Without further ado:
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Starting off with the title of the quest: Argon's Lair. Who doesn't love that old Argon chap? In the remake he redecorated his lair with nice purple colours and added more puzzles to delay Nargad on his quest. Also on the left screen you can see an example of a great warp return point in the original quest
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While it's the exact same location in both the original and remake, these screens from world 4 are very different. That's because I decided to change the layout of this entire world, while roughly keeping the same elements and themes. And the new version could seem familiar to you if you've played the demo of this remake, because like in the original quest you revisit world 1 in world 4 (but in a different season and access to different areas). As with any area in the remake I also try to make it more fleshed out and intricate, like adding elevation here in this screen.
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This is not the same location, because as I've mentioned the layout of world 4 has changed quite a bit. Those who endured the original quest's bugginess may recall that this abyss is not in the east, but in the west of the world entrance for example. In the new version we see a small bit of the abyss in the lower right corner of the screen. It's far less straining on the eye than before, but I'm thinking now I should add those kind of evil eyes again or some other spooky things. Also the gimmick has totally changed here, but you'll see that when I finally release the world 4 teaser video.
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More of world 4, this is the exact same mountain in both screenshots, but... I was very liberate with making changes as you can see and there's a lake now. This lake is the frozen lake from world 1, but now has spooky skulls in it inspired by the Dead Marshes from Lord of the Rings. I almost made a giant raft maze in this lake, but then remembered I dislike those personally. They are either too obvious and easy, or very frustrating and tedious to play through.
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The 4th dungeon: Fortvania. CastChaos was usually the dungeon guy and he had some good things going for this dungeon originally. I really liked the concept of making this an 16x8 dungeon and having it be kinda freeform where you can go multiple long roads and accomplish things in any order. But it was certainly lacking some interesting puzzles or more difficult screens that I've added. And most notably the graphics have entirely been updated. These sweet statues are from the Firebird tileset, I've used many tiles from that one already.
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Now remember I said CastChaos was usually the dungeon guy? Well, he made this overworld. Though he doesn't like it himself, I see a lot of good things in this overworld. The main issue is the size of the overworld, while size doesn't matter, I do want the overworlds in the remake to expansive and able to hide at least 30 or so collectibles and other content besides that. Anyway, I am having great fun designing these screens, as I'm loving placing these tall grass bits in varying shapes. And I made it more colourful, cause why not.
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Err, yeah I kinda repurposed this room, but it's the same screen. I really liked the style of the 5th dungeon and I think CC did an overall good job here. I'm just trying to expand this dungeon a little, add more interesting stuff and make it prettier.
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These are vastly different, but the same screens. I simply decided that a watery cave would be better here and I could still include the mechanical look here and there like in the original. This is also the 5th dungeon by the way, but the basement floor. And this screen is more special now in another way, as you will probably see in the world 5 teaser video, however long that may take.
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Different isn't it, though it's both the entrance to the same world? Yes completely different, yes yes mwuahaha...
You won't find out what I'm doing to world 6 yet, but I was extremely liberal with changing this one. This is the only teaser you're getting for now!---------------------------------===== OLD VERSION =====-----------------------------------------------------------------------===== NEW VERSION =====-------------------------------------
Alright just one more screen of world 6 then. This one doesn't have any comparison in the original quest at all, so I decided to include a void that hopefully isn't familiar to many
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Now this is also a new area complimented by a nice void screen on the left, but it isn't in any of the worlds accessed through Argon's Lair. Can you guess where it is based off the river and the palette? You should've seen the area north of here if you've played the demo!
Now I've wanted to make some screens today, but making this post took far too long, heh... However I have more spare time now, before I've been busy renovating a new apartment I'm renting. And the reason why the world 4 video is taking so long is because I still need to make the boss and I hardly feel like scripting in ZC after programming at work. And I also feel no reason to finish these worlds in a particular order now that the demo is already released. But I think I will tackle that 4th boss very soon and a video would logically follow that.
Well then, I'd be surprised if anyone is still reading this by now, but I certainly found it interesting to recall on these areas, why they were made and how they've changed. I hope you are excited to see these areas in action and I'd be very curious to hear your feedback!
