428 replies to this topic

[OkamiTakahashi]

Splendid! Now I have a hankering to replay this game; even if I don't end up completing this second playthrough. I've also been spreading the word about the quest to friends irl and recommending it to them of course.

 

Edit: Started my second playthrough; but got lazy, so I activated Averted Ambush mode. Having a blast! Even though I'm starting to die a lot more than my first playthrough cuz I was exploring Hyrule. Also using the custom song slots, although one isn't working with one of my tracks; the ogg works fine.

Edited by OkamiTakahashi, 10 November 2017 - 09:44 AM.

[Kapow]

Updated the map for v1.4

 

No more bugged items! I mostly went off the changelog and the map view in ZQuest, so let me know if I missed anything.

Edited by Kapow, 03 December 2017 - 04:28 PM.

[C-Dawg]

"Legacy of the Wizard 2" -

I'm pretty sure I can imagine how to script everything from that game. I also have some odd ideas bout mixing in some elements from Maze of Galious, Adventures of Lolo, and Solomon's Key, but we'll see.
Likeliness:
Comparable to the DQ idea, but I'm not sure.
State of development:
All I have for it is notes and ideas.

 

This is doable. In fact, it's probably borderline trivial, except for getting the left-right scrolling to work -- and you've already sauced that problem. I loved Legacy of the Wizard and I'd love to see another game in the same vein. Particularly if your concept is to avoid the truly terrible glove-based block puzzles and replace them with more sensible Lolo or Fire//Ice style block puzzles! That glove mechanic is the one big glaring turd in an otherwise awesome game.

 

Hit me up if you ever want assistance with coding (assuming you do some level of version control and have stuff segregated into different files) or graphics if you go this route. 

[vravelo]

This is doable. In fact, it's probably borderline trivial, except for getting the left-right scrolling to work -- and you've already sauced that problem. I loved Legacy of the Wizard and I'd love to see another game in the same vein. Particularly if your concept is to avoid the truly terrible glove-based block puzzles and replace them with more sensible Lolo or Fire//Ice style block puzzles! That glove mechanic is the one big glaring turd in an otherwise awesome game.

 

Hit me up if you ever want assistance with coding (assuming you do some level of version control and have stuff segregated into different files) or graphics if you go this route. 

hi Dawg... you may happen to have any copy of -- Sabotage Dragon..? or any link to get it?? lost mine and can't get it around..... thnaks

[ShadowTiger]

hi Dawg... you may happen to have any copy of -- Sabotage Dragon..? or any link to get it?? lost mine and can't get it around..... thnaks

An entirely out of context quote appearing in the wrong location. That's fine. I could PM it to vravelo, but I'd still have to leave a post here that lets C-Dawg know that it's been handled, so I may as well just post it here. :tard:

https://www.dropbox....Latest.qst?dl=0

============================

To re-enter the world of necessary relevance, albeit with only the tiniest of additions, I can very gladly agree that Legacy of the Wizard had an abundance of strengths that would encourage taking many of its core concepts and building something spectacular out of them. I'm a really big fan of things like wall-jumping/climbing, double jumps, running faster (At the possible expense of stamina) and so on.

I'm still at war with myself when it comes to feature bloat. Lost Isle had very minimal items and equipment, and a low quantity of dungeons and areas to explore, though their quality was through the roof. Then there are quests (Or other content, like the "Aeons of Death" Mod for Doom 2) that adds an absurd amount of content and throws the concept of "balance" in the garbage.

Then there's Panoply of Calatia that has an insane amount of content AND balances everything beautifully to the point where nothing is truly overpowered enough to remove fun. Is there feature bloat in Panoply of Calatia? I can't say for certain that there is. I wouldn't even try.

So, at what point should people say "the more gameplay mechanics there are, the worse the game is?" Perhaps it depends on the author of the content. I wouldn't be too quick to judge harshly.

[Mitsukara]

'Legacy of the Wizard 2' is still bouncing around in my brain, but I haven't gotten much done yet. The latest ZC things I've poked at were my expo demo Ocean Sailing thing, and messing around with notes and importing/adjusting tiles for that FFVI idea I mentioned in the same list (in addition to still working on that one Sailor Moon fanfic/fancomic, and stuff for my original comic. But FFVI has been on my mind again lately; MeleeWizard is partially to blame/thank).

 

Messing around with FFVI tiles:

Spoiler

 

We'll see if I actually do any of these things properly as time goes on though, sorry if I'm pretty slow about getting anything new done. That said, I do think (at the moment) that I'd rather finish at least one of these smaller projects before trying to tackle Memory of Koholint (which is still on track for that 2082 release).

 

In spite of what my expo demo may suggest, I wouldn't exactly say I've got the ZC scrolling issue 'sauced'- I'd probably want to still use some plain, non-scrolling areas for various mechanics, but I pretty much know how to make fancy scrolling hallways with solidity. I may still need to figure some things out for handling sideview gravity correctly in said rooms (LaZPoC's scrolling screens weren't real scrolling, which is why they were flat, but I've since figured out overhead true solidity-checking scrolling), but that doesn't sound too hard compared to the rest of it.

 

Of course, for LOTW you could also go the MSX2 version's route and eschew scrolling entirely... but I'd probably do a mix of the two styles.

 

If it happens, I think I would try to redesign Xemn's glove a bit. Not completely abandon the concept, but definitely handle it differently than they did- the controls were what really killed it, that business with it remembering your last input but shoving the block as you held the button. That, and the mid-air pushing was kinda clunky and weird in certain ways. I would also definitely want to rethink Meyna's... um... hook thingy. The one that makes blocks bounce left and right super fast and basically unavoidably hit the player. I'd go so far as to say that was an even worse mechanic the way it was handled.

 

Also, I think I already said this, but anyone is welcome to use any of those fangame ideas I mentioned, so if you want to try making a scripted Legacy of the Wizard sequel yourself, I'd love to see how it turns out ^^ I think there's room for multiple projects like that. I'll also think about your offer of collaboration, but I want to get some other things in my life a bit more under control (housing situation, new budgetary developments, that kinda stuff) before I commit to trying something like that. And I probably have some more solo stuff I'll mess around with before I come asking anyone about stuff like that- I don't like to ask for help making something until I already have something to offer. That's why LaZPoC started beta-testing about 4/5 of the way into development XD

 

I'm still at war with myself when it comes to feature bloat

 

Then there's Panoply of Calatia

That's some high praise, thanks! Basically, my policy was to throw in the kitchen sink- anything interesting I could think up and successfully script- but, I tried to make sure that each new thing:

• was significantly distinct from the other items (that's part of why I left out ordinary bombs, for instance)
• had at least one unique function that's relevant to the game (but preferably you can use it several times in different ways, spread through the game so the ability stays relevant)
• had some consistent/clear limitations to prevent certain items from overpowering others (though I fell back on 'block all' blocks a lot for convenience and simplicity)
• was introduced in an order that semi-linearly limits things, so the really crazy stuff is later on. (If I put the Climbing Rope or the L-2 Beetle in an earlier Calatia Dungeon, you could pretty much navigate anywhere unfettered, which would've eliminated certain kinds of puzzle).

I didn't really want to make the game hard per se- there's a ton of ways to recover health, the enemies aren't all that numerous and severe early on, you have more ways of fighting them than usual, and so on- but I wanted to make sure it was complicated. So the main things that trip you up are figuring out the puzzles and keeping track of all your options (or experimenting enough if you can't think of a solution offhand). There's also the key shop and item exploits (be it weird expected solutions like the things the L-2 Bettle can move, intentional exploits like the flying ladder, or unintended but knowingly included exploits like the 'wallhack waltz' with the hookshot/switch hook) for anything that doesn't cover.

 

Plus I tried to include enough guide information that you could look up solutions, in case my ideas were too unintuitive (like the wind's whistle in the Tower of Seline). Basically, the difficulty is meant to be entirely up to the player, but even then it's never really simple...

 

I also tried to mostly avoid letting any item make other items truly obsolete. Like how the raft sail and water boots are in the same dungeon, because while the water boots override the original purpose of the raft, you now need the raft to deal with rocks, and waterfalls and it can go faster than just walking if you use it right, and then later you also need the anchor for the raft to deal with wind puzzles. That's also the reason why the ladder gets you up walls that jumping (or even flying) doesn't, even though that kind of doesn't make much sense realistically.

 

I also wanted to make sure stuff that was built into Zelda 1 had major new functions instead of just being the vanilla versions. I might've gone a little overboard trying to think up ways to make the bait more useful/needed for a certain puzzle, though, which is why I nerfed one certain puzzle with a more obvious hint in 1.4.

 

Speaking of 1.4, it seems I've introduced at least one bug, because I forgot to un-add that new cave in Marui swamp. All it does currently is go to the same place as the stairs a screen to the west- I was going to add an NPC with a hint there and decided against it, but apparently forgot to remove the cave. Oops. Let's see how long I can put off 1.5 : P

 

But basically, planning the progression of every new ability for a game on a little sketchy flowchart or map (accounting for possible branches if you've got a non-linear order) goes a long way towards structuring the game around them, and adjust the chart around to fit what you want it to do as development goes on. Even just a simple MSpaint doodle with some words and some lines can be a big help, so that's my #1 piece of advice.

 

EDIT: Just noticed I typed "#!" and had no period, on the last sentence.

Edited by Mitsukara, 21 December 2017 - 10:24 AM.

[ywkls]

for that FFVI idea I mentioned in the same list (in addition to still working on that one Sailor Moon fanfic/fancomic, and stuff for my original comic. But FFVI has been on my mind again lately; MeleeWizard is partially to blame/thank).

Are you just doing character tiles; or have you gotten any of the ones for the world/towns/caves/etc. done yet?

The reason why I ask is because I've been trying to do this sort of thing myself for a while; but I keep getting stuck on how to properly import them and set them up as combos in a way which actually makes sense.

 

Another thing I was curious about is whether or not you had any sort of plot in mind. I have a project of my own here on PureZC (entitled Eternal Elegy) which is an attempt to translate a number of ideas from various sources into a true RPG in ZC.

I haven't gotten must past the scripting stage due to the tile and combo issue that I mentioned before.

 

If you'd like any assistance or would be willing to share your ideas or work so far; please let me know.

[Mitsukara]

Are you just doing character tiles; or have you gotten any of the ones for the world/towns/caves/etc. done yet?

Unfortunately, not yet. My general plan was to avoid FFVI's convoluted map tiles entirely, and use the much more simplistic FFIV (and maybe a bit of FFV) ones. A lot of stuff in FFIV is divided into nice tidy 16xx16 blocks, whereas FFVI has realistic mountainsides crazy enough to compete with (and perhaps surpass?) LTTP's mountains of madness.

 

As you can probably tell from how blocky LaZPoC is, I really like to simplify my combo table's ease-of-use for the sake of my sanity (and the sake of getting anything done), and then when I needed something unusual I started piling such things sloppily at the end of table late in development (which is why LaZPoC's combo table gets so stupid towards the later pages).

 

Another thing I was curious about is whether or not you had any sort of plot in mind.

 

I do indeed, but I'm kinda winging it a little (I'm sorta wedging it into the canon in a clunky fanfictiony way- it would take place during a brief moment of the ending of FFVI, you see). Full synopsis (written in blunt description here, not as prose):

 

WARNING: Major  FFVI spoilers.

Spoiler

The game would probably open with Maduin's last line to Terra, when magic is fading from the world and the espers/magicite are all going to disappear, and he says she might be able to live as a regular human if she can find something in this world to hold onto.

 

As the Falcon escapes Kefka's crumbling tower, Terra, in her esper form, is flying to guide them out. As in the game, she falls, and the Falcon swoops down to catch her... but unlike the game, the camera cuts to Terra as she's falling. She's switching rapidly back and forth between human and esper form and shuddering, and then there's a flash/blackout.

 

Terra wakes up in the Cleft of Dimension (I was planning to use the FFV tiles for the final area, with the blue crystally cliff areas). That area, albeit known by different things in different translations, seems to be sort of an in-between between worlds in this setting. I don't intend to use it for crossover purposes- I'm thinking of sticking to FFVI characters here- but I figured it makes sense as a place she could fall and that would allow me all sorts of random simplistic settings to explore, for dungeons and caves and a pseudo-overworld and so on.

 

Basically, Terra is in mid-split, her Esper half and human half both imperiled, so she can still Morph in this game.

 

As she explores, she finds out that the dead Espers are all here too, as the magicite is sort of 'hatching' into them. I was thinking of having Ramuh deliver some more exposition about how this is part of their reincarnation cycle to be reborn in some other new world. Terra must've been pulled in because her own Esper half is trying to do the same- but her human half still wants to return to life in the world she knew, and is worried about the kids back in Molbliz (and her other friends).

 

At the same time, the Phantom Train has derailed and crashed into the Cleft of Dimensions, because someone aboard was being extremely uncooperative, and the damage to the world by Kefka didn't help. It turns out that Emperor Gestahl has escaped that Phantom Train and is making a new bid to take the power of the espers here in the Cleft of Dimensions, and he's essentially the final boss and main antagonist. As such, the half-controlled espers will attack Terra and she has to try to battle them to the point of breaking Gestahl's contol over them, so they're basically the bosses. They also help her afterwards, probably as summons.

 

But Emperor Gestahl is not the only human back from the dead. For one thing, Vicks/Biggs and Wedge have been lost in this place ever since the opening scene of FFVI (oops). Maduin, being an esper, would probably have a relevant appearance.

 

Banon's ghost would probably appear (revealing he died in the destruction of Vector during the apocalypse) and he would basically do the 'old advice man' Zelda schtick like Abei. And possibly provide healing spots like a fairy pond, since he had that one ability, but I think I would also want to incorporate tents somehow for that sort of thing.

 

And then, of course, there's General Leo. He died around the same time so I figure he was on the train when Gestahl crashed it. He's still torn about his loyalty to the (now fallen) Empire, but he is disturbed by Gestahl's plans and Gestahl doesn't trust him, especially since Gestahl now sees Terra as a threat and a liability and wants her dead, so Leo properly defects and joins Terra as a playable character.

 

There might be an optional side quest where Terra finds out about what Shadow did during the ending (when he intentionally stayed behind to commit suicide), and is horrified- but because of the way he was crushed, he's only half dead and sort of only here as a transparent ghost. If she completes the side quest she can convince him to try to go back, to try to climb from the wreckage and confess his history to Relm, but if she fails or doesn't complete this quest, he departs for the afterlife at the end.

 

I also have a sketchier, more recent addition to these ideas, because I kept really wanting to include Celes in some capacity as she's a favorite of mine and very centric to FFVI. And then I started thinking up proper mechanics for her. So my idea for Celes' involvement is, because she was infused with magitek, she's also getting pulled along to the Esper world even though she is not an Esper (because she essentially has too much extracted essence of espers inside her). She definitely needs to go back to her world though, because she'll die if she stays here (among other reasons).

 

At least, that's the gist of what I've thought up.

 

Oh, and for a working title I was toying with something along the lines of "Final Fantasy Adventure Trio: Terra's Descent". Or something. Titles are hard.

Ending details for the planned story follow:

Spoiler

In the end, Terra, Leo, and Celes free the espers from Gestahl, defeat him in a big battle (possibly involving the Warring Triad's resurrection, if they work sort of like the Espers do), Vicks and Wedge maybe turn on the emperor but one of them dies in the process (or something), and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe fight a bonus maybe-postgame extra boss (one guess who that would be).

 

After ending Gestahl's disruption, the Phantom Train is repaired, Celes vanishes back to her own world, and Terra begins to split. Terra's human half fades off back to her world (where she will be caught by the Falcon as in the FFVI ending- incidentally, Celes was laying on the deck unconscious from the impact of the swoop, so I think that could fit her part here), while Terra's Esper half remains behind.

 

As thanks from the Phantom Train's engineer for repairing the damage (or something?), Leo is able to go with Esper-Terra and the other Espers to be reborn in a new world. They fly off together, and that's the ending.

 

There might also be multiple endings, concerning that extra boss and whether Leo has to board the phantom train or not, and things like that.

 

I have a project of my own here on PureZC (entitled Eternal Elegy)

 

I've looked at that project page before (I remember you mentioning it in the Skype group a while back; speaking of which, still gotta get discord to work better, I haven't ditched you guys forever or anything like that) but I haven't seen your demos. I would certainly be curious to, as the sounds of it intrigues me. My first thought from the screenshots is that you seem to have already gotten a lot of town tiles done (I'm curious how difficult to use they were), but that your palettes/csets looked a little odd.

 

For the characters I've been doing, I imported the palette from an image by making an image which contained only the palette, then in the CSet editor I clicked and dragged to rearrange the colors within the csets as I saw fit, and then when I imported the tiles I used the 'Recolor' button to make them automatically use the right colors. It worked out pretty well, the only tedious part was aligning the sprites to the grid since the Spriter's Resource sheets are aligned kinda wonkily.

 

Have you ever released a demo of Eternal Elergy? I'd love to give it a look if you're up for sharing one.

 

I would be interested in working together on some of this at some point if you'd like to; or at the very least sharing notes. My concepts for mechanics for my FFVI 'interquel' are a bunch of sketchy notes; I'm not sure how much of this I'll actually do as the mechanics are all a bit shaky and honestly I don't want this to get TOO complicated. But here's some of the ideas I was toying with. I haven't scripted a single bit of this yet:

 

Spoiler

I was thinking of it being an action game with Zelda-like elements more than a proper RPG, but there would be a level up system and slightly less focus on items than LaZPoC (though spells, shock techniques, and runic techniques would fill similar functions).

I don't know about the separate/auto-fight kind of LaZPoC-y mechanics. I might reuse the same ideas, might remove or limit them, or might do new things in that direction. (I know for Memory of Kohoilnt my plan is to expand the previous system, not reduce it, though.)

I would want to keep this simpler than my Memory of Koholint plans, but I might still attempt a custom subscreen. I was toying with the idea of making a command menu where you could set the commands to buttons or select off the menu, for things like spells and whatever, rather than treating them as A/B equips. In that case I would also be using custom swords, as I want the melee weapons to be more diverse than what the vanilla sword can do. We'll see. (some of it might be useful for reusing in MoK later.)

I also was thinking of reusing my Ocean Sailing demo script, but with FF-style random encounters (you walk around for a while then automatically go into a battle.) The battles woudl be overhead. You could run away by holding a button at the screen edge for a while, but the battle screen edges would be initially set to Cancel Warp. You can change the sidewarp type with scripts, as I did for LaZPoC's Zelda II palace boss rooms.

I was also thinking HP and MP are tracked separately for each character, unlike LaZPoC where it's a shared pool, so the player will want to do a bit more resource management switching between them.

I don't know if the spells and abilities would be learned by level up, or just things you'd have to find like Zelda items, or maybe both.
 

Terra and Celes' only spells would be based on the ones they can learn themselves in FFVI, without magicite. It's a pretty conveniently diverse list and they only have three spells in common (Cure, Antdot/Antidote, and Pearl/Holy). I was also thinking about putting new variations on Celes' Runic and Leo's Shock to stand in for certain item abilities, and allowing Terra to fly later in the game a la the fairy spell.

 

I might skip some of the redundant spells/make them straight upgrades, or maybe leave out spells that don't make enough sense. I'm also considering having only Terra be able to summon the Espers collected after boss fights.

 

Here's part of what I wrote up in my notes...

 

-------Espers:

[List and mechanic ideas are WIP. Includes famous ones like Ramuh, Ifrit, Shiva, Bahamut, etc. Probably Maduin too.]

 

-------Everybody:

 

 Items:

• Superballs (consumable; this was actually in FFVI)
• Potions
• Ethers
• Fenix Downs
• etc.

- Equipment:

• Raft

• Certain swords/similar (I have a WIP list of weapons. A HP-based-damage Atma Weapon is definitely going to be included.)
• Relics system?

-------Terra:
Morph
Fly

- Magic:

• Cure
• Fire (Elemental puzzles)
• Antidote
• Drain (Drains HP from an enemy to your HP? Puzzles?)
• Life
• Fire 2
• Warp (Escape from dungeons/battles; maybe puzzle uses)
• Cure 2
• Dispel - Nullifies beneficial status (Maybe also detroys barriers or disables something that somebody else activates to toggle it?)
• Fire 3
• Life 2
• Pearl
• Break (Turns an enemy to stone; Petrification/depetrification puzzles)
• Quartr (Cuts some enemies's HP by 3/4)
• Merton/Meltdown (Targets all enemies and allies. Some way to resist? Need for puzzles? Or... I dunno)
• Ultima (Big high damage expensive thing)

- Unique equipment ideas:
Dragoon Boots (same as Celes)
Flails (weapons with special puzzle applications)


-------- Leo:
"X-Fight" - Leo attacks with four rapid strikes instead of one. This can make him slower / worse at dodging / more unwieldy, or better for clearing a bunch of enemies or obstacles at once. Certain bosses are vulnerable to all four hits instead of temp invincibility.

Not really sure how X-Fight would work in practice.

- Shock techniques:

• Shock - Creates a damaging pillar of energy. (This is based on the game, but a lot smaller.)
• Solid Shock - Pillar that remains for climbing like a resizeable Somaria block (charge up longer to make it bigger).
• Thundershock - Lightning blast (elemental puzzles).
• Shock Bomber - Angularly-tossed short fuse superbombs.
• Shock Blaster - Shoots a blast of energy (basically a long-range beam attack).
• Grappling Shock - Grappling Hook beam, would control a little like the Beetle but drag the player around after hooking on.
• Sonic Shockwave - vertical/horizontal waves bounce and trigger sound secrets.
• X-Shock - Four shock pillars converge, Leo's ultimate attack.

- Unique equipment ideas:
Boomerangs (from Locke)
Thief Knife (from Locke; the only way to steal)

Leo might have a 'Shock Energy' meter to limit his use of Shock, in place of MP.


                                                                                             
-------- Celes:

- Runic:

• Runic (Magic absorbing puzzles)
• Runic Reflection (Magic reflecting puzzles)
• Runic Reserve (Store enemy magic, then use it anywhere)
• Runic Remote (Places a runic point which attracts magic until time runs out.)

 

- Magic:

• Ice
• Cure
• Antdot
• Imp (enemy only? Magic powder?)
• Scan (Displays an enemy's HP/weak point; Reveal secrets?)
• Safe (Raises defense)
• Ice 2
• Haste (Speed up one person to run fast.)
• Muddle (Confuses enemy; puzzles?)
• Berserk (Enemy only version? No eweapon, boost damage?)
• Ice 3
• Vanish (Invisibility sneaking puzzles)
• Haste 2 (Speed up whole party for longer)
• Pearl
• Flare
• Meteor

- Unique equipment ideas:
Dragon Boots (same as Terra)
WIP

 

I have a few other ideas about the project but that's the gist of it.

 

EDIT: I was also thinking of having 'stamina meters' in the style of the active time battle meters (functionally similar to what Lejes did in his 'Monster' expo demo, which I think is in turn based on a mechanic in Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword), except each character would have their own meter, so it makes a lot of sense to switch between them constantly for attacks (if I had an auto-attack mechanic, I might make it work without using up the meter, too, to make it more useful) . To that end I was thinking of having L and R switch characters in the default button set-up (though I really like the idea of customizable buttons).I should obviously avoid an annoying character switching sound if I go that route.

 

Anyway, I'm also open to the idea of a true RPG, rather than this action puzzle RPG thing described above, but I'm not sure if I'd have the motivation to script the mechanics for one myself. Graphics design or story concepts, on the other hand, I could maybe swing for that.

Edited by Mitsukara, 21 December 2017 - 08:21 AM.

[ywkls]

Unfortunately, not yet. My general plan was to avoid FFVI's convoluted map tiles entirely, and use the much more simplistic FFIV (and maybe a bit of FFV) ones. A lot of stuff in FFIV is divided into nice tidy 16xx16 blocks, whereas FFVI has realistic mountainsides crazy enough to compete with (and perhaps surpass?) LTTP's mountains of madness.

One thing I've found easier to use (but haven't quite implemented yet) are the tiles from Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana.
I've found these considerably simpler to import than the ones from FFVi; so that might be something you could consider.
 
Nothing in the plot details that you quoted would necessarily interfere with the scheme that I had devised; so the two could definitely coexist.
 

I've looked at that project page before (I remember you mentioning it in the Skype group a while back; speaking of which, still gotta get discord to work better, I haven't ditched you guys forever or anything like that) but I haven't seen your demos. I would certainly be curious to, as the sounds of it intrigues me. My first thought from the screenshots is that you seem to have already gotten a lot of town tiles done (I'm curious how difficult to use they were), but that your palettes/csets looked a little odd.

I didn't think you had; I just know you've had problems with Discord.
I haven't released a demo in a while; mostly because of getting stuck a few places on the importing of tiles and the exact mechanics of some scripted elements.
Regarding the palettes; until recently, I had no idea how to create them in any way.
 
Here's a link to the state at which I had reached when I stopped working on this back in April 2017.
All I've gotten done at this point is a rudimentary party system. (My next intent was to work on attacks; but I got sidetracked by Metroid stuff.)
At least one variation on the party seems to bug out at times; but I can probably get that functional at some point.
 
Eternal Elegy- pre-development Demo
 

I would be interested in working together on some of this at some point if you'd like to; or at the very least sharing notes. My concepts for mechanics for my FFVI 'interquel' are a bunch of sketchy notes; I'm not sure how much of this I'll actually do as the mechanics are all a bit shaky and honestly I don't want this to get TOO complicated.

That sounds like an excellent idea, I have some good ideas of how I'd make the mechanics work.
Basically, each character would have some unique abilities that they could use on the normal map to solve puzzles and progress.
In battle; they'd have different styles that would require you to switch out who was with you at times in order to defeat monsters.
 

I was thinking of it being an action game with Zelda-like elements more than a proper RPG, but there would be a level up system and slightly less focus on items than LaZPoC (though spells, shock techniques, and runic techniques would fill similar functions).

I would want to keep this simpler than my Memory of Koholint plans, but I might still attempt a custom subscreen. I was toying with the idea of making a command menu where you could set the commands to buttons or select off the menu, for things like spells and whatever, rather than treating them as A/B equips. In that case I would also be using custom swords, as I want the melee weapons to be more diverse than what the vanilla sword can do. We'll see. (some of it might be useful for reusing in MoK later.)

I also was thinking of reusing my Ocean Sailing demo script, but with FF-style random encounters (you walk around for a while then automatically go into a battle.) The battles woudl be overhead. You could run away by holding a button at the screen edge for a while, but the battle screen edges would be initially set to Cancel Warp. You can change the sidewarp type with scripts, as I did for LaZPoC's Zelda II palace boss rooms.

I was also thinking HP and MP are tracked separately for each character, unlike LaZPoC where it's a shared pool, so the player will want to do a bit more resource management switching between them.

I don't know if the spells and abilities would be learned by level up, or just things you'd have to find like Zelda items, or maybe both.

I was planning a level up system; but hadn't quite gotten the mechanics working yet.
Some of what you have in mind (like custom scripted swords and the Mode 7-thing) are currently beyond my capabilities.
I do have it where that each character has a separate pool for HP and MP and it mostly functions.
(By that I mean that if a character dies; they can't move but you can still switch to another one. Abilities aren't done yet.)
 
In the original version of this; I had it where that abilities where learned at specific level up points. (Which is a system that most RPGs use.)
 
Abilities List

 

(Brandi = Terra, Henri = Sabin, Gary= Cyan; Kyle = Locke; Rhea = Celes; Fayn = New)

 

I hadn't quite worked out the mechanics of the "true RPG" style; so changing to your version might be easier.

 

I haven't completely nailed down the whole plot for this version yet; so I'll give you the FFVI-sequel version.

 

Potential FF6 spoilers

It has been a few years since the conclusion of the events of the original story.

Each of the various characters has gone one with their lives.

Sabin now acts as a guard-for-hire; courier who travels about helping those in need and carrying parcels through dangerous lands.

Celes has been appointed to be in charge of the defenses of the rebuilt city of Figaro and has gotten married to Locke.

Locke is a liaison between the throne and the normal people; using his ability to blend in to insure that he can gather information about the state of affairs in the world and make certain that the needs of the people are being met.

Cyan has learned of the possibility of reviving his family and has gone looking for that.

Terra is now the mayor of Mobliz; but remains alone.

Edgar has returned to rule Figaro; attempting to assist with the rebuilding of the world that Kefka nearly destroyed.

Setzer has established himself as the premier constructor of airships and has made a fortune supplying them to various areas.

Relm and Strago along with the other survivors from Thamasa have moved back to the mainland and begun establishing a new settlement.

Shadow may or may not be dead.

Gau has returned to oversee the Veldt and see that it remains pristine,

(Non-human characters like Mog, Umaro and Gogo weren't included.)

At the start of the story; Sabin is on his way to deliver a message for Edgar to Terra and encounters a wounded traveler nearby.

Taking him back to Mobliz; the traveler mysteriously seems to have retained the ability to use magic and his presence is reawakening that skill in those he encounters.

Remembering only his name; Fayn Reij, he asks for help in curing his condition.

Since many of the world's best doctors have flocked to Figaro in the aftermath of the conflict and from there traveled around the world to help those in need; Sabin offers to escort him there. Terra elects to come along, intrigued by the mystery of this stranger.

They encounter opposition on the way when a monster attacks them in the Figaro cave; a strange being that seems to be a hybrid of Esper and beast.

Upon reaching Figaro, they find the city in chaos due to the fact that Edgar has fallen desperately ill(petrified} and none of their skills can save him.

A possible remedy was reported in the town of Zozo; but the expedition there hasn't returned.

Sabin stays behind to watch over his brother while Celes joins you to check on a group of soldiers who went missing north of Kohlingen.

Upon reaching that town, they learn that the missing men were slain by more of these creatures; but that a relic that lies in Daryll's Tomb is apparently poisonous to them and they go to retrieve it.

After taking care of that town, Celes returns to Figaro to manufacture more of the substance the relic is made of while her husband Locke joins your party to make sure that you successfully make your trip south.

The group eventually reaches Mount Zozo and defeats another powerful creature there.

A test of a sample of something else which had been affects like Edgar shows that it would work on him and they head back to Figaro.

Upon saving Edgar; he reveals to them that a strange duo was behind his condition and that they were last seen moving in the direction of Miranda.

Sabin rejoins you while Locke goes to check on the people of Narshe.

Journeying back south, they find the Opera to be in trouble once more and are called upon to aid it.

(Because I couldn't resist including another one of these.)

Eventually they reach Miranda; where they encounter a man and woman with the strength of Espers in human form who take you captive and hold you hostage in the ruins of the Tower of Fanatics.

By this time, Fayn has begun to recall his past and reveals to you that he is one of the three primordial Espers who were locked in the stone statues that gave Kefka his abilities. After the mad clown died; they were restored.

Long ago, the three had begun to fight over the fate of humanity with the other two deciding to destroy mankind while Fayn opposed them.

After they were freed, the others (Adrammelech and Mateus) stripped him of his powers before he could get away.

While they are waiting, Locke sneaks into the facility and sets them free.

 

At this point; there is a plot split. I'll fill you in on that in a second post.

Edited by ywkls, 21 December 2017 - 12:19 PM.

[ywkls]

Eternal Elegy plot details continued

In case it wasn't obvious, Fayn is intended as a potential love interest for Terra (like some think Leo could be).

If you had participated in certain events prior to this; you would have increased their affection towards one another.

Here's the scenarios that would follow.

 

Plot 1- Terra isn't sure she can trust Fayn

 

Terra goes off with Locke and meets up with Celes in the old Returner base.

While she debates the wisdom of her actions, the married couple discusses what to do next.

The profusion of powerful monsters in the world is ever increasing and the power of magic seems to be cropping up everywhere.

Adrammelech and Mateus' goals aren't clear; but they're definitely being disruptive to the world.

Celes had stationed some troups in the east; near the Veldt and that's also where Relm, Strago and Gau are.

They construct a raft from the supplies there and sail across the ocean but a storm hits and the trio are separated.

 

Plot 2- Terra decides to trust Fayn

 

Using his Esper powers, Fayn teleports them out of the Tower of Fanatics.

However, his control isn't complete and they end up in the Phantom Forest.

There, they encounter Cyan; who has come to this place to try an experiment which he believes will save his family.

They head through the forest; fighting perhaps spectral foes from their past such as Gestahl, Kefka and even Leo.

Eventually, Cyan realized that his quest is hopeless; but has a vision of his family urging him to move on with his life.

A powerful monster (Phantom Train, redux?) attacks and afterward the group is separated.

 

Either way-

 

Terra is alone on the Veldt.

She heads across the area to the settlement where Relm and Strago now live; discovering two of her former companions there.

(The exact shape of the party at this point is somewhat in flux, but I'd originally intended for it to be Cyan and Fayn,)

The trio enlist the help of Gau to find a subterranean passage back to the mainland; coming out near Mobliz.

They reunite with Sabin, Locke and Celes there and learn that their foes have barricaded themselves inside the ruins of Vector.

Traveling to that spot; they find that their enemies have begun to revive other Espers and enslave them to their will.

Their ultimate goal is to harvest the strength of the life from the World of Ruin to restore the Esper world.

After reaching the heart of Vector; the doorway to the Esper World is reopened and the group must plunge into its depths to stop the bad guys.

 

Sidequests included-

Obtaining an Esper for each character who could join you as a summon in battle.

Obtained the best armor, weapon and accessory for each character.

Two optional dungeons- the Narshe Mines and the Airship's Grave (where the airship at the end of FF6 crashes)

Various other optional bosses and content.

 

Anyways, that's everything I had thought up to this point.

(Only did the second post because I was unsure of the character limit in a single one.)

 

I am not entirely sure even now how I intended to turn that into my planned "Not really an FF6 sequel, but kinda still is" that is the quest project here on PureZC; but that's partially because work on this has been sporadic at best.

 

If you have any thoughts or would like to work together on any aspect of either, you know how to reach me.

[C-Dawg]

Ah. I thought you had figured out the whole sidescrolling thing already. That's too bad!

 

My problem was always that implementing sidescrolling using ZQuest' internal data structures (maps and screens) requires being able to read data from other Screens, and I'm not sure ZQuest has that functionality. Alternatively, you can build your own data structure (a simple array, maybe) and put it directly into the code, then raw dog everything using draw functions. That's why I went off into C++, since at that point you're not using ZClassic for much other than its I/O functions.

Edited by C-Dawg, 27 December 2017 - 01:25 PM.

[Mitsukara]

TL;DR: ZQuest can indeed check stuff from other screens and display/interact with it to some extent. Here's my explanation of what I've done in that sense.

 

The way I read from other screens in the Ocean Sailing demo was to use the following:

 

(I read about these functions at http://www.purezc.net/zsdocs/, which is the thing I look up almost everything I do with scripts in. Seriously, a fair amount of LaZPoC's features exist in no small part because I found that reference site.)

 

Game->GetComboData()

Gets combo data from any map and screen.

 

Game->GetComboType()

Checks the type of of a given combo on any map and screen.

 

Game->GetComboSolid()

Same deal, but for solidity checks, returns in bitwise operators of 1111b/0000b/etc.

 

There's also Game->SetComboData (places one specific combo somewhere, until the quest is loaded again from the save menu) and Game->SetComboType (which changes all instances of a given combo in the entire quest) and Game->SetComboSolid (same deal). Panoply of Calatia also uses these functions for some things like the day/night effect changes, the water boots (the water combos' solidity is set to 0000b), and the under/over bridges (certain combos become CT_OVERHEAD or CT_NONE, and change solidity, based on a bool and some Screen->ComboF() checks to track if Link is standing 'on top' or not).

 

Screen->DrawScreen()

Draws a screen from any map and screen (in the case of the Ocean Sailing demo it draws it to a bitmap and then draws the bitmap in expanding sets of lines to create the slanted 'mode 7' look).

 

So then the boat's X and Y are an array in the script (Sail[BoatX] ad Sail[BoatY], I believe), and it increases or decreases it by remotely checking the solidity, checks mines and caves by checking the type, and then it tracks the 'moving across screens' by having an additional array that tracks each time you go 256 pixels (the width of a screen) to the right along the X axis or 176 pixels (the height of a screen) to the south along the Y axis, and basically multiplies/subtracts those in an equation so that it checks the X and Y relevant to which screen the boat is on.

 

So I sort of have scrolling figured to and I really hope what I just said makes sense to somebody (again, that ocean sailing script is open source for anyone who wants to try to use it/study it/alter it). But checking sideview gravity, jumping and falling, via these remotely-checked solids would be some additional stuff I haven't done yet.

 

I suspect at least some of this is relevant to whatever the heck Saffith did making that Megaman level demo of his.

 

Moving enemies is something else again, In Panoply of Calatia's 'tunnel' hallways, I accomplished this by moving all npcs' X to the left or right. Many NPCs can actually go a little bit offscreen without dying. NPCT_WALK doesn't play very nice with it (like the janky snakes in that one hallway) but Keese work beautifully with it. A similar principle would work on the Ocean Sailing but I didn't set it up, and more of a problem is that they wouldn't really adhere to any kind of slanted mode 7 logic, they'd just move up and down and whatever. (Z3 style regular overhead scrolling would be slightly easier than that whole tilted mode 7-y thing.) You can also move the Lweapons and Items around that same way, by simply increasing/decreasing their X or Y position based on when you're scrolling everything else around as Link 'moves'.

 

(In reality the Link object is probably staying in the center of the screen for all this, or certainly ws the way I've done it; you're basically moving/simulating the world around him like a holodeck. That's all games kinda are anyway, basically, it's just another perspective point. But playing nice with, say, built in combos like pushblocks isn't going to work; you have to basically remake each feature. It sort of gets to be like trying to make a new engine inside ZC at some point, and I think that might be where Blue Knight snapped.)

 

(So yes, probably 'raw dogging' it, if I'm using that phrase correctly??)

 

In 2.50.2 I had no problems using the GetCombo/SetCombo stuff; however, there were problems with new developments in betas at times (according to Zoria, from what I understood, that whole section of ZC's source code sounds like an awful mess and he's had a lot of difficulty because of it, and it wasn't well documented because of some problems where 2.50.2 wasn't fully documented in the first place). I don't know the current state of development on that because I haven't been helping with nor involved in the recent beta developments.

Edited by Mitsukara, 27 December 2017 - 04:40 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean by raw dogging it. Having to write all functionality from scratch. With the functions you outlined its all totally doable. I didn't I know we had those in ZScript. But, basically all ZQuest is doing for you at that point is acting as a map editor, asset storage, and a draw function library.

Solidity and gravity and collisions are no biggie. Time consuming, but simple. Camera movement ain't so bad. Tracking game objects, though... starts to sound annoying. No inheretence, no vectors...

[Mitsukara]

Can't you calculate vectors with the VectorX() and VectorY() functions based on the remotely-checked X/Y (or your arrays/variables based thereon) rather than just on regular screen coordinates, though? I think I got that to work once, but it's been several months since I messed with it.

As far as enemies, I think the most useful thing is to be able to move around existing enemies as you scroll, and let them do their thing the rest of the time. I think I mentioned Keese before as a good example of that. The reason NPCT_WALK doesn't work well with it is because when turning, they try to auto-snap to a grid (which is the same reason they goof up so much in general with vanilla sideview activity). So that's one way to get a little more use out of built in ZC assets when writing your own scrolling mechanisms.

 

Plus it can work well for moving around your own custom-scripted enemies (like my Iron Knuckles and Horsehead in LaZPoC), and for those, they're NPCT_OTHERFLOAT, which still damage Link/take damage from weapons normally.

 

But still, there's a lot of limits when you go trying to move everything around. I think Patras lose their collision detection entirely if you move their X/Y, and I don't think Moldorms don't play nice with it either. However, Gleeoks and Aquamentuses can totally be moved around (with the minor catch that Aquamentus tries to gradually drift back to it's own side of the screen as it walks, but unlike NPCT_WALK, it will never 'snap' into place, so it's still pretty organic). That's how I had those enemies moving in LaZPoC, but I'm pretty sure they could also be scrolled. In hindsight, I really should've done that for one of the tunnel hallway rooms...

 

As far as the limits of ZC as a creative tool, while this stuff with trying to stretch the built-in features beyond their intended functionality can be frustrating, I think the bigger problems are:

• Total display size must be 256x224
• Archaic 16 bit color limitations that can't even do FFVI quality shading (what is this, 1992?)
• There is a limited number of most things you can use- tiles, maps, script slots you name it. Nothing in ZC is set up to 'expand' to fit the size the user wants, it's all arranged in predetermined slots to be filled. And those numbers tend to be a bit low, things like 255 or 511.
• The Link object is always on and must be sort of 'hidden' if you don't want to use it.
• Music usage support is kind of restrictive with no position/volume adjustment tools (except the ability to adjust MIDI length and starting position/loop point in ZQuest). Especially for any non MIDI-formats.
• I'm not sure if it's possible to truly bypass the clunky-ass unintuitive Zelda 1 style savescreen, a 'feature' 'which makes no sense to anyone not familiar with Zelda 1. I heard it's possible to customize your own copy of ZC to auto-load a certain quest and skip the title screen, but I haven't tried it, so I'm not sure if it just loads the same save file every time and quits out the program when you select Save on the F6 menu, or still makes the player interact with the Zelda 1 savescreen, or what exactly. In any case I'd call this kind of a bad design limit though. In general, saving in ZC is pretty clunky even for Zelda purposes.
• It is impossible to make a ZC thing that runs inside a browser app AFAIK.
• The software isn't completely functional across all platforms, though I'm not sure if that's common nor how bad it is in ZC's case.

 

So basically I feel like ZC is most optimized for making a custom NES or SNES style game, but not anything more modern.

 

I'd really like to go the extra steps to learn to make my own program, just enough to apply my existing skills to something with bigger and nicer graphics that I can present an original property in (since I do have ideas for that, and I can draw), but I've had a lot of trouble getting my head around building an application in anything without an existing frame of reference for loading in graphics and managing a grid and already having draw functions built in and so on. Maybe if I had an example program to look at (something more complete than a 'hello world' thing) that I could edit, I could maybe get my head around it, but I don't know.

 

Back in the day I also used Corel Click and Create a bit. I got as far as using Counters like variables to track Mario's momentum for running speed adjustment and running jumps and gravity of objects, and a partial Simon's Quest remake. Neither project ever got finished or released though. I also released a terrible, terrible Tremors game in it when I was a teenager, but that's sort of an old shame by now.

Edited by Mitsukara, 30 December 2017 - 02:04 AM.

[Saffith]

Rather than screwing with enemies' X and Y positions, consider using their hit and draw offsets. Maybe just for increments of less than a tile? Not exactly sure how your implementation works.
My attempt at a scrolling actually keeps enemies, weapons, and items all at the same fixed position on the screen and just manipulates the offsets to make them behave properly. Works fine as far as collisions and drawing, but enemies' built-in behavior doesn't work at all.
 

Can't you calculate vectors with the VectorX() and VectorY() functions based on the remotely-checked X/Y (or your arrays/variables based thereon) rather than just on regular screen coordinates, though?

Different thing. std::vector in C++ is a resizeable array.
You don't really need them for games, though; lots of games just use fixed-size arrays. It means there's a maximum number of objects, but most games don't need thousands of active objects at once.