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C-Dawg
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« on: January 20, 2015, 08:43:51 AM »



VIDEO SHOWING GAMEPLAY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9726IzhjW-s
(There is no sound in the video because my computer blows and doesn't have a sound card to pump sound in to Taksi. There is sound in the game itself!)

Did you enjoy the old-school NES platform/adventure games? Blaster Master? Legacy of the Wizard? The Guardian Legend? If so, then you'll enjoy this project as well.




============ WHAT IS THIS? ===================

I am coming here to let you guys know about a project I am working on: "Zodiac: The Guardian Story." It is a game drawn in NES-style sprites, where the action usually takes place in a huge side-scrolling labyrinth divided into coordinates, like Metroid without scrolling, but occasionally puts the player into shoot-em-up levels, or "Corridors" to complete the game. The action is brutal, old-school platformer and NES shoot-em-up quality. Be quick or be dead.

The game is complete and has been polished in beta testing a few times.  I am not surprised if there are still bugs lurking around as I have a very small crew, but it is very close to done.  There are some quirky things remaining, but nothing with a good effort / reward ratio at this point.  The only things left to do are:

1) Add additional content (alternative endings, boss rush, TGL mode)
and
2) Correct any major bugs someone finds that none of my testers located, of course.



============ WHY DO I CARE? ===================

I'm reaching out beyond the ZClassic community to see if people are interested in giving it a whirl and reporting the bugs. Within the ZClassic, the capabilities I'm adding to the engine are impressive enough that the game may get a "pass" on some quirks that would annoy most end users. Or, players might accept those quirks as necessary parts of that engine and move on. I'd like to see how someone who is not familiar with ZClassic feels about it. If anyone here is interested in giving it a shot, that could generate some feedback from someone coming at the game with nothing other than fond memories of the NES games that inspire it. Feedback like that will be very valuable as I move into the bug-stomping, balancing, and polishing of the game.

This is not an attempt to profit or sell anything. The game is free, and it's being done strictly for my own amusement. However, I still want to make a product that will appeal broadly.



============ WHATS UP WITH THE MUSIC? ===================

Placeholders. VGMusic mixes of various older games are being used at the moment to set the mood. I'm working at getting some original MIDIs mixed up for this game, but since that's beyond my expertise, I'm left asking for help from friends or looking at artists from the website-formerly-known-as-8-bit-collective. If anyone here is a MIDI artist, I'd love to know you better.

============ WHERE DO I GET THIS GAME? ===================

You go here and download the drop boxed link documents:

https://www.purezc.net/index.php?page=projects&section=downloads&id=557

If you get the drop-boxed documents, everything you need is right there and you just have to point and click.  Run the "!!!!RUN ME!!!!" file and start a quest and off you go.  There's no need to muck around with the qst loading screen at all.  Now, you probably still want to configure your sound and controls (I use 50% SFX to music ratio and I configure controls like an original SNES controller) but that's up to your tastes.

Couldn't be easier!

============ WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW? ===================

Just about everything else you need to know is recorded in the current draft of the game manual. You can read it here:

http://www.purezc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66216

The one thing that it does not cover, and may not be obvious to people playing Zelda Classic for the first time, is how you save. The save option appears after you die. If you don't want to die, you can press F6 to end the game and bring up the save screen. If you simply quit the application without doing this, you will not save and that sucks
« Last Edit: August 04, 2015, 07:17:48 AM by C-Dawg » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2015, 01:31:47 PM »

Two weeks with no replies!? Bumped!

Seriously, folks, this game is worth giving a shot. I've been playing ZeldaClassic custom quests on and off for over half a decade; I just discovered this particular game last December and have been spending a huge chunk of my free time playtesting it since then.

Definitely go into it expecting a lot of head-scratching flaws, if you try it out. There are a lot of things hard-coded into the engine, which the quest authors have no control over, so you'll find plenty of things to frustrate you, being that it's a sidescrolling platformer designed in an engine for overhead single-screen Zelda games. If Zodiac weren't dependent upon a restrictive game engine, nor a non-commercial title, I'd probably deride it for its shortcomings, but as it is, it is quite fun to play, despite its understandable flaws. The author really has done a great job of pushing the engine to its limits and producing a quest that is nothing like the Zelda games.

It features fantastic 8-bit artwork and excellent level design. Some of the bosses are great; some are admittedly pretty lame (but he's going through and revamping them all, so the end product ought to have substantially better bosses.) The plot was surprisingly good - I honestly wasn't expecting much of a plot going into it. It borrows heavily from The Guardian Legend, which was pretty bare-bones in the plot dept. And since TGL is at the very top of my list of games-I'm-mad-that-they-never-got-decent-sequels... well, this is probably the closest I'll ever come to actually playing a second TGL game.

So here's a short list of things that will likely annoy you if you're new to ZC and play this:

Rooms scroll just like TLOZ - they're limited to one screen, and slowly scroll into the next when you touch the edge. A consequence of this is that you'll frequently end up scrolling the screen back and forth multiple times while trying to ascend, if you need to jump onto a platform near the top to jump up into the next screen. There isn't much that can be done to reduce this aggravation - just remember to continue depressing the D-pad or L/R arrows while scrolling, or you'll lose your momentum after the room scroll finishes. Once you start gaining movement improvements, this becomes significantly less annoying, but will be present throughout the game.

Standard enemy placement is totally random, just like TLOZ. So some enemies will frequently appear randomly on top of you while ascending and knock you back down into the room below. Pretty annoying. Also, the ground-based TLOZ enemies have their movements/attack directions restricted to left/right due to the gravitied environment, and follow pretty dumb hard-coded AI, so they like to run off the edges of platforms and quickly fall off the bottom of the screen, in rooms with open pits. The item drops will also fall off-screen a lot.

ZC doesn't really support custom cutscenes, so the dialog scenes with NPCs are implemented by restricting the player's movement (so they cannot leave the screen until completing the dialog) and using player movement onto a new tile to trigger the subsequent dialog script. It feels weird and poorly done, but it's another consequence of the engine, not a lack on the dev's part.

Where you resume the game after dying/continuing, or saving, is not uniform. Some levels let you resume from the last door you entered/exited, within the level. Some levels only let you resume from the level entrance. And whether you die/quit and continue, or save and then resume later, will sometimes result in resuming from different locations. There are also a few continue bugs where you'll resume in another area of the game if you die/quit/save inside some caves. This is all apparently on a list to overhaul and fix, but is still buggy in the current demo(s).

Most importantly, there is (still, I believe?) a persistent bug in some of the flags, which reset, which are required to remain set in order to reach the final part of the game. So unless you learn how to use the cheat menu to noclip into a locked room at the end of the game, and trigger a dialog cutscene there, you won't be able to reach the final level and complete the game. That still leaves you with nearly 30 hours of very fun gameplay up until that point, and if you read the forum thread for the game it'll explain where and how to enter that hidden room to trigger the endgame level entrance.

So what are you waiting for? Give it a go! Earth is depending upon you, Guardian!
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« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2015, 02:56:08 PM »

You know, I looked at this, found the visuals really appealing and wanted to try it. The thought of downloading another program just to play it was something I didn't like much, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. Then something happened and I never did.

The problem for me, and possibly for others, is that my browser blocks me from downloading Zelda Classic (thinks it's a virus for some reason) and as good as the game looks, I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle/risk of forcing the download.

I felt kinda bad about that, though, so I downloaded Zelda Classic 2.5.0 (without any issues) and finally gave it a try.


-It might be a good idea to mention the controls in a Readme or something. I wasted all my special ammo in the flying section because I thought the beam was my main weapon. You may also want to tell people how they can save.

-The mines that are dropped really looked like power-ups to me, with that flashing outline.

-Having enemies/dangers appear suddenly on-screen (again, in the flying section) instead of coming from outside the view isn't ideal. Maybe that's a limitation of the engine?

-This isn't really an issue, necessarily, but it seemed weird that I was never in danger from the things I was shooting at, since my bullets are slow enough that they lag behind my movement.

-I wish there had been more space between bombs/mines/whatever that the boss of level 1 drops. It felt like I had almost no chance to get through without being hit sometimes, and I really didn't want to start over again.

-Shooting the various guns off the boss was fine, but when it came to the final life bar I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be aiming at because nothing visibly reacted to my shots. I beat it just by shooting randomly while avoiding danger.

-I was surprised that my ship's health carried over to my character.

-The controls in the platformer part are really awkward, but my biggest issue is the doors activating when I touch them. Not being able to walk by a door causes a lot of annoying situations.

-Some dialogue was broken up strangely ("I will be in to"  "uch...")

-Multiple times, I entered a room and had an enemy spawn above my head. If it ever happens when I'm already low on health, I'll probably quit right away. It's just no fun to have unavoidable hits in a game.

-Player bullets could use a speed boost, in my opinion. Being able to walk as fast as my own bullets means I can't effectively move and shoot at once, which isn't ideal for a game like this.

-I passed by one computer because I couldn't find an "interact" button. When I reached the second computer, I shot it and realized that was what I had to do. Did I screw up my progression by missing one, or do I just have to go hit them in any order?


Ok. Now that all that's out of the way, I want to say that I think this is a pretty cool game. I like the atmosphere. The flying level mostly played out really well, and the platformer world is fairly interesting to explore. The enemies, when they aren't spawning on top of me, are fairly enjoyable to fight or avoid. Jumping felt a little strange but was easy to get used to.

I would love to see this ported to another engine, or maybe a sequel that does away with the restrictions of Zelda Classic. It's a pretty good game, but as I play it I can't help thinking about how much better it could've been. You seem to have a fair amount of talent, so I would love to see what you can do when you're not working with such a limited engine. That said, what you've accomplished here despite that is pretty impressive.
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« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2015, 04:26:18 PM »

cool game

I couldnt figure out for god how to open a custom .qst file, so I changed the "1st.qst" with your file and it worked.

I like how there is two gameplay types.

What is bad is that my shot button is the second alt, and pressing it while pressing the arrow buttons changes my screen orientation (maybe I can turn off it somewhere).

All in all I liked it, I didnt understand why you gave all the shots upgrades right away (after the airship part).

I really think you should use another game development tool though.
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« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2015, 05:12:40 PM »

I couldnt figure out for god how to open a custom .qst file, so I changed the "1st.qst" with your file and it worked.

I actually did the same thing. I thought maybe it was just because I was using an older version of Zelda Classic that was missing the "Select Quest" option, but I don't know.
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« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2015, 09:16:17 PM »

Oh!  Some people responded!  

First things first, I'm working on a manual for the game that explains some of the less obvious elements.  You can read it in its entirety here:

http://www.purezc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66216

That should answer some of your questions.  As to some other comments:

(1) The things that are striking you as odd are understandable, and "it's the engine durrr" isn't really an excuse.  There are some limitations on what I can do -- scrolling and some of the way weapons work later on being some -- but most of these issues are not engine-dependent.  I plan to go back and revamp the cutscene system as soon as I'm done revamping the bosses.  (P.S. There are many, MANY bosses.)  

(2) The first room gives you all the Sidearm upgrades because my beta testers are checking the new way the Sidearm works.  It's not gonna be there forever.  I update the file about every other day as I continue to work on it.

(3) Your comments as non-Zelda Classic player are VERY VALUABLE.  These give me additional things to tweak that people who are used to the engine wouldnt' necessarily notice or comment on.

(4) I should use another game dev tool, sure, but I started this on ZClassic and I feel obliged to finish it before I move on to something else.  So, ZClassic it is!

Thanks for your interest, and I really hope you guys keep playing and reporting issues or annoyances so I can continue to improve the game!
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« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2015, 08:10:31 AM »

So, I have an update for you folks.  You had informed me that the way doors worked was odd, and that enemies were spawning mid-screen in the flying levels.

Well, no more!  I uploaded a new version that fixes these bugs.  I try to move rapidly to fix all reported issues, which is why I'm so keen to get lots of people with different perspectives playing the demos and reporting as many bugs as they can find.  If these issues turned you off, I invite you to give it another try.

http://www.purezc.net/index.php?page=projects&section=downloads&id=429
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« Reply #7 on: February 10, 2015, 12:07:32 PM »

Yo, dawg

you could make a rar with zelda classic already downloaded and everything set up, just add a shortcut on the top level folder, that links to the right executable, so people would not need to download anything at all. just one click play. woudl awesome wouldn't it ?
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« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2015, 01:20:21 PM »

The problem for me, and possibly for others, is that my browser blocks me from downloading Zelda Classic (thinks it's a virus for some reason) and as good as the game looks, I'm not sure I want to go through the hassle/risk of forcing the download.

I felt kinda bad about that, though, so I downloaded Zelda Classic 2.5.0 (without any issues) and finally gave it a try.
That's... odd. The archive itself is hosted on Dropbox, so I don't know why your browser is blocking it, as I wouldn't expect that site to run any scripts that would trigger AV stuff. Maybe it's overzealously blocking it just because it's an archive that contains executables?

What browser did you use, and what software blocked it?

I just unpacked the archive (I haven't actually used 2.50.1 yet) and ran a Comodo scan on it, and it checks out okay. I think it's highly unlikely it's anything but a false positive on your end:


Having said all that, there's no reason using 2.50 instead should present any issues. And C-Dawg, maybe you should edit your OP and replace the 2.50.1 thread link with the AG ZC downloads page:
http://www.zeldaclassic.com/downloads.php

That way, if this 2.50.1 false-positive is (or becomes) a common issue for users here, it isn't a hurdle for them to try out your quest, if the "official" links on AG don't trigger anything.

For the rest of you, 2.50 should be fine, as far as I know. It's an engine for making custom ZC quests, so a lot of the improvements and bugfixes are for minor things, or things that have no impact on this particular quest. If you're really curious to know the differences, head over to the ZC Change Log, scroll down to the entry "Build 1571 - linux , macosx-Leopard , windows / 2.50 RC5 ( Saffith, 2012-11-04 17:30:55 )" and read everything above it to see what they've changed since the last 2.50 update. Otherwise, you should be fine playing this in 2.50. Don't try to play it in anything earlier than 2.50, or it probably won't work correctly, or at all.

I couldnt figure out for god how to open a custom .qst file, so I changed the "1st.qst" with your file and it worked.

I actually did the same thing. I thought maybe it was just because I was using an older version of Zelda Classic that was missing the "Select Quest" option, but I don't know.
I'm not certain, but this might produce unforeseen/undesirable bugs. I recommend loading the custom quest correctly. I've included step-by-step instructions to properly load the custom quest at the end of my post (with saving explained as well.)

Yo, dawg

you could make a rar with zelda classic already downloaded and everything set up, just add a shortcut on the top level folder, that links to the right executable, so people would not need to download anything at all. just one click play. woudl awesome wouldn't it ?
This might not work. If the gamesave file includes the full path of the quest file location, then bundling it up like that would simply frustrate players, as when they try to play the preconfigured game, they would get missing .qst file errors, unless they unpack the files to an identical path as C-Dawg used to pack it. I'm not sure. Plus, he would have to rebundle the entire game with the demo every time he updates the demo version, instead of simply uploading a new .qst demo file to the project. I've included step-by-step instructions to properly load the custom quest at the end of my post.

ETA: I have several replies to other comments to post, but I gotta run to school now, so I'll update/post again this evening. I'll also add a guide for updating the .qst version file properly. C-Dawg, feel free to quote/copypaste my guide into the OP, if you think that's helpful, with any revisions you deem necessary (son once this thread grows past the first page, new readers don't overlook it.) If you do, I'll snip it from my post so it doesn't add needless repetition to the thread.

Guide to starting a new game (in Windows, either with ZC 2.50 or 2.50.1)

Download the ZC 2.50.1 or 2.50 archive:
http://www.purezc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=64855 (2.50.1 from Dropbox)
http://www.zeldaclassic.com/downloads.php (2.50 from Armageddon Games)

Download the Zodiac, Story of the Guardian archive:
http://www.purezc.net/index.php?page=projects&id=224
Click on Download Demo, and on the subsequent screen, click on Download (N.NN MB).

Unpack the zc-250-win.zip / zc-2-50-1-win.zip archive wherever you like - it doesn't install itself.

Copy the 224_ZodiacStoryoftheGuardian-PUBLICBetaMMDDYY_NNN.zip archive inside the Zelda Classic folder, and unpack the quest zip file there.

Run zlaunch-w.exe.

Click on Launch ZC. After launching ZC, you can close this window, or leave it open. It's just a launcher that sets command-line options for the actual ZC program. Settings are pretty self-explanatory.


The first time you run ZC, you'll see this. Click OK.


Press ENTER:


Press ENTER:


Press ENTER with the heart on REGISTER YOUR NAME:


Type in whatever (8-character limit) and press ENTER:


You should see something like this:


Pressing ENTER at this point will load the default quest. To load a custom quest, you must press "A" rather than "Start" (i.e. ENTER) - but the game engine is referring to a button A (as in, A and B buttons) not the A key on the keyboard. By default, ALT is mapped to "A" and CTRL is mapped to "B".

To change the keyboard/controller input mappings, press ESC (or click anywhere on the screen.)
The screen will grey out and you'll see the menu bar. Click Settings, Controls and then Key Buttons...:


Change these to whatever you like. While you're at it, go back to Settings > Controls and click on Joystick/Gamepad... to configure your controller, if plugged in.


Once you're done, you should be back at the Quest menu (if the screen's still greyed out, press ESC again, or click on GAME and CONTINUE) with your Name you just registered. With the heart cursor next to your name/save file, press "A", whatever key/button you just assigned to A. You should see this:


Press "A" again. You'll see the Select Custom Quest popup. Click Browse:


Click on the ZodiacGS .qst file and click OK:


Wait for a couple seconds - the window will be unresponsive for a few. When this confirmation popup appears, click OK:


You have now loaded the quest properly. You can immediately start playing it by pressing ENTER (with the heart next to it):


Once you've assigned a custom quest to a game save, it will stay that way - you'll skip most of the above steps to resume playing later. You just need to get to the menu screen, select your quest, and press ENTER to resume it.

Guide to continuing/saving/retrying your game

Just like The Legend of Zelda, you have the option to Continue, Save or Retry when you die:


You can also force this menu at any time by pressing F6 and clicking Yes to the confirmation prompt:


Continue: Resume play from the last continue point*, retaining any progress since last save.
Save: Save progress up until death/F6 selection, and return to the main menu. Resuming the quest will start you off at the last continue point.*
Retry: Discard all progress since last save and return to the main menu. Resuming the quest will start you off from the previously saved continue point.*
* ZC confusingly uses two different kinds of "continue" points. There can be multiple "soft" continue points within an area, and when you F6/die and Continue, you'll resume from the last one of these soft continue points. However, each area of the game contains only one "hard" resume point, which is where the player will appear when loading the game from the main menu (after selecting either Save or Retry, or resuming the game after closing/relaunching the engine.) These points are (as far as I know, in this quest) also always "soft" continue points as well, but you will not always resume from the same location depending upon whether you Continue or instead Save/resume from the main menu. This is hardcoded into the engine, I believe, and not something that can be changed.

Your health bar will always reset to full when resuming a game, but your energy bar will remain where it was when you died/F6'ed.

Please note: there is some inconsistency in how the save/continue points work, presently. In some levels, when you quit/continue|save/resume, you'll resume from the level entrance; in other levels, you'll resume from the last door you entered/exited. And to top it all off, some of the inside rooms may still have continue bugs, where if you quit/continue|save/resume inside of them, you'll resume from a room in a completely different level. Please report those, if you find any. The continue points are another area listed for overhaul.

Guide to updating the Quest Version

C-Dawg is updating the quest demo version fairly frequently with bugfixes and additions/improvements, so... if you just want to give the quest a try, simply follow the above steps and play it through on one version. If you really dig it and want to help hunt for bugs to report, then you may want to update your quest version while you're playing through the game, as new demo versions become available. Read on if you so wish...

Once you've assigned a particular custom quest file to a particular game save, there is no way to change which quest file is assigned to the game save, within ZC. (You can reassign the quest associated with the game save prior to saving any progress, but not afterwards.) However, you can easily swap the actual .qst files out, so ZC will look where the old one was and load the new one instead.

If a new version is posted, go ahead and download the .zip to your Zelda Classic folder.

The Download Demo link on the main Quest Project page always links to the newest demo (to see a list of all demos available for download, click on the View All Demos link.) You can also subscribe to the project (for updates) by clicking the Follow Project link (though you'll need to register, obviously.) On the little Receive Notifications popup, click Yes, and you'll get alerts at the top right next to your username when you visit the site.

Once you've saved the new demo to your folder, navigate to the folder. Close ZC if you left it open. Click on the old quest file and press F2 to edit the file name. Press CTRL+C to copy it. Press ENTER. Press DELETE. Press ENTER. Now click on the new quest file and press F2. Press CTRL+V. Press ENTER. You're done! ZC will now load the new quest in place of the old one, so you can go ahead and relaunch it and resume your game. The actual game save data is stored in a separate file, so deleting the old quest file won't delete your progress.

Keep in mind, though, that there is presently a bug with the game, which may or may not prevent you from accessing the final level. Two of us have discovered, while playtesting, that some of the corridors keep re-opening on us, after we've beaten/closed them. This interferes with the game reacting to completion of the corridors correctly, a necessary task for reaching the final area, so the only way to proceed at that point is to "cheat" and move through a closed gate to reach a cutscene that opens the final level. This may be happening because we've both swapped quest files during playthrough, or it may be happening for some other reason. If you reach this point in the game and experience this bug, feel free to PM me and I'll walk you through the workaround to access the final level. ETA: This has apparently been resolved in the most recent Demo, v434 released on 02-15-15, so you can probably disregard the preceding paragraph if you're playing on this or later demos.

Also, some global variables may be changed by the quest author, i.e. C-Dawg, between versions, in which case you may have to start over from the beginning on a brand new game save from the new demo version. (Or you can just ignore the update and continue playing through on the version you already have.) If this is the case, he will (probably) state this very clearly in the demo description, so players know not to attempt swapping it in place of earlier versions to resume a previous game.

If you become physically stuck anywhere, e.g. by warping/entering a door and appearing somewhere obviously wrong/inside a wall, please report it. You can press F6 and select CONTINUE to at least resume the game from your last continue point, without losing anything you picked up. In general, if you find a bug in some room, it's helpful to report it with the area name and room coordinates (rather than "somewhere in Aquarius near that one boss," etc.) and if you feel a screenshot would help, press F12 to take a snapshot of the game - it'll be in your Zelda Classic folder with a file name like zeldaNNN.png.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2015, 01:23:05 AM by newstarshipsmell » Logged

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« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2015, 04:05:38 PM »

Hey newstarshipsmell. Thanks for the guide.

In response to your questions, it seems Firefox and Chrome have started blocking downloads on their own. I don't think it's my anti-virus because I've forced my browser to let me download things before and my anti-virus didn't detect any issues. It's annoying, though. It's not just "no EXE downloads" or something, either. It's only specific files.


About the guide, there's a step missing (at least in the case of the older version I'm using). After I register a player name and press Enter, it just gets added to the list. If I press Enter again at that point, it starts "1st.qst" right away. I have to press Alt to get that options menu to show up, and then Alt again to make the Load Quest window appear.

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« Reply #10 on: February 10, 2015, 05:30:02 PM »

About the guide, there's a step missing (at least in the case of the older version I'm using). After I register a player name and press Enter, it just gets added to the list. If I press Enter again at that point, it starts "1st.qst" right away. I have to press Alt to get that options menu to show up, and then Alt again to make the Load Quest window appear.
Heh. You know why? Because ALT is mapped to the "A" key. And I was pressing ALT+PRTSCN to take window screenshots - so it registered the ALT and skipped that one step, and I didn't notice it. Fixed.

-It might be a good idea to mention the controls in a Readme or something. I wasted all my special ammo in the flying section because I thought the beam was my main weapon. You may also want to tell people how they can save.
There's a much more comprehensive listing of items, controls and tips in the Quest Projects forum thread OP as well as in the Comments on the Quest Project page.

-This isn't really an issue, necessarily, but it seemed weird that I was never in danger from the things I was shooting at, since my bullets are slow enough that they lag behind my movement.
-Player bullets could use a speed boost, in my opinion. Being able to walk as fast as my own bullets means I can't effectively move and shoot at once, which isn't ideal for a game like this.
LOL. I've been complaining about this endlessly. Even better is when you fall and shoot below you to clear your path. Nope! Not to begin with, at any rate.

-Shooting the various guns off the boss was fine, but when it came to the final life bar I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be aiming at because nothing visibly reacted to my shots. I beat it just by shooting randomly while avoiding danger.
You'll notice some of the bosses have obvious damage graphics - the bosses guarding the Pulse Hammer and Shield, as well as Iron. All the bosses are presumably getting an overhaul to do something similar, as it's one of his stated goals.

-I was surprised that my ship's health carried over to my character.
Why? Your character is the ship - you transform back and forth, just like in The Guardian Legend.

-Multiple times, I entered a room and had an enemy spawn above my head. If it ever happens when I'm already low on health, I'll probably quit right away. It's just no fun to have unavoidable hits in a game.
This is one of the drawbacks of ZC. All the standard enemies are just TLOZ enemies with new sprites, and as a quest designer you have limited control over them. For instance, you can only pick out which and how many enemies you want on a given screen (up to 10, I believe?) and the game engine will randomly place them anywhere that can be walked upon, each time you enter. I believe there is a way to designate particular walkable tiles within a given room as "off-limits" for where the enemies spawn; employing this feature along the bottom rows of rooms you will typically ascend into might help reduce the nuisance of unfairly getting hit the second you jump up into a new room. It is pretty annoying.

-I passed by one computer because I couldn't find an "interact" button. When I reached the second computer, I shot it and realized that was what I had to do. Did I screw up my progression by missing one, or do I just have to go hit them in any order?
Each terminal room has a unique message in it, which will never change. Some are hints, some are plot-related. The only messages you could "miss" are the NPC messages, which are triggered by reaching certain points in the game, and are then displayed instead of the regular message when you reach another terminal room and access the computer. These messages will display a "MESSAGE OVERRIDE" near the top of the room (and include an NPC face in the upper-right corner.) As far as I know, reading or skipping them has zero effect on anything else in the game. They are there to help you, and fill in the plot.
You press A to access them, obviously. Please, spare yourself some aggravation, and make sure you never assign consumable items to A while reading a terminal - especially the Life Tanks and Overcharge Adaptor, heh heh. Super-aggravating when you accidentally waste one trying to close a message window.

What is bad is that my shot button is the second alt, and pressing it while pressing the arrow buttons changes my screen orientation (maybe I can turn off it somewhere).
ESC > Settings > Controls > key Buttons.../Key Directions.../ Or better yet, plug in a gamepad if you have one, and use that instead. Later in the game... you will really need the gamepad, lol. Or a new keyboard, depending on how much of a beating your current one can take. Smiley
« Last Edit: February 10, 2015, 08:36:20 PM by newstarshipsmell » Logged

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« Reply #11 on: February 10, 2015, 08:32:18 PM »

Psst, I secretly fixed the sidearm speed issue you've been complaining about for a million years.
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« Reply #12 on: February 10, 2015, 08:35:36 PM »

Psst, I secretly fixed the sidearm speed issue you've been complaining about for a million years.
LOL! I just finished installing a shload of win updates. About to give 429 a shot. Except a huge post RE: DOORS from me in the project thread, probably filled with useless moaning.
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« Reply #13 on: February 24, 2015, 08:46:38 AM »

Progress on making the rough draft into a polished finished product continues.  There is still much to do in the vein of updating bosses and work better.  I've put out a new update that allows the Zodiac Project weapons (a series of 11 weapons you acquire as the game goes on, with plot significance) each to charge up to release a special attack, like what you see in MegaMan X.  Just so you have a flavor of what you can do, here's a listing of the Zodiac Project weapons and what they do:

Aquarius Bubble - Regular shot is a small bubble that attacks in a circle in front of the player.  Short range.  Charged up shot is a shield that will persist around the player until the player next takes damage, and will absorb that hit.

Scorpio Sting - Regular shot is a bullet that flies out in a wave pattern.  Long range.  Charged up shot is a massive circular projectile that will travel in a circular pattern off of the screen, crushing enemies in its path.

Pisces Spread - Regular shot is a 3-way projectile like the spread gun from Contra.  Charged up version fires three fish that will seek and explode on the nearest three enemies.  (Still slightly buggy!)

Gemini Twin - Regular shot fires two lazers in front of the player and one from behind.  Charged up shot makes a duplicate of your player character that fires shots constantly from a stationary position for a few seconds.  It's like the Copy Image from Megaman and Zero.

Aries Saber - Regular shot is a short range blade slash.  Charged up shot creates a stationary vortex of spinning blades to deal damage over time to anything caught within it.

Cancer Splatter - Regular shot is an organic projectile that is pulled down by gravity and splatters when it hits something, causing damage over a small area.  Charged up version fires a massive, bloody tornado projectile that deals large damage.

Libra Crystal - Regular shot fires three diamond-like projectiles that ricochet off of walls until they hit an enemy.  Charged up version creates a 2x2 ice stepping stone in front of the player that lasts for a very short period of time.

Taurus Flame - Regular shot fires a spinning fireball that arcs upwards.  Charged up version fires a large, slow moving fireball projectile that deals large damage and can melt icicle blocks it hits.

Virgo Whip - Regular shot is a short range whip that can strike repeatedly when it hits something and will restore your health each time it deals damage.  Charged up version is a vine aura that persists as long as you hold the button down.  While engaged, any damage you take will restore your missiles.

Leo Laser - Regular shot is a powerful laser that deals damage over time.  Charged up version causes the player to launch herself in a fireball across the screen until she hits a wall.

Capricorn Wave - Regular shot is a very powerful reality ripple projectile.  Charged up version deals damage to all enemies on the screen.
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« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2015, 07:34:30 AM »

I have recently been going back and revamping all of the enemies in the game.  I am banishing the default enemies supplied by the engine, for the most part, meaning that I get a greater degree of control over the enemies you encounter.  It's a pretty major upgrade on how the game plays.  I'm about 1/4 of the way done replacing every enemy in the game, and you should check it out!
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« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2015, 08:12:22 AM »

The enemy update is now complete.  There are a few minibosses here and there to upgrade, and I'm re-vamping some of the later game major bosses to be more challenging and consistent.  If you haven't checked out the project yet, now is a great time to do so and give me feed back on the enemies!
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« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2015, 06:54:19 AM »

Bumping to note that I have updated the OP to include a link to a video showing gameplay and a link to the manual giving more information about how to play.  Hopefully, this will entice more non-ZC people to pick it up and give me comments as I continue to chug along on this thing.
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« Reply #17 on: April 19, 2015, 07:35:04 PM »

All enemies and bosses revamped.  Now I'm doing cleanup on some plot-related things in the game and some tangential improvements.  If people want to offer input into other more basic mechanics of the game, time's running out to to do so.  I encourage people to playset and report what they like and dont!
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« Reply #18 on: May 03, 2015, 01:36:14 PM »

Corridors now overhauled for improved stability, consistency, and graphics.  Moving on to some other bugfixes and smoothing out of rough areas.  Looking at a July completion date, pending more people testing and reporting bugs.
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« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2015, 08:46:34 AM »

Updated the game with new physics and new music.  In the home stretch as far as stuff I know I have to do; the more people who play it now and provide feedback, the more I'll tinker until it's done!
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