The Bad News:
Recently, my computer suffered a system failure, the kind that is gradual, but sure. I was able to save the majority of the files I needed, and also managed to get the folders they were in on a USB drive before I had to reformat and fix everything. I had to do this through several restarts, including from safe mode.
After everything was said and done, however, I discovered that not all of my ZQuest files had been saved - one of the lost files was Secret Of The Triforce.
Despite this loss, I was able to redownload the DEMO I'd put out previously, and while I did forget the password for it, I was able to PM ZoriaRPG to unlock it for me. As such, I'll be adding a Special Thanks credit for this amazing "Hail Mary" style save.
While this means I do have the file yet again, it means I've still lost about a year of work.
The Good News:
The good news is, even though I wasn't updating these threads regularly, I was taking screenshots of my progress, one of which was from a number of weeks before the catastrophe.
As you can see, this version is considerably different from the DEMO. A lot of new scripts that I'd added have to be added again. Some of my enemies were ghosted, and I had to modify those scripts to work together (simple edit, that will take me like 5 minutes). The houses will have to be redone, and probably the most time-consuming of them all: I have to re-add all of the tiles I'd imported this past year.
I won't lie, this is a lot of work, and knowing how much I've lost is definitely affecting my outlook on the workload.
But, I've poured my heart and soul into this project, and I have no intention of allowing it to simply die off, certainly not in this manner.
The vast majority of the work is cosmetic, and since I now have a guide showing my final progress for the overworld, as it was before the crash, that will speed up the work, ten-fold. The one thing that will slow me down, is adding original tiles from ALTTP, that I had started to add previous to the crash. This is because I have to recolor each individual tile to the Pure Tileset's [amazing] color palette. In some cases, this means redrawing parts of the tile/sprite.
I could probably have it back to where it was in about six months or so, best-case scenario. Having said that, my current plan is to change some of the fundamental structure of the quest, including some tiles and such, in order to bring a more ALTTP-style feel to it.
This would probably include:
- New Trees
- Updated NPC's
- New starting point with cutscenes
- New Chest Dynamics (Open with A, with sound fx - been wanting to add that for some time)
- Roc's Feather Lvl. 2 (Double Jump)
- Probably a new master sword sprite, I didn't much care for the one included with Pure.
This opens up another possibility as well:
I know a number of you have been curious, or were in the past, about how the map translates over into ZQuest's screen limitations, so updating the file(s) here would give you a glimpse into that process. I can say, however, not all screens work well with it - there is a lot of compromise in the process, some of which does affect the game negatively, but that's something I hope to change, possibly with your help.
In any case, I know this has been long-winded, but I wanted to fully update you all on the status of this project. I hope you all will stick with me in this time of uncertainty, as I'm sure you've done in the past.
http://tinypic.com/m/k98f2s/2
