couple days ago. World 3 was great, easily the best one in the demo. It's very different feel from the original, a little less striking a bit easier on the eyes, and a lot more alive. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the next few few worlds. Especially 4 and 6 which were two of my favorites but felt like they were missing some of their potential in the original. This new quest system really adds a lot to the more densely inhabited worlds. I'm excited to see the lore on those two expanded on like you did here.