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[unsilentwill]

It's Dangerous to Go Alone:

Work Stage

The recent disappointment found in Zelda's Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass has inspired a few of us to start a project based on the fun, multiplayer gameplay of Four Swords, a game tucked into the remake of A Link to the Past.

Hey guys!

The core idea at the moment is a multiplayer adventure, where each player has a definitive attribute and character. I'd like to avoid the "high fantasy" setting as much as possible and instead allow for unique styles and settings somewhat based on the individual players.

I'd like it to be somewhat story driven, hopefully not in the traditional JRPG way, but not as loose as Four Swords, and I think having multiple players would allow for a very interesting fairly emergent story. This does not mean, however, and void in the ability to dick around that made Four Swords so much fun.

Ideas We're Looking For:
Not that I'm lazy, I actually have a story for this running through my idea at the moment, but I'd like start a game that people will actually play, so community input is important at all levels.

-Concept Art/Styles
The more interesting, the better. I will be posting a few in the near future.

-Music
Generally overlooked, the music will be very important, as everything in the game should tie into the multiplayer idea, playing with instrumental harmony and dissonance reflected in gameplay and plot.

-Programming
Think Link to the Past with net support. I imagine it could be done in game maker without too much trouble.

We have a lot to look at for reference luckily. The base is of course is Four Swords, unfortunately it's rather hard to play at the moment, but that's the whole point I suppose. I'd love elements from Golden Sun to add different actions than just Sword, Item, and Push/Pull. Chrono Trigger is a fantastic example, as well as Secret of Mana. The standouts of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Link's Awakening, and Wind Waker should be considered. And of course, Gauntlet.

Current Ideas: (Up for Dispute!)
-Four Distinct Cultures with different Art Style
-Each Culture reacts different to the idea of knowledge and technology
-Balance of Cooperative and Competitive Element, perhaps monetary or upgrade based
-Perhaps 2-3 small towns per region, no "signpost" NPCs
-No explicit Tutorial
-Varying degrees of technology, as present in setting, plot, and items (primitive?, steam?, robots?)
-Scalable item slots depending on players vs. map change for number of players
-Two items, one offense and one defense, player choice on which to upgrade
-Plot as in-offense, told by minor dialogue, player actions and the environment
-Minor randomization in its level layouts
-"a zelda game crossed with the best Cormac McCarthy novels"
-Multiple characters required to defeat enemies:
  -swallow players, rescue them from stomach
  -Shield enemy selects one player, flank
  -Enemy that requires multiple items to defeat\
-Weak enemy benefits, scrambling to kill it
-Advanced Player Interaction:
  -disguising as another player,
  -QWOPesque collaborative control in some scenarios
  -Dead player must be carried to a ritual site by another player
  -???

I will be posting more ideas and some art and design, but anyone interested go ahead and post anything you'd like. If you're interested in collaborating with me, sign up to make it official.

Current Members:
Myself - Art/Writing/Design
Ashkin - Design
Imp - Art
TheDustin -"Weird Noise"
Caliber9 - Art
Pen - Art
Inanimate - Writing/Design
Kramlack - Art
Kekskiller - Sound
Dex - Art
Poor Lazlo - Design
Cosmic Fool - "Whatever"
CAsinclair - Music
Lord Tim - Programming
Jad -Art

Sounds f'n AMAZING so far!!

[Bree]

I'm willing to provide some art/writing, as well as gameplay/story ideas.

Instead of high fantasy, how about something with robots. Maybe miner robots, with like overalls and big yellow safety helmets?

[The-Imp]

I would also be willing to provide art! I would love to see a somewhat medieval Legend of Zelda world. OH, and if there are robots, the gotta be steampunk robots. I love me some steampunk robots. And, and, and, I think a steampunk world would be kind of cool.

And would link be up for re-designing?
EDIT: I'm totally making concepts for that either way, it sounds like a lot of fun!

Characters based on the Four Winds(Different Cultures)

As in, the characters consisting of: A Hylian, a Deku, a Goron, and Zora? Because if thats the case, I wholeheartedly approve.

[HöllenKobold]

I'd like a world like this:



...Not that I actually plan to help or anything.

[Ashkin]

W00T!

Hi-five, UnsilentWill!
Sorry.

I'm already signed up (project founder ^_^), so yeah.
We're planning on waiting until a little after Assemblee, because there will be a lot more programmers then.

I think this thread should be moved to Creative.

The hard part will be capturing that CHAOS that Four Swords had.

If anybody knows some programmers that have time, please contact them about this.

[Nate Kling]

Id gladly lend a hand on the art side but I cant really dedicate my full time to it.  Sounds like a good project if you can get enough support.

[Bree]

I personally think it'd be more fun to do a totally new world, rather than a revamp or iteration of the Zelda world. It'd give us a lot more room to play around with.

The chaos of Four Swords rose from the fact that players were simultaneously co-operating and competing to complete the game. While all four players must rely on each other to make it through the puzzles, players were still given awards for having the most rupees. If one was wanting to replicate this dynamic, one would need to introduce both competitive and co-operative elements.

Even if we settle on art direction, we should probably work on a basic prototype first so that we can come up with basic mechanics that are fun. Once we have that, then we can start adding art and animation.

[pen]

I would also be willing to provide art! I would love to see a somewhat medieval Legend of Zelda world. OH, and if there are robots, the gotta be steampunk robots. I love me some steampunk robots. And, and, and, I think a steampunk world would be kind of cool.

And would link be up for re-designing?

Characters based on the Four Winds(Different Cultures)

As in, the characters consisting of: A Hylian, a Deku, a Goron, and Zora? Because if thats the case, I wholeheartedly approve.

Even if the players aren't of those species, it'd still be sweet to apply their features to the characters' powers!

examples:
Deku - grass powers, able to temporarily make branches grow, create ladders in certain spots, etc

Goron - rock powers, able to break stuff with his/her stonehard fists, lifting stuff, rocking  

Zora - swimming, overall agile&speedy movement, maybe the ability to turn certain portions of water into ice ice baby

Hylian - uhh....  

These are 3A.M. feverish ramblings though. But I'm totally up for making some art for this.

[The-Imp]

I would also be willing to provide art! I would love to see a somewhat medieval Legend of Zelda world. OH, and if there are robots, the gotta be steampunk robots. I love me some steampunk robots. And, and, and, I think a steampunk world would be kind of cool.

And would link be up for re-designing?

Characters based on the Four Winds(Different Cultures)

As in, the characters consisting of: A Hylian, a Deku, a Goron, and Zora? Because if thats the case, I wholeheartedly approve.

Even if the players aren't of those species, it'd still be sweet to apply their features to the characters' powers!

examples:
Deku - grass powers, able to temporarily make branches grow, create ladders in certain spots, etc

Goron - rock powers, able to break stuff with his/her stonehard fists, lifting stuff, rocking  

Zora - swimming, overall agile&speedy movement, maybe the ability to turn certain portions of water into ice ice baby

Hylian - uhh....  

These are 3A.M. feverish ramblings though. But I'm totally up for making some art for this.

Perhaps items to do such? I'd say just make like, a GORON wand, and a DEKU staff, and a ZORA rod, but all that'd be boring. I feel as though masks would work, but if it had all that transformation nonsense from Majora's Mask, spriting all of it could be a pain.

Aside though, I really like that idea.

[Bree]

Remember, we're going to have four different playable characters. We could go the Gauntlet way and give each player the same base character and then one or two distinguishing abilities.

I still think a new universe would be more interesting, but eh.

[pen]

Remember, we're going to have four different playable characters. We could go the Gauntlet way and give each player the same base character and then one or two distinguishing abilities.

I still think a new universe would be more interesting, but eh.

If we're having a new universe, we could just as well skip the zelda bit and make a non-fangame. 

[Ashkin]

examples:
Deku - grass powers, able to temporarily make branches grow, create ladders in certain spots, etc

Goron - rock powers, able to break stuff with his/her stonehard fists, lifting stuff, rocking  

Zora - swimming, overall agile&speedy movement, maybe the ability to turn certain portions of water into ice ice baby

Hylian - uhh....  

This kind of difference between characters might be just the thing we need for those co-op elements.

Also, I say we create a completely new universe. The only thing related to Four Swords would be the gameplay style.

Although we might stick in a few parodies of LOZ in general.

[pen]

I haven't played four swords, can you play it with fewer than 4 players without it losing too much of the awesomeness? I doubt I have three friends with GBAs, or the time to play it with me.

[TheDustin]

Maybe you guys could ape LoZ by having each character have only two items, each assigned to a button? Instead of switching out items, though, you'll have to rely on your teammates. If you look at Link's Awakening, that would mean you would have some characters with the Power Glove (who only can attack when they throw something), a boomerang (which only stuns, but affects some enemies impervious to the sword), bombs (...they blow shit up) and naturally the sword. The secondary ability could grant extra mobility or defense, say Zora's Flippers, Roc's Feather, or the shield.

Now I'm not saying they should be exact copies, but you should have that rock, paper, scissors element so that every player is integral to the experience. And the items themselves should have multiple uses and whatnot.

[unsilentwill]

Now this is what I like to see.

Yes, I was definitely thinking that it wouldn't be a fangame. But Imp, don't worry, I'm sure a lot of my designs will be quite influenced. I hope to get the same kind of feel.

And yeah, it's defiantly just prototyping time, but I tend to do that visually so I chose the art thread. If not, whatever.

What do you think is the first thing we should get down? Characters, story? Someone decide and let's just go from there.

If you're interested the idea and haven't played, I'd watch a few videos on Four Swords (gba not GC, please), Gauntlet, Majora's Mask, and Secret of Mana. I actually only played FS with two people, and it was still a blast.

And so this project has something to show (and to show a little of my dedication and "skill")

[TheDustin]

I say a basic premise should be established, that way the story and gameplay mechanics can be grounded in something. I liked the idea of mixing art/music styles, if we can integrate that into the premise it'd be cool. A time-space rift or something of the sort hurled our four protagonists, all from seperate realms, to an unknown land and the object of the game would be to get them back to their own home? *shrug*

I'll be happy to lend weird noise to this project, and general design advice. Link's Awakening is one of my top favorite games, and I breathed top-down Zelda design for a period when I was studying the game elements.

[unsilentwill]

I'm just going to say this right now: we can't do time travel without ending up with a low-quality Chrono Trigger. Instead, I think just a gigantic world with isolated/connected countries would be the best way to bring different characters together. But enough of me for now...

[TheDustin]

The chaos of Four Swords rose from the fact that players were simultaneously co-operating and competing to complete the game. While all four players must rely on each other to make it through the puzzles, players were still given awards for having the most rupees. If one was wanting to replicate this dynamic, one would need to introduce both competitive and co-operative elements.

To add a competitive edge there should be an end of level breakdown on who got the most kills, etc so that players could try to earn bragging rights. Also, to make the rupee collecting tied into gameplay mechanics you should get some power up as a reward. Temporary invincibility, temporary item upgrades (sword to Master sword, faster walking speed, etc.) would make all that coin grabbing worthwile. For co-op I think we should replay Four Swords and get the gist of it, as it worked rather nicely.

As far as the countries thing goes I'm not sure how I could help, I've only read dystopian/transgressive novels lately and haven't delved into sci-fi or fantasy in a while. Once you guys get that figured out I'm down for adding more design ideas.

[Ashkin]

a gigantic world with isolated/connected countries would be the best way to bring different characters together. But enough of me for now...

This game needs a deep plot with political intrigue.

[Inanimate]

I would love to contribute design (as in concepts and such) and story, and write as well.