14 replies to this topic

[Mani Kanina]

Nestastic: The Witches' Curse
A short four dungeon quest!



Part of the motivation for this was to expand my NES style tile pack with more resources, but also just to help fuel the fire of this contest. But hopefully it will be an enjoyable experience for you all. After the contest I think I'll add in a dungeon or two for the missing items I couldn't quite find the room for.



 

Download the quest: Here (Made in 2.55, but should presumably work fine in 3.0)

[Mani Kanina]

Lol, lamo. A bug fix I made late in development completely broke level 2 by introducing another bug.

So the version I put in for the contest is just, not playable past level 2. Here's an update that fixes that game breaking bug: Here.

[Moosh]

This quest was pretty fun and felt like a legit original game at times. It was lovely seeing all the original graphics and custom SFX. Both the overworld and dungeons had a lot of charm to them. The dungeon layouts were really solid with level 2 being an especially high point to me with its crafty navigation. There was that bug in level 2 that Mani mentioned but I don't hold it against the quest at all, stuff like that happens often on contest time. Level 4 is the one kinda weak point of the quest, from what I understand also the point Mani started to run out of time. It's very big and easy to get lost in and the combat starts to become a slog, though you can speed it up with bomb spam. I'd love to see a post contest version of this one that expands on some of the unfinished bits and smooths out the difficult curve a bit. 

[chocobothief12]

OK so right off the bat I absolutely loved the spear. having a weapon that i could swing in more than one direction made combat feel a lot more fluid. Not to take away from the sword of course, which had its general uses. The overworld was definitely fun to explore and the dungeons were Ryu friendly. I was a bit surprised that some items had different functions after being used to their function in other quests. I agree with Moosh on wanting to see a more worked on quest without the restriction, adding the rest of the meat to the appetizer that was given to us. I will have to go back to it once I've judged the others and give it a lot more time, as I feel like questions were left unanswered. Overall, solid quest design as a whole. Shoutout to the subscreen and UI in general, and of course the cute sprte to go along with it.

[Moosh]

Oh yeah I completely forgot to mention the cool katana script. It kinda got eclipsed by the spear later into the playthrough but I liked the contextual inputs of being able to both slash and stab on the same weapon. Items with versatile movesets are rad!

[Haylee]

Gave this one a session, playing about 3 dungeons, before having to stop because my body was acting up and making me drowsy.

 

I love the vibes here. Mani really does a good job pulling that like old NES not-quite-zelda (closer to something like golden axe warrior, hydelide, or other topdown adventure games of the era) vibe to quest design while having fun modernization that's always generally a treat when I poke my head into one of her quests. The music choices tickle my brain, and the tileset work is very pretty. The dungeons are fun so far, and the quest in general has been a cozy ride throughout.

 

Overworld exploration has been fun and rewarding so far. Progressively returning to town with the massive amount of rupees you've amassed from dungeon to dungeon as well to spend on items is a fun loop, and it sort of personalizes the playthrough from player to player just slightly enough to be fairly neat.

 

I think the only moderate stumbling point is I think enemies can be a little too spongey at times for my tastes, though at the end of my session, I did get an item that may help significantly in fixing that.

 

This was fun. Looking forward to playing more.

[Mani Kanina]

Yeah, I'm aware of the spongey-nes. I probably would have addressed more of that if I'd had more time to playtest the thing a few more times.

There were plans for stronger weapons and things but since I had to cut a few dungeons as I realised my scope was too big things got a bit jumbled around. But more things to tweak for a later release!

[Deedee]

I already gave most of my thoughts in VC, but I'll include them again here. I have some flaws with the quest that I'm going to include first because I want to end on the positives, and I'm going to put those flaws in a spoiler because I am long-winded about the flaws and I don't want those flaws to balloon this post.

Spoiler

There are some pretty major flaws though, and the biggest of which is that the world feels incomplete. This quest's main inspiration seems to be Link to the Past, with the way it handles money, the structure of the game, and the inspirations of the dungeons. So naturally first thing I did (after spawning in, realizing my starting weapon was ass, going to town to solve a few puzzles in town for money and buying a not-ass weapon), was go explore the overworld for things to find. The structure of the overworld was pointing me towards the graveyard to the east for the game's eastern palace equivalent, but I wanted to poke around and prepare for that dungeon.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to find; a lone cave holding money is the most you can find unless you sequence break the dark cave you're meant to have the level 1 item for (which might net you a few more rupees and a warp bell; which being able to get that early is neat). This feels really bad given the size of the explorable space you have before level 1; I go to the beach near town and there's no open caves or chests to find, despite there being a bomb wall and something on the other side of a gap. I go to the woods northwest of town; there's pits to cross and a maze of trees covered by overheads, but nothing to find despite it feeling like there should be something there. In fact, you don't really get to go cave spelunking much (outside of the dark cave) until after level 3.

Now, I listed that as an "incompleteness" issue; the things I listed above aren't necessarily the result of a lack of time, they could be a game design decision, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they were conscious decisions (it was said in the call that Mani expected players to just bumrush to level 1 and get it over with). But I'm talking more about a feeling of incompleteness from the players end, and while this on it's own doesn't give that impression, it combined with another thing does: actually realizing you can't reach everywhere in the overworld. You can see items or places that you will never be able to collect or reach cause you can't move white rocks; hookshot points exist with items on the other side of them but you will never get a hookshot. You can see chests sitting on ledges connected to caves, but you will never reach those chests. Of the 4 screens of the pink forest area, only two and a half are accessible. When you can see the loose ends that were cut for time, this both affects your willingness to explore and casts doubt on the parts of the quests where it feels like there should be something. The graveyard having nothing in it suddenly feels like a result of cut time, there being barely any caves outside of cracked walls feels like the result of time constrains.  Of course, I could potentially not have known that the overworld was incomplete; in that case, I would have gone to level 4 expecting more quest afterwards because there's clearly more to do on the overworld, and having the rug pulled out from me as I realized that there was no more quest.

The enemy balancing is an issue you are already aware of; I mentioned the Bow feeling underpowered, but I feel like it's worth mentioning the Boomerang for it's price is not worth it when by the time you can afford it, you're fighting darknuts and wizzrobes. If it could stun them that'd be one thing ("block while stunned" is a quest rule if that's a balance concern), but as it stands it feels like it's only worthwhile to hit one switch that basically just refunds most of the purchase after you unlock the ability to break cracked walls. The Spear also feels really bad by the point you get it; it doesn't feel like it does more damage than the much cheaper Katana. My main weapons in the tower were the upgraded Candle and Bombs, both of which felt like my most reliable damage dealing weapons (in spite of bombs being a limited resource). It's a very weird feeling when the direct comparison here is LttP, where you'd be raiding the tower with the Master Sword in a triumphant feel-good moment. The lack of the level 3 boss making a comeback in level 4 was unfortunate and I don't think there needed to be blue darknuts when the whole point of a tower climb is to be triumphant and slay enemies, not run away from them cause they're too strong.

EDIT: Also I forgot to mention, but there is really poor tutorialization on pot throwing. You can't break them and have no way to know they're liftable or what the button to lift them is until the game requires you to lift a random pot in level 3 to get a key.

The tile work here is nice, and it's cool how most sounds are custom for the quest. Gives it a nice NES feeling. I'm also a fan (in theory) of the max rupee count in this quest and the way money feels nice to find. I like the dungeons in the quest and think they're all pretty cool. The Tower of Hera-like dungeon was a highlight, I liked the central puzzle of getting the dungeon item there. I like the twist on the Desert Palace expy being overgrown but still sandy. Finding multiple chests in a single screen or finding a secret room with a dozen blue rupees laying on the ground feels very satisfying, and the game feel of the items feels really good. I actually liked Level 4 outside of the enemy health, it felt very triumphant when I climbed the stairs and realized I was doing the tower ascent, and the exploration beforehand felt satisfying.
 

I would really like to see this be continued after the contest with better balancing all around; LttP is a dope game and a game trying to emulate it would be really cool. Sorry if I was a bit harsh in my thoughts >w<

[Mani Kanina]

While I definitely agree on that there are some problems with the quest and I do want to add more cool things to find. I also, on the same account, think that in general it's not really in my interest to cater to players who find main progression, then turn around and explore everywhere else-- including places that obviously signpost that you don't have what you need to go there --first. It's fine to find that sort of gameplay loop fun, I tend to do the same whenever I play a metroidvania or similar, but I also do so with the expectation that I'm kinda going outside of what the game was clearly intending me to do.

I'm hoping to address most of the balance issues, more signposting on where to go, and lack of tutorialisation with the updated post contest release. But this one complaint is one that I think won't change much between this version and the final one.

[Russ]

I shared most of my thoughts in VC, but to sum it up: I had a lot of fun with this one. Dungeon design is generally solid, and the OW works well. My biggest gripes were that a lot of enemies feel too tanky, even with all the upgrades, and that it's clear the quest ran out of dev time near the end. It's playable from start to finish, and something of this scope in a three week contest, especially with all the custom graphics, is very impressive. But man did the unreachable spots in the world leave me wanting more, saying nothing of the "guns" section on the subscreen. Definitely curious to see what a post-contest release looks like. 

[Twilight Knight]

I think this was my favourite entry! The combat was cool and interesting with the spear, I enjoyed the dungeons a lot and I love the visuals. I can see that with some polishing this could be a very good and cherished mini-quest.

 

I will send you the full review soon, but I did record my playthrough for YT: https://www.youtube....kKgjmgIkpA5meyO

[Lejes]

Each new quest Mani makes feels more like an alternate universe evolution of Zelda. Items that are similar but not quite the same. Music from not exactly the MIDI pool everyone knows and loves. A new player character. Firing an actual gun, maybe (?!) I do love to see scripted items and other mechanics, and this iteration of Nestastic delivers. The new melee weapons feel great to use, and the custom shop is lovely. A unique subscreen is always appreciated, even if this one is a bit of a tease. I want to know what the 32 equipment items could be... And I'll never turn down custom bosses, even if these ones showed a little bit of the strain of contest time crunch. Keeping with the "alternate universe evolution of Zelda" idea, the dungeons are very NES-but-more. Things like pitfalls into lower floors, crystal switches, and multiple dungeon entrances are all here, but not really used the same way later official Zelda games used these ideas. I still like Zelda 1 (somehow), so for me, NES-but-more is a good place to be. There are some small problems I had. The crystal switch dungeon was a lot of back and forth, and the final dungeon had the level 9 style of being large and sprawling, but only a few rooms containing anything important. I maybe wouldn't mind that so much, but enemies throughout the quest were tanky. VERY tanky. I hear a post-contest revision is in the works, so that's sure to be addressed. Maybe they get their health directly reduced, maybe some of those empty equipment slots get filled with deadlier items. Who knows! The overworld is quite pretty, even if there are only a couple distinct areas. I'm looking forward to seeing what else might get added in the future. This quest is at an odd in-between point, in that it isn't overtly a demo and feels reasonably complete, and yet it also feels like there could be so much more.

 

If I had to give this quest a rating, I would say it's 4/5 (I would have said 0/32, but that felt mean even for a joke).

 

[Erased Memory]

This quest really fits its title well. The graphics are hand drawn NES style goodness, which is nice. They follow a conformity to a different body aspect than Z1. Darknuts appear to stand taller, moblins appear more slender. 

 

The music choice is spot on, Castlevania never fails to deliver good dungeon themes. The number of unique/scripted items is staggering, I had to double check everywhere in order to proceed. 

 

One  thing I didnt like is that there is no indication that you shouldnt be buying bombs. You waste money there, you're cooked. I had to grind a little too hard sometimes to earn back lost rupees.

 

The Level 1 boss was a strangely cool Aquamentus variant. Loved it. 

 

Unfortunately a crash led to me losing my progress in the overgrowth so thats as far as I got. Still I enjoyed what I played. 

[Mani Kanina]

Yeah, from this quest I've realised there's some more features I want to add to my shop script so you don't waste your money on ammunition you can't hold. There's technically an indication (full counters are a different colour), but you'd have no way of knowing that so it's kind of useless.

The crash was you walking into a bombed wall with a pot and got stuck, correct? That's the bug report that reached me (and is actually an engine bug, it turned out).

[Erased Memory]

Yeah, that was the one. Was a real bummer   I wanted to complete the quest so my review would have been more fair. I reset and lost all my items.