153 replies to this topic

[LinktheMaster]

Amazing! This is what I was waiting for when looking for the definitive 2.5 quest. The presentation value is off the charts. Not only that, but the gameplay looks extremely promising. Where's your support bar?

Ask and you shall receive. I made a userbar for the quest.

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[url=http://www.purezc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=53193][img]http://celestialrealm.net/fairy/userbar.png[/img][/url]

The video trailer made me squeal in delight four times, I counted. My God. Brilliant. All of it. My favorite things had to be the Boomerang and the Aquamentus-EX.

If you like the Aquamentus, just you wait!

But yeah, the boomerang script is really nice. It's a ton of fun on the Magic Boomerang (especially before I had fine-tuned the angle increment amount). Sadly, that won't be given out in the demo. Well, it might make a special appearance at the end just for playing around with, but it'll just be a bonus item.

Named "Steve?" OMG IM A FARRY

For very stupid reasons, I feel like this quest was made for me to play. (Or will be made. Whatever.) You two have done a lot of good stuff, and I look forward to hearing more about this one. Hope you take this project to completion. I also have more confidence in your sense of humor, and it sounds like that's going to be important in making this quest.

Yup! We modeled it after you! The entire time he'll be complaining about the graphics of the quest. Seriously, though, I just realized that you two shared names the other day.

As far as humor goes, it'll definitely be sprinkled throughout the quest. I'll be honest that the quest originated as a purely parody quest that still focused on gameplay heavily. Think of the Paper Mario series. However, as we went along, Nick and I moved toward having a more serious plot, so all of that stuff isn't as heavy anymore, but it'll definitely still be there.

As far as sounds are concerned, what direction are you guys taking? Will the MIDIs and sound effects be taken from the GB Zeldas / other GB games or will you go with "modern" MIDIs on sound effects?

Most of the sound effects are the GB sound effects. However, there are some things that the GB sound effects just don't cut it for. Face it, the Gameboy was a very limited system sound-wise, so unfortunately a lot of the sound effects sound nothing like what they were used for. So there are some areas where we pull sound effects from other games when needed.

As far as midis go, I'll be the first to admit that Nick and I both suck at finding midis. It’s one of the worst things for us. That being said, we tend to go for what fits the mood of the area most, be it a GB style midi or otherwise. Right now, I honestly can't think of one GB midi we use just because we don't know of any that fits the mood. However, this goes along with what Nick said before. We're going for a mix between the GB Zeldas and the newer Zeldas. Obviously as the trailer shows, presentation is something we spend a lot of time on, so we have to go with what fits best in that area.

[kurt91]

You could always go with using SPCs. There are a few sites that specialize in them, or you can just open the game itself in an emulator and pull it. Of course, Zelda-wise you're kind of limited to LttP. I think Visual Boy Advance let's you pull music files from a game, as well. They also can convert into MIDIs, if ZQuest doesn't play them.

[LinktheMaster]

Well, that would be a good idea, but unfortunately you can't change enhanced music through ZScript at all (as in, as far as I know, you can't even change what enhanced music is plaing). So for what we need, that wouldn't work in a lot of cases. Otherwise we would be happy to use them. Thank you for the suggestion, though.

If anyone else has any questions, though, I'm sure Nick and I would be happy to answer them, at least to some degree. But there is some stuff we're intentionally withholding until later.

[digidude22]

This looks amazing! I really can't wait for the release either of Demo or full version...

[Neppy]

Looking great guys! Sucks that you weren't able to continue on with your custom set, but you had me hooked the minute I seen that it was styled as a GB quest! The screens are looking wonderful, and the trailer was great. Looking forward to future updates!

[Alex-Link]

GB graphics + the reference to Okami = epicness.

nice job you guys! it seems you are putting a lot of hard effort into this project!

[kurt91]

With the problem SPC music files would bring up, what about SPC2MIDI? It's a program you can use to convert SPC files into MIDI files. You can even switch the instruments around if you find a song that you like the tune to, but want a slight difference. It would still make finding music much easier, and you still have the convenience of working with MIDI files.

[Kite]

Looking great guys! Sucks that you weren't able to continue on with your custom set, but you had me hooked the minute I seen that it was styled as a GB quest! The screens are looking wonderful, and the trailer was great. Looking forward to future updates!

To be honest, I think that things are working out considerably better using the Gameboy style.



This is a comparison between the old and new version of Amaran Village. The old version has things about it that certainly look nicer than what we have now... but I honestly prefer what we have now with the Gameboy set. It is easier to use and has allowed us to create a unique mixture that wouldn't have been possible if we had stuck with PUXDOR.

GB graphics + the reference to Okami = epicness.

nice job you guys! it seems you are putting a lot of hard effort into this project!

I was wondering if someone would notice that. When we started Fairy Dream, we were on an Okami high since the Wii port had come out not long beforehand. As such, there is definitely some Okami inspiration sprinkled in the early parts of the quest. Steve also started out as an Issun expy, though I think he has evolved a bit beyond that.

With the problem SPC music files would bring up, what about SPC2MIDI? It's a program you can use to convert SPC files into MIDI files. You can even switch the instruments around if you find a song that you like the tune to, but want a slight difference. It would still make finding music much easier, and you still have the convenience of working with MIDI files.

Using SPC2MIDI is not as easy as you make it sound. I experimented with it a few years ago and found that while it made some nice sheet music, it still requires you to pick instruments in order to get something that isn't piano sheet music. Considering how bad we are at picking midis, do you think we would be any better at picking instruments?

There is also the fact that we'd have to hunt for SPCs that sound like they would fit in the quest and pray that the conversion sounds good. To be honest, I'd rather rely on our terrible midi hunting skills to find stuff that already exists to save a step.

Still, thanks for the suggestion.

Edit: Added a comparison screenshot.

[Neppy]

Well, considering that you did that side by side comparision, I would have to say that using the GB set still does it some justice. Looking quite good. Granted you don't have all those different pretty colored trees in the GB version, but that's quite alright.

[Geoffrey]

This looks awesome, especially after watching the video demo.

[kurt91]

I kind of like having all the trees the same colors. Most quests that go with multiple colors of trees just end up looking like a rainbow threw up on it. I mean, look at all the official games, the trees are all the same color. Why does everybody always go with an epileptic tree selection?

[Kite]

Update 2: Optional Cave, Shutters, and Some Puzzles

Today's update is going to focus upon an optional cave and the things found within it that will be appearing in several places throughout the quest.

Before we begin, I'd like to ask that people ignore passive subscreen oddities. At this time, we are reworking our subscreen. The ridiculous "X" showing up is the temporary arrow counter. It wasn't really a priority to fix this for recording since we are ultimately going to be redoing all of the counters on the passive subscreen anyway.

Optional Cave:

Due to how small this cave is, we've decided to just show the entire thing in a video.



This optional cave is one of several that will be available in the demo. The focus of this particular cave is on crystal switch blocks. Rather, it focuses on using them to slightly increase the difficulty of challenges that the player has already encountered at this point. Different optional caves will have different gimmicks if we feel the need for them to require gimmicks.

Overall, I admit this isn't much to look at. It's just a small, optional cave after all. However, it's also a demonstration of different elements that will be appearing several times throughout the demo and the quest.

Shutters:

Shutters are always shutting on poor Link.

These Gameboy style shutters are going to be something that you see throughout the entire quest.

Our objective when making the script for them was to make shutters for interior dmaps that felt like they belonged rather than obviously being triggered secret combos or some other workaround. We also wanted something relatively as fast to set up as NES style shutters.

I think our global script has done a nice job for the most part. It's possible for us to place shutters just by checking a dmap flag and placing some combos. They can be one or two combos wide and can even be somewhat away from the edge of the screen. They are capable of recognizing when Link is walking into the room from behind them and remain open until he has cleared them.

We can also place flags on individual shutters to make them open in different circumstances. They can open when all enemies are dead (the default behavior), when permanent secrets have been triggered, when a secret flag has vanished, when a script variable has changed to true, or they can just be one-way shutters.

Memory Puzzle:

At least this doesn't involve intermediate math.

This puzzle is inspired by those really annoying Blockheads from Okami. In hindsight, I have no idea why we decided to make a puzzle based upon one of the most annoying aspects of Okami, but we don't really intend to make them quite as dickish as that game did... in the required parts of the gameplay, anyway.

The puzzle is pretty straightforward. Hit the starter switch, watch and memorize the randomized order (the quest forces you to sit still and do this), and then repeat the order correctly. If you fail, you have to try again with a new order. We don't intend to use this puzzle everywhere, but you will be seeing it at least a few times early on due to Link's limited starting inventory.

Crystal Switch Blocks:

Most of you are probably already familiar with the rising and falling crystal switch blocks from several of the 2D Zelda games. These work in a similar manner, so there really isn't much to explain. The main thing worth mentioning is that they can be used alongside other puzzles without causing any issues, as demonstrated with the video. The variety shown in the video saves positions on a room-by-room basis, but we have plans of implementing the dungeon wide version most are familiar with for future areas (it would be rather simple to do).

Projectile Deaths:

A subtle script worth briefly mentioning is a global script we use to manage projectiles (both Link Weapons and Enemy Weapons). In particular, it forces most projectiles to "die" when they hit solid combos. This makes many of our more creative uses of the boomerang and other weapons possible without being able to cheese puzzles by shooting Link's weapons through solid objects like Zelda 1. It also allows for Link to use cover if it is available.

While it's possible to kill projectiles using a certain combo type, making this script made things significantly easier for us.

Next Update:

Our next update will be on February 5th. If you have any questions about Fairy Dream, feel free to ask them. We will try to answer them to the best of our ability.

Thanks for the continued support, everyone!

[Jared]

That looks great, Nick! Very creative...I can't wait Hopefully I can do something as creative with my quest.

[blue_knight]

The scripts look very well integrated and puzzles look fun. Good job.

[LinktheMaster]

That looks great, Nick! Very creative...I can't wait Hopefully I can do something as creative with my quest.

One thing we're focusing on is to make the puzzles as creative and unique as possible. So we hope that we can achieve that with Fairy Dream. Scripting the puzzles has made some interesting things you wouldn't see in most other quests.

The scripts look very well integrated and puzzles look fun. Good job.

Thanks. Pretty much every time Nick and I come up with script ideas, we always ask ourself "How will this enhance gameplay or the overall feel of the quest?" Because of this, I honestly think all the scripts feel very fluid and make everything feel very polished and unique.

Thanks for the comments.