please post any content or feedback you may have regarding the quest "swords" here
as per the project description:
As far as things go, I'm keeping it simple, if only for myself as I try and make something resembling a game:
1 overworld map. At the time of writing this, I've designed three quarters of the overworld map. Back in the days of 2006-2010, I was designing in a very linear fashion - overworld section, dungeon, route to the next level. In hindsight it wasn't great game design. This time around, I'm focusing more on building the entire world first, then adding dungeons, cave networks and the like. There's a lot of influence from the two Oracle games in the world, but it's also been fascinating using them as reference material to help make the overworld feel like a proper overworld instead of the aforementioned process I was using. I also want to cram as many secrets and ideas as possible into the world, and give the player the freedom to run wild much like the original Zelda. There's two towns on either side of the map - if the player wants to walk across there while avoiding death, then why not?
Naturally there's still hidden and blocked off sections, but I want to encourage exploration of the entire map to find everything. Flippers might be a bit OP as it stands - once they're found the map becomes significantly more accessible - but that's the fun in Metroidvania, right?
4 "main" dungeons, including the final dungeon, plus a bunch of mini dungeons. This was partly for logistical reasons to avoid being way too ambitious for my own good, but I'm also borrowing a bit from Breath of the Wild, what with the Divine Beast stages as well as however many shrines there are. The first three dungeons will house Triforce pieces; and instead of orbs, I'm looking to use the mini-dungeons to house important items - weapons and equipment mainly. I'm planning for the final dungeon to be accessible from the moment you get a sword; how I go about setting up endings depending on how many Triforce pieces you have is to be seen. it's probably already been made into a script hasn't it
The most complex part will possibly be the cave networks - I don't want exploration limited to just the overworld alone, I want the player to be able to traverse between not only caves, but dungeons themselves, particularly having shortcuts between major and minor dungeons, or even plain old cave tunnels themselves. I think it'll be complex if only because I want to design them realistically - I'm not going to have a two screen tunnel that leads the player from a coast-side desert into a mountain peak on the opposite end of the map, but I'm also not going to spend who knows how long on what could essentially be a dungeon-sized tunnel in itself when the entrances are literally two overworld screens apart.
I'm contemplating diving deeper and designing a sub-overworld to link up the caves too (something like Subrosia from OoS meets Blackreach from Skyrim maybe), but again I don't want to be too ambitious when all I've designed so far is most of the overworld map.
Not particularly thinking about much story stuff at this stage. If anything I'd rather follow the Dark Souls formula of little-to-no story whatsoever and let the player piece it together themself. Maybe not on an existential "what is Link doing, why is Link saving the princess" level, though. If I'm using dialogue it'll be for padding, or NPC trade quests.
Also I'm planning on adding a lot of scripts too. was gonna keep it vanilla initially but realised recently that it's going to make my life a lot easier, and the game more detailed, if I bother to re-learn how to add scripts and combos. I want to get some custom bosses in there too at some point.
swords is probably a working title, it's what I named the .qst file when I was fiddling around with ZQuest a few weeks back. Not sure if it'll stick or not.
no i will not post a demo yet
no i will not download your mixtape
i may
- post maps here
- post screenshots here
- discuss things like scripting, boss and world design
- beg for someone to beta test this when there's an acceptable demo version
builds will be hotlinked in this post as well.
Edited by Taco Chopper, 30 July 2021 - 01:28 AM.