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[abetusk]

Background:

I love the original Legend of Zelda and was wondering why there wasn't any good (open source) game that captured the basic quality of the original.  I wanted to make a relatively simple overhead 2d game in the spirit of the original Legend of Zelda, with a focus on atmosphere, exploration and puzzle solving.  I wanted to keep it pretty straight forward and have it be playable in browser.

I'm not an artist so I'm using art almost exclusively from OpenGameArt.org.  The catalyst was Interdimensional_'s awesome submission for the overworld tiles, the main character (and monsters) and items (I think Interdimensional_ also has a game in progress called "Moon Fields" which I'm looking forward to seeing).  I'm using assets from a lot of different artists but the overworld tileset is one of the main ones I use.  

Dolor is just a side project.  I wanted to make sure all code was free and open source (which it is, check it out at github.com/abetusk/dolor) and that it uses all free assets (which it does, mostly from opengameart.org but also from freemusicarchive.org and many others).

Feel free to check out the current draft at mechaelephant.com/dolor (arrows move, 'x' for sword, 'c' for bow, 'z' for bomb and 'v' for teleport).

Concept

Dolor will have basic combat, boss fighting and the like but the main focus will be on atmosphere and exploration.  As the player progresses through the game, items will be won that will make further fighting easier and further exploration possible.  The world has different environmental effects like rain, snow, wind, night/day lighting, etc. to help set the mood.

Though it might be a lofty goal, I want Dolor to be the game that we played in our youth but with real details filled in instead of leaving it to our nostalgia.

Comments, criticisms, suggestions, rants, raves or anything else is more than welcome!  Also, if anyone feels like helping out, either in level creation, asset creation (art/music/sound effects) or programming, please feel free!

Engine

Mostly a thin wrapper around HTML5 canvas to provide some basic functionality.

Game

Currently the game has 'health' in that if you touch monsters, your health goes down and you restart if it goes to zero.  There are some placeholder dungeons but no bosses.

Platforms

Currently confirmed working in Firefox and Chrome.  Firefox has some issues with improper scaling and interpolation so that tiles look like they don't stitch together correctly.  To work properly in Firefox there needs to be some asset changes in the form of padding the spritemaps with extra pixels which I just haven't gotten around to doing.  It should work fine in Chrome.  I haven' tested in IE or Opera.


Additional Screenshots

[nnyei]

First of all, welcome to TIGSource!

I only spent a couple of minutes trying out the draft you posted (in Firefox) and it's already looking really promising! It's great that you actually made it open source. I'm looking forward to seeing where you'll take this.

I just had a little problem with the controls:

(arrows move, 'x' for sword, 'c' for bow, 'z' for bomb and 'v' for teleport).

Damn my QWERTZ keyboard! Ah well, at least in this type of game it's just a minor annoyance instead of being downright debilitating.

Also, are you supposed to teleport to where the mouse cursor is when you press T? I assume you put it in there so you can test everything faster, but it's really hard for me to ignore that button and play the game properly now that I know it's there.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

[abetusk]

Thanks for the welcome!  I've been a lurker for a while.  It's pretty intimidating seeing all the awesome games that get posted on here.

Yes the 't' is for debugging purposes.  I had hoped that it wouldn't be so apparent but you find it straight away.  Since it's all in JavaScript (and open source) it's not like cheating is going to be all that difficult as you can always just bring up a console and set variables by hand yourself.

It hadn't occurred to me that 'zxcv' wouldn't be laid out the same for everyone.  I'll be sure to put in a remapping feature in the future.

[abetusk]

I've created the first dungeon.  There's still some polish that needs to happen but the basic mechanics are there.  The animated GIF below shows the basic idea.

  There's the jade skeleton "boss" that teleports around but has mirages that try and fool you.  It's "attack" is to teleport in some random monsters floating around the dungeon.  After successfully defeating the jade skeleton you get it's wand which allows you to teleport.

  The current working draft is at:

  http://mechaelephant.com/dolor.v.0.2.0/

  The first dungeon is in the upper left hand corner.

  I've also added 'wasd' for directional controls and ',' as an alternate to the normal 'x' for sword and '/' as an alternate to 'v' for using the wand (teleporting).

Some other updates from last post:

* Item "inventory" at the top along with the keys that activate it.  This shows you what items you have and gives a hint about what items you can get in the future.
* As just mentioned, alternate key mappings for movement and item usage.
* Adding a shield front to the lattice knights that will block your sword.  Here is a debug screenshot of the lattice knight's bounding box along with it's shield bounding box (in yellow):

There's no way to regain health (other than doing some JavaScript commands in the console) so it's pretty unforgiving right now.  The floating yellow skulls I also plan to only stun the player instead of do damage so it might be more difficult than it should be.

Here's another gratuitous screenshot:

I've imaged that there would be 3 more bosses (one for each additional item: bow, shield, bomb) so I still have 3 more to go.

All assets are free (art is mostly from opengameart.org, sound effects are mostly from freesound.org).  All code is free (github.com/abetusk/dolor).

Comments welcome!

[abetusk]

The second dungeon is mostly done.

Here's a quick screenshot/animation:

The main boss flies around and drops bombs.  The minions pick them up and then chase after the player.

The minion AI is very stupid and they easily get stuck.  Ideally they would use A* for path updates so I'll look into that in the future.  I also should add in easing for the boss motion to make it look a bit more natural.

I think it came out pretty nicely.  I was worried the level would be too easy but with the boss flying around and the minions picking up bombs and chasing you it's pretty frantic.

I added in bomb damage so now it damages creatures and the player.  I decided against having bombs damage the boss skeleton as it would be too easy for it to kill itself. 

[xix]

This is so great! Stoked you're using all this art

[lobstersteve]

Ha, that really is very original-zelda like. I actually liked the original one, for all it's crypticness and for how simple the sprites were, as if it originated from a childs imagination.
I also liked, how all the enemy behaviour was simple and very easy to make out, so the dangers were clear immediatly and you had to react the right way. So maybe that's also something you'd like to incorporate in your game? (Maybe i explained it, like something that's self-explanatory for a game designer, but zelda had something special in that kind of way)
So yeah..excited to see more 

[archgame]

I love that you are doing an open-source Zelda, that is dope.

I really like the atmosphere you've created, the simple rain/snow effect and the color palette make the world feel really cold (it could also be that it's just getting cold and grey outside too). It also reminds me of the Castle of the Winds, which had a similar cold feeling to it.

I agree with lobstersteve, with enjoying the crypticness and simple sprites.

I'm curious about sound and music for the game, I can imagine a really minimal ambient folk track to compliment the cold vibes.

[abetusk]

This is so great! Stoked you're using all this art

Thank you so much for making your art available to the community!  I love the tileset and the characters!  I had been flirting with the idea of making a game and your submission to OpenGameArt.org pushed me to it.

I'm pretty stoked to see what you do with "The Moon Fields"!

Ha, that really is very original-zelda like. I actually liked the original one, for all it's crypticness and for how simple the sprites were, as if it originated from a childs imagination.
I also liked, how all the enemy behaviour was simple and very easy to make out, so the dangers were clear immediatly and you had to react the right way. So maybe that's also something you'd like to incorporate in your game? (Maybe i explained it, like something that's self-explanatory for a game designer, but zelda had something special in that kind of way)
So yeah..excited to see more 

Thanks!  I was definitely going for an original Zelda feel, though I think the gameplay mostly has to do with my level of sophistication of game design and the art was of course xix/interdimensional_'s.

I'm hoping to get some more complex behavior in terms of puzzles but I'm trying to keep the "main" gameplay with monsters, items and bosses pretty simple.  All the monsters are pretty simple in terms of movement except bosses and 'minions'.  The bosses have a pattern that sometimes involves feedback from the player.  The 'minions' grab bombs when they're placed.  Other than that, the monsters are just moving around randomly.  The original LoZ I think balanced the monsters by having them shoot arrows, at least in the overworld.  I'm not sure if I should add that in.

Do you have any suggestions on what the monster behavior should be?

Here's an update of the third dungeon where you have to fight a boss that shoots arrows at you:

I'm worried that the arrows unbalance the game too much as the enemies get much easier to defeat.  I was thinking of  making all but the 'horns' monsters immune but then it seems like it would be unbalanced in the other direction.  I guess I'm just trying to avoid the idea of having arrows that you run out of because then I would need to worry about somewhere to get more arrows (or purchase them, which then needs a currency system, etc. etc.).  Bombs also have the same problem but the minions mitigate that a bit since they actively try and run into you when there are bombs around.

I'm also trying to figure out what the 'fox shield' (the last item) should do.  I'm thinking of having it control monsters in simple ways, maybe by making them change direction away from you if activated.  I'm not sure.

Suggestions welcome.

[abetusk]

I love that you are doing an open-source Zelda, that is dope.

I really like the atmosphere you've created, the simple rain/snow effect and the color palette make the world feel really cold (it could also be that it's just getting cold and grey outside too). It also reminds me of the Castle of the Winds, which had a similar cold feeling to it.

I agree with lobstersteve, with enjoying the crypticness and simple sprites.

I'm curious about sound and music for the game, I can imagine a really minimal ambient folk track to compliment the cold vibes.

Thanks!  In terms of music, I haven't added it yet but I was thinking of using selected songs from Airglow's album "Memory Bank".  They have their work under a CC-BY license and I like it a lot.   I was thinking of using these four songs after each item acquired:

Blueshift
Lisa
Innermission
New Touch

Airglow is very retro-80s electronic synth that I think goes well with the atmosphere and aesthetic.

There's maybe some background music for the lake that I want playing in the background and a song to play for the credits.  I was thinking of using Chris Zabriskie (also licensed under CC-BY).  I like his latest album "Thoughtless" but "Vendaface" and "Direct to Video" have some good tunes that I think might be appropriate.

Suggestions are welcome but I'm trying to limit myself to CC0, CC-BY or CC-BY-SA music (and sound effects).

[xix]

Wrt what items do, keep everything simple but tie them to each other. For example, maybe have the arrow just stun enemies so that you can go in and stab them. Or you can put a big timer on the arrow. The fox shield could be something like blocking all frontal damage when you're not attacking. Or you can have a fox run around you.

As far as music is concerned, you're a pretty likeable dude. Look around soundcloud or chiptunes sites and ask people to let you use their music and/or make their music open source. Don't set your sights on just one song, though. Get a list of like 5 or so dudes and someone will say yes. You can do it closer to completion of the game and smart people should attach themselves pretty easily.

[lobstersteve]

Do you have any suggestions on what the monster behavior should be?

hm..after looking at zelda enemies, i realised some things: a bunch of monsters move just up/down, left/right and the movement is nearly grid-based. Also link and some enemies are exactly the size of a tile, so you can take cover or miss an enemy because of it. The enemies rarely (or never?) mix, it's mostly one enemy-type in a room, so you have to watch out for one pattern mostly. Enemies have are mostly limited to one behaviour. Spiders just jump, bats just fly around randomly, then there are those things that just appear, shoot and disappear...whatever they are called. Dungeon-rooms are mostly not crowded with enemies. You already got some of those things going on in your game, so idk if i said anything you didn't already plan^^
I'm also not sure how well this things will hold up today, but probably easy pattern recognition and taking advantage of the grid-based levels might help. Maybe zelda reminded me of sketching around on squared paper as a kid, and that was what i liked.

[gunswordfist]

I'll keep my eye on this one.

[flipswitchx]

Super cool! Love the style and the gameplay, love to see where you take this classic formula =) 

[abetusk]

Wrt what items do, keep everything simple but tie them to each other. For example, maybe have the arrow just stun enemies so that you can go in and stab them. Or you can put a big timer on the arrow. The fox shield could be something like blocking all frontal damage when you're not attacking. Or you can have a fox run around you.

I think stunning is a good idea but it does break with what's expected.  In the classic LoZ boomerang was traditionally the stunning weapon (and killing for weaker monsters) whereas arrows could do damage.  I'm hoping to have arrows hit 'levers' (or some other button device) to trigger actions later on but it'd be nice for it to have some effect on monsters.  I also like the timer idea but I do like the rapid fire ability...I'm not sure there's any way around providing a limited number of arrows.

Right now Noether has a front shield so she can block arrows.  Maybe the fox shield also prevents frontal attacks?  So if enemies run into you, they just turn around?  I would love a little fox running around (there's even a decent base one over at OGA) but I'm not sure I have enough talent as an artist to make it look good.

As far as music is concerned, you're a pretty likeable dude. Look around soundcloud or chiptunes sites and ask people to let you use their music and/or make their music open source. Don't set your sights on just one song, though. Get a list of like 5 or so dudes and someone will say yes. You can do it closer to completion of the game and smart people should attach themselves pretty easily.

I've periodically solicited people who's music I've liked on SoundCloud, Jamendo, Free Music Archive, etc. to release their music under a libre license (CC0, C-BY, CC-BY-SA) and it's never gone well.  I don't think there's been one person who I've contacted willing to release their music under a libre license.  From what I can tell, people would rather their music be obscure than have the possibility anyone other than themselves make money off of it.  This is their right of course so I don't think it does any good to malign them but I think that's a losing battle.  Unless the artist already "gets it" I'm not sure it's an effective tactic to try to convince them to make their art libre.

I would rather focus on the great artists that are releasing their work under a free license, of which there are a few.  Chris Zabriskie, Airglow, Mark.Nine, and Bitburner are a few I've found that I've really liked.  Besides Bitburner, I've found a few good chiptune artists that have made their music libre like Eric Skiff and Rolemusic.  Jamenda and Free Music Archive have facilities to search on license so it's possible to look for what I want (e.g. libre licensed music), even if it is laborious.  SoundCloud, as far as I can tell, doesn't have an easy way to search for license so I tend not to use it much.

I like chiptune music (esp. Bitburner) but I'm not sure it fits so well with the theme of Dolor.  I've found a collection of music, mostly from Free Music Archive, that's atmospheric and down tempo which I have to choose from but I think the "main" music will be from Airglow.

[abetusk]

hm..after looking at zelda enemies, i realised some things: a bunch of monsters move just up/down, left/right and the movement is nearly grid-based. Also link and some enemies are exactly the size of a tile, so you can take cover or miss an enemy because of it. The enemies rarely (or never?) mix, it's mostly one enemy-type in a room, so you have to watch out for one pattern mostly. Enemies have are mostly limited to one behaviour. Spiders just jump, bats just fly around randomly, then there are those things that just appear, shoot and disappear...whatever they are called. Dungeon-rooms are mostly not crowded with enemies. You already got some of those things going on in your game, so idk if i said anything you didn't already plan^^
I'm also not sure how well this things will hold up today, but probably easy pattern recognition and taking advantage of the grid-based levels might help. Maybe zelda reminded me of sketching around on squared paper as a kid, and that was what i liked.

Even in the OLoZ you saw some rooms with mixed type.  I think there was a progression where you'd get introduced to a monster or some of the earlier rooms would have one type but as the game progressed seeing multiple types per room would become more frequent.  I think in the original it was grid based, with the tiles and monsters both being 16x16 pixels.  I also think the monsters were moving in random directions (aside from the hand say).

I mostly went for simplicity because I want to finish the game and AI is hard to do.  I think randomly moving enemies goes a long way but I'm open to suggestions.

[abetusk]

Super cool! Love the style and the gameplay, love to see where you take this classic formula =) 

Thanks!

[abetusk]

The fourth and final dungeon is done.  The 'aqua' skeleton drops the fox shield.  Right now the fox shield doesn't do anything for Noether but the boss's power is to have the creatures 'called' to him so it should be clear that the fox shield has something to do with creature control (maybe some type of repel or stun).  Anyway, you can see from some of the images below what the dungeon and boss look like:

Maybe a little hard to tell but Noether's shield changes from whatever it was to a 'fox' shield.

I upped the arrow damage back to what it was so now it takes only a few hits to kill skeletons and other minor monsters.  I also have songs play after each item pickup.

It's still not possible to 'win' and state isn't persistent so items won't be there after a page reload.  The major thing I'm struggling with is basically level design...making sure the monsters have the right sound effects queued in a pleasing order, making sure the pacing is right and really just making sure it's not boring.  I think it's going to take a while before things are polished enough.

I'm thinking that the four 'puzzle' levels should have an animal theme where each have one of a deer, owl, crow or bat(s) that you have to interact with in order to solve the puzzle.  The final puzzle where you win the game also needs to be done and I'd like there to be an opening scene where Noether gets the sword.

Page load is still pretty slow.  I tried to mitigate some of this by staggering the music and some of the bigger sound effects loads so they don't start until a few seconds.  I also put some analytics on the main web page so I can see if anyone is actually playing.

As always, you can check out the latest draft at:

http://mechaelephant.com/dolor

Like I said, it's still very rough but I think it's beginning to take shape.  I'd be interested to hear what anyone else has to say.

[wizardfu]

Looks awesome. Good job.

[xix]

How do you make the levels? Is there an editor?