In this project, I am taking care of one of my most wanted features in Zelda Classic - an advanced event system that controls most aspects of a quest (based on something like this) - and implementing it into my quest. Having to make duplicate screens with elaborate carryover warps to ensure they are single-time events always felt clunky and don't cover all parts of a quest and usually only cover one screen.
However this time around, things are different. Rather than clunky screen carryover warps and the likes that often take multiple screens to complete and other editor hacks, breaking the immersion, these events will be handled by a global array and a set of special scripts that access this array. This will improve the event system, giving me almost unlimited control over how the events influence the quest just from the one screen.
The transition from gameplay to on-screen events (ie. "cutscenes" that play out on the screen) almost feel like as if they are done in the GBC Zelda games. Remember how Link helped Impa to push a rock aside at the start of Oracle of Ages or the moment when Din got kidnapped by General Onox in Oracle of Seasons? That's what the on-screen events in this quest feel like.The first screenshot shown on the project page shows an example of this type of on-screen event.
Here's a list of just some of the things I can do with this event system, all from a single screen:
- Initiate entire multi-screen cutscenes.
- Play conditional, one time only strings.
- Trigger screen secrets on a large scale.
- Change the strings some of the NPCs say if you buy something.
- Fully integrated DMap changes.
- Change Enemy spawns during the quest.
With this system, gone are the days of using multiple screens to carry out cutscenes or wide-ranging effects, something which can easily break the immersion of the gameplay. I want everything relating to events to be directly integrated into the gameplay on the fly and for the player to feel this effect as they play the quest.
This is the second major selling point of this quest but is the last I wish to introduce in this introduction. That said, this is not the last update I have up my sleeves right now. However, the content for the next update is still an early work in progress, too early to show in an update.
Watch out for Screenshot: Challenge Accepted 47 - I will be featuring a screen from this quest in my submission, one that will be leading into my next update.
