10 replies to this topic

[Mitsukara]

If you would like to playtest this quest, please go ahead and leave a comment or send a PM! (Either works.)

Even a small sampling of a couple hours to give feedback on the beginning of the game would be helpful, but a thorough playthrough (which should take at least one full day, possibly longer depending on puzzles and whether I balanced the difficulty correctly) would be even more helpful.

Please be thorough and complete in your feedback, don't worry about offending me; I'd like the most accurate, complete information I can get for polishing the quest.

There is very little story, so most of the testing will be actually exploring and poking at dungeons and things. However, the few cutscenes rely more on action than words, so feedback on whether they make sense and work right is also welcomed.

In particular:
- Does it lag? Does it run okay? (if it does lag, when? And do typical ZC quests lag at all on your machine, by comparison?)

- Does the very beginning of the game, with the urchins on the beach, make sense? Did it take long/was it excessively difficult to acquire weapons?

- Is the game design fair? Do you ever encounter unavoidable damage, excessive enemies, or other problems? (try using as many of your items as possible to help you with this)

- Do the various new items work okay?

- Do the puzzles work okay? And do they generally make sense? (If you can't figure out how to progress and get stuck, let me know.)

- Are any warp points screwed up? Is there anything else gamebreaking?

- The quest's probably kind of ugly (part default, part Zelda II, part sloppy custom), but is there anything where the graphics actually glitch, or any small/easy improvements you'd suggest?

- There's two minigames accessible (do they work okay?) and a lot of hidden rupees, but did you have trouble paying for anything? I don't want to make the player feel like they need to grind bushes/enemies.

- Is the game actually *fun*?
Basically, any bugtesting and/or critique is welcome.

You will not currently be able to get any farther after the third palace in Hyrule (which is the 13th dungeon available). But the amount of content that is done could still be a full quest's worth, I think.

I'd mostly prefer help testing the game in it's standard mode. However, there are a few optional modes if you want to try them too:
- "Hero Mode": On the title screen you can toggle this with the "map" button, to prevent hearts, fairies, and clocks from appearing. It doesn't change anything else.
- Alternate story/keep Link's old items: At the beginning of the quest you have a bunch of stuff in your inventory. You lose all this during the opening cutscene, unless you use the thunder spell on the cutscene wizzrobes. This gives you a lot of game-breaking options, but it's kind of a secret mode, not optimal for starting players, and certain plot events will be set to skip (...but aren't fully set up to do so yet).
- Cheats ("1", "2", "3", or "4", to activate each level)

[Eddy]

You know, I think I'll probably be up for this. There hasn't really been anything I can play recently and I already finished beta testing another quest a week ago, so I'll definitely give this a try. I'll try to give as much criticism as possible and I'll hopefully be able to get as much as I can as soon as possible.

[ywkls]

Will beta test in exchange for scripts. Because I always need more of those...

 

But seriously, this looks pretty good. I've done a lot of the same when it comes to scripting (inventing something that already existed) but I'd also like a look at what you've done to give me some ideas.

 

I probably won't use any of it, since experience has shown me that whenever I try to do that things don't always turn out as planned. But there are often simple things I don't think of which can help me develop. And if I did use any of them, I'd naturally credit you.

 

In the end, it's your call.

[Moosh]

Scripted quest? Beta testing? Sign me up! I'll also probably be a good lagtester. My toaster of a laptop loves to lag with script heavy stuff, but can handle most scripted stuff fine, so if a script is unoptimized, I'll probably catch it.

You said it could take a full day, but is that accounting for breaks? I'd like to know if I'm about to embark on a 24+ hour epic.

[Arkia]

I'll volunteer to be a beta tester.

[Mitsukara]

EDIT 3: Nevermind the previous edits, I saw it hadn't been downloaded yet and quickly uploaded a fixed version instead.

------

 

Awesome! The beta is uploaded, and I've set up each of you on the project page. Still not entirely sure how it works, so if I didn't do it right (IE 'can't download the quest', 'whoops everybody everywhere can download it', 'you just activated PureZC's autodestruct', etc), let me know.

 

The scripts are a HUGE mess, and the quest file itself is very disorganized in some ways too. I don't mind letting you look at them, and if you really want to use something you can, but credit is preferable and it might not work too well if you don't look each piece you want to use over pretty carefully to see what all it references (specific OriginalTiles, specific ComboD, specific flags, etc). So, mess with it at your own hazard :X

 

I strongly suspect the scripts could be vastly more optimized somehow, and I should probably learn more about how to do so before the final release.

 

As far as length... to be specific, I've played the first nine dungeons in a day (as in, less than a 10 hour period), not the whole thing, and probably went to the bathroom or something too. The whole thing might take longer than that, though, especially since I knew everything and didn't get stuck on my own puzzles.

 

The way I'm thinking of it is like, if you took an 'average' 9 dungeon quest and doubled the length. Or had 9 extra level 9s, maybe? (except the last few aren't done.) No dungeon is bigger than 8x8, not yet, and there's not TOO much to read, just lots of single-line dialogue (not the kind you click through). But you might get stuck or something, and it is 'two' (technically three, but the last two are partial) overworlds and a whole bunch of dungeons. And there's some side questy stuff, finding containers and secret seashells.

 

It's probably longer than normal, but hopefully it won't take, like, a bunch of weeks of continuous play to complete, or anything like that? I dunno. I would advise against any 24 hour sessions without bathroom breaks XD

Edited by Mitsukara, 10 May 2016 - 07:08 PM.

[Eddy]

Great to see the beta is up. Will get this started during the weekend!

[ywkls]

Thanks for the invite! I'd like to recommend that you create a Dev (aka Development) topic where the testers can report any issues with the quest. That way, these details would be kept private; but still be available to all of the testers as soon as they are discovered so that no one is caught off guard by anything which might go wrong.

[Sety]

I must say I am intrigued by this project. Do you have need for testers still? I'd love to help if you do

[Epsalon ZX]

Looks amazing. I'm not experienced at beta testing, but I can give some feedback. May I beta test it as well?

[Mitsukara]

I'd like to recommend that you create a Dev (aka Development) topic where the testers can report any issues with the quest.

Good idea, I've set that up now.

 

Ice Vk4 and Epsalon ZX, you have both been invited now also. The more the merrier ^.^

 

However, one of the messiest parts of the quest, that I think I should warn everyone about: I had pretty recently overhauled the flute item to have the note-by-note feature, and in doing so I haven't fully set it up to work the way I want to. In particular, holding the map button does not present a known songs list, just a crude placeholder tile; you will have to write down or remember any songs you learn, in this beta.

 

As a further problem with the flute, for the first four of you: When you downloaded the quest, did it say "fixed"? The fixed version includes a warp system for getting around Calatia faster with the flute, and the flute/whistle will basically act like it normally does for Link. The fixed version also lists a song you will need to get through level 9 (The Tower of Seline), which is:

Spoiler

A Down Up Down Down Left

 

If you got the non-fixed version and want to switch, I *think* you can swap in the new .qst file and use your same save file.

 

In general, I wish I'd polished the way the flute is set up a little more before now, and it's something I'm planning to improve in future versions. Sorry about that!

 

As one other warning: I feel like the quality of the levels drops off around 10, because I designed these last few levels much more recently and haven't refined them much yet. Basically, once you finish Calatia, the game becomes a lot more obviously unfinished; testing past that point is appreciated, but will probably be a lot clunkier for the time being.

 

Lastly, an extra design question for testers:

 

Do you find yourself playing both characters evenly, or does one seem too much better than the other?

(Thanks to Moosh for suggesting this one)