The problem id have with referencing anything is that everything ive seen (so far) has been on the lighter side, which is ok. As I said a barebones skeleton look for a project just to work with game ideas and mechanics would serve just as well so no definitive direction is really needed right now (unless someone comes along that actually has the talent to make it) so all i can really relay (in reference to this community and its assets) is just an overall "darker" look. I saw some graveyard tilesets and decrepit forests/dungeons ones before but I dont remember where I saw them but they were for sure ZC assets.
Yeah, I was getting more at general art styles when I said "referencing" - things like amount of colors, shading method, level of detail, saturation, perspective, and so on. Brightness is a quick adjustment after all that.
I know a few tilesets (or loose tile collections) offhand that have the things you're talking about. Not sure how well they'd all combine though.
As for scrolling, screen by screen is fine with me, but scrolling would make for better boss fight potential and bigger sprites, not to mention works better with the idea of area affect like item-spells.
That's true, but even among the most stubborn ZC supporters, the point eventually comes where we have to admit you're best off looking at another program if you
really want a specific feature that's so far outside its base scope, and scrolling is one of those few instances.
Stamina and Magic bars being separate is a possibility, but one workaround idea I had with that is that stamina (magic bar) correlating to attacks and dodge rolling (if it can be done) and magic affecting the actual vitality of a player, kindof a high risk high reward kind of mechanic, the worlds story idea has to do with souls much like in the dark souls series only souls not only benefit the player to increase stats (or in this case hearts, and certain equipment level ups) but benefit the player my increasing their vitality (hearts or hit points if it can be done that way) to actually use and cast the item-spells.
As of the ZC 2.55 alphas, you can give items a Life cost (part of a new drop-down "cost" selection menu) instead of just magic cost, so you could have both magic-as-stamina items alongside items that drain vitality/health. I would suggest using those with extreme caution though.
In fact, 2.55 allows up to 25 "Custom" cost categories, so you could likely use those for new kinds of meters. The problem is getting them to show up in the subscreen. I'm not even sure support for displaying such custom meters there has been added yet, so repurposing existing systems is still your best bet. For example, in the event you were going to do away with the money system and the shops that come with it, even 2.53 has a checkbox for "use rupees instead of magic."
I even had the idea to replace scrolling boss fight scenario with screen transitions acting as boss "phases" in some way. Let me ask you this, is there a way to load multiple quest projects at the same time? Like lets say I have 3 loaded in tandem. First one plays through and acts as its own "cinematic" data set, then moves into actual game content, and then the third would be like end game choice different from another game choice to play out an ending. I know know there is limits to how much data and map you can make in one project, unless im mistaken.
Loading multiple quests really isn't a thing. Think of this like a Doom engine that can only load IWADs, not PWADs, if that's what you were getting at.
Screen-transition bosses were a big thing back in the 2.10 days, but 2.5's scripting system largely negated those. It's still possible to do them, but since they were generally done with combos and item triggers instead of actual enemies, the bosses weren't much more lively than Doom 2's Icon of Sin.
For the music stuff, in my discord ive turned off repeated notifications so if you happen to join up i dont think it would overwhelm you, youd just have to check in to see if some new stuff is posted but id make just a music section to talk about tutorials and stuff, id show you some any way you want anyway, be it thru DM here or there, whatever works for you, and in response to how much youd help, ANY amount would be fine. Ill take what I can get.
Yeah you know what, just send me the Discord link. I'd completely forgotten what a pain it was writing long-assed posts like these.
It's not a matter of program sounds - people can enable or disable those on their end. It's just that there's already servers I lose track of for weeks, if not months, at a time. So as long as you're aware that's my level of "commitment" and don't mind, we're good.