Background:
So. I'm new. As in, my issue is weird to define and I need this slowed down to a For Dummies level because I'm only here to have a game I wanted to play but didn't exist, so I just randomly decided to make it like I did my music album and novella book I wrote. My gf said I needed another hobby, I wanted this game, used to play Zelda fan quests, and suddenly here we are. There's no real step by step guide on every subject related to ZQuest/ Zelda Classic, so I've just been winging it. I understand the first program was Zelda Classic, ZQuest became the editor made available for it, I used a tutorial I found to make a custom quest, read Alphadawg's guide, read every wiki page related to topics I could find, when I Google "ZQuest" and whatever topic, many of them appear on some Armageddon Games site and I think maybe they originally hosted the program or something, clever workarounds within the system limitations seem to have so far near unlimited capabilities, especially when using scripting, which I got working by copying and pasting a notepad document and fooling around until I figured out how to set up a Free Form Combo Script for an Item Bundler with a bonus effect of triggering messages upon item reception, which I figured out a few weeks ago after a year and a half of working on this using shops, figured out a system of icon items that upon collection or use give you a specific tile page's sprite and developed a 22 item system of invisibly received and removed LTM items to grant so far 102 playable characters in an expansive world, but there are still some things I don't understand about this site, system limitations, and core system issues I'm having. My beta is mostly solid now as of yesterday, and I can take my time to really understand my gaps in knowledge. I've fumbled around this site quite a bit, but I'm never really sure I'm writing in the right place or asking the right questions as I don't really feel initiated into this process in a thorough way. Following are my issues, and I apologize for being unable to adequately define them, I've seen programmers telling people to "just" learn writing scripts while casually throwing around terms like "boolean" or whatever. The sum of my experience programming is typing \16\ and \17\ in message strings which I only figured out a couple weeks ago, and typing numbers in boxes to make a turtle move on a large computer monitor when I was 8 years old in 1992.
Issues:
1 When I use Full Screen the window flashes blue with static. NO idea what that's about, if it's a system issue, if I don't know how to use Windows 10 yet, etc.
What can I do?
2 I've seen tile sets exist in SNES quality with like 4 times the pixels or whatever. That's neat, my X-Men look like stick figures. On what page on what site can I find an explanation on how to change that system limitation or learn the skills to do so if under 40 hours of hardcore effort?
3 I've seen importing tile sets is a thing, but the two times I've tried it didn't work with the tutorial(s) I used, not that I have much desire for it. It's only worth it to me so I can try to add more PAGES of graphics tiles and significantly increase the number of playable characters and enemies, since I suspect that related feature should be easily possible and highly desired. Is that a thing (and where can I read up on it), and if not, is it possible somehow so I can add future games to this game (connected in-game by interdimensional warps) instead of making sequel games? I'm trying to plan out 70% of my hobby time for the next 5 years, so ANY help hypothesizing ways of increasing the number of tile pages would be of immense help to me.
4 On a related note, is it possible within the mechanics of this system or scripting to increase the number of available item slots like you would number of message strings or DMaps? I don't like having to use screen messages to change characters just because I ran out of character items to place on the screen.
5 Is it physically possible to port a quest for playability on an Android? I would imagine a Windows emulator could theoretically do it, but I've never found one that works. Shouldn't there be a simple program to convert information between programming languages for different systems directly? Maybe not for all of them in one program, but shouldn't there already be a simple and established method for programming people to just type up a conversion program in a few hours? I mean, pinch zoom and a finger mouse could work fine for editing, but I want to take my X-Men game on the subway or to a beach or waiting room without a laptop. I want to play this game 90% of the time I play any video game for the rest of my life. Point me in the direction I need to go to learn this shit or pay some programmer in the future to have this, and how much would I have to pay to cover a project of that scope from some random programmer?
6 Suggestion: Quick-link buttons between commonly paired areas of the program, i.e. Item Editor can open message strings and vice versa. Best possible implementation I can think of would be a rearrangable double-decker 'tabs' view of the program so you can just pull up the few areas you're working in to the top row of tabs and navigate back and forth with a single click each.
7 I don't understand why other people aren't using this program to make every kind of top-down view or side-scroller possible. Lack of advertising, or is there a better program elsewhere for general game development?
8 Is there a 3-D version of ZQuest or something similar anywhere?
9 Is it possible to mimic a 3D environment using ZQuest? I imagine left and right keys warping between DMaps to rotate your body left or right and forward and reverse working normally could
10 Is there something like ZQuest I can use to make an X-Men version of Final Fantasy Tactics? I don't even know that terms to Google for that. My question better phrased, is it possible to use ZQuest to create a Final Fantasy Tactics game complete with turn orders and enemy potion use during battles? If possible, I'd like to have 2 games, this being the other. My two favorite styles, favorite subjects, custom music, custom everything.
Thanks for hearing me out, sorry if this isn't the right place for this.
Edited by Thunderfist, 27 October 2019 - 11:24 PM.