I'm also happy to announce that I'm doing a QnA session here in this thread. And I'll answer some basic questions, first.
What did I do in the past year?
I completely rebuilt the game. Sometimes I do lose steam as well, and when that happens I work on my pokémon game on the side.
Why rebuild it? What's taking so long?
ROSEMASTER's development started in a very bad time of my life. It started a year after I finished Glory Squad. I was 19, a very edgy and cringeworthy 19 year old who tried to make a giant story I might add. So what came out was a complete clusterfuck of a narrative. I loved the designs I had for the quest, but the story was not up to my standard looking back. Flash foreword to 6+ months later and I decided to tackle the behemoth that is my 5000 string unfinished quest. I not only strived to rewrite every string in my quest, but also somehow fix pretty much everything story related. I cleared up plot holes, changed character dynamics, added 2.55 features, and completely redesigned a few dungeons.
This quest was also originally made in 2.5.2. And was one of the earliest adopters of 2.55. As v2.55 of ZC began to have more features, I added more quality of life changes to the quest. Examples include portraits, subscreens, bottles, and combo triggers. I'm grateful for the 2.55 update. And for now, I think it's best to not update to 3.0 yet. (Because I really don't need to add anymore features)
I'm 25 now, for the past six years, the dread of not finishing ROSEMASTER gets to me more and more everyday. I wouldn't wish this upon my worst enemies. Quest development isn't easy when you have a job and have adult responsibilities. Life also hits you hard with stupid financial problems.
How's progress? When is it going to be released?
Hard to quantify, but I just finished Chapter 7 of my overall quest. Which is only halfway there, perhaps less. I got six major dungeons done out of the planned eleven. I also have to do the side content dungeons, too. Thankfully, I am done with most of the overworld and towns. In terms of string count. I just finished revising my 3500th string. Over halfway done with the strings. I'm not done completely redesigning the quest yet. And will probably release another update once I do.
Because of this, I highly doubt to see this finished by the end of the year. I don't want to give out an exact year to be honest. It will be released when it's done. Just know that I will finish it eventually. I spent way too much time to not finish it, and will never forgive myself if it gets cancelled.
Will there be a demo?
Unfortunately no. It's very tempting for me to dump the quest file now. But I think it's more fun for players to experience the full game. The demo would take away some of the full experience, and I don't think there's anything I can gain from releasing a demo from a dev's view.
Will it be good?
This is going to be my magnum opus quest. I want this to be better than all my other quests combined 10-fold. It's a huge quest. I hope it can be PureZC's greatest hit, and will shill it to no end on the internet and friends once it's finished. I playtested the quest over 100 times at this point. Suffice to say, I'll make sure the game will be extremely polished.
What's the story?
I can't say much unfortunately. Plus, at this moment, I'm still stringing together the plot. But for a summary, Hyrule is at war with a rebel nation; Elignita. Link, who is part of the rebel nation must follow orders and find the rose fragments to form the ROSEMASTER., a powerful weapon capable of destroying an entire country. The story is more character-driven, here are some of the characters Link will meet in the story. You can even play as some of them:
Cain - A prisoner who was freed by Link. Despite his intimidating appearance, he's friendly towards Link. He has a troubled past, but doesn't remember it.
Solarette - A kind woman who works at the orphanage. She can use ice magic.
Aurelia IV - An energetic kid who loves adventure. Her quest is revive her dead mother.
Ingrid - The Tsarina of Elignita. She is calm but cruel, her only goal is to form the ROSEMASTER and destroy Hyrule.
Did you draw these?
The characters, yes. The backgrounds, I just cropped from google images lmao. Part of my redesigns is to redraw the stuff I did back then. I'll just say that my illustration skills back in 2018 was dogwater garbage. Six year later, I'm happy where my skill is at. For the most part, I think I hit a plateau (my drawings haven't gotten any better since 2022) which I'm fine since I would like to keep a consistent artstyle and not have to redraw everything whenever I improve. I hope to continue growing after I'm done with this quest though, including learning how to draw backgrounds. I'll credit my time working on my pokémon game for the reason why I'm improving over the years.
What will I do after I finish this quest?
Very low chance I'll ever touch Zelda Classic ever again. Low chance I will finish my pokémon game, either. As a 25 year old. I like money and am fully aware that this game will net me $0 profit. I'm only finishing it because I love this community and want to leave behind a spectacular swansong.
I'll most likely continue to pursue my teaching career. I may make a game with original IPs, write a book, make webcomics, commission illustrations, or start a Youtube channel. Something that can make me money. I no longer have time for fangames after this one.
Feel free to ask more questions.
A lot I'm sure I've already asked on Discord as well. And I realize no amount of poking into the timetable is gonna make the finished thing come out any sooner.
