hi radix.
-- the few ones who posted negative criticism here did not say anything of worth --
-- and first off, Radix, great work. --
I'll give you a little test report:
- First, when I double click the exe file, the popping up window is not maximized which ain't fun, because on top of all, as long as this app runs (I got XP64, but I guess it's the same on others wins), I can't use the mouse anymore to move the win cursor outside the app window, seems like this app takes control over the mouse IRQ in quite some brutally exclusive fashion which is not useful. People expect a program to leave their mouse alone, as long as their cursor is not hovering above the app window.
- Then, I hope this is not only my problem, but I don't think it is:
Turning the mouse in some directions will make Link look directly into the face of a wall, even if I am in the middle of the room. I think it's really super that you, Radix, thought of the wish of really most people to steer their character with their mouse, where the direction they're looking in equals the direction they then walk in by pressing the W key, by standard.
My mouse is totally normally configured, in all other games, I got no problems with accuracy or stuff. In this app, sadly, I can't steer properly with my mouse, it randomly gives me graphical errors - I will still try to reconfigure my nvidia card with the win panel, maybe that could have lead to the symptom I describe here, maybe not. Will edit this if I got new testing info [greeedy on playing metroid and zelda 3d, even in low quality, better than oblivion and morrowwind together...]
- You gotta really heighten the tolerance of position: I really tried
to stab those dark blue bats, I mean they are old friends, uhm, enemies of us all .-) ... -- BUT this was made AWsomely hard because you gotta very precisely hit the bats. OK this is surely normal, this app being a conversion to 3D. But I died after some 2 minutes, also because of the graph error described above.
- One positive remark (of which there will follow a lot more):
The doors are well-made, unlike another guy here commented. I mean I see a black tunnel and go into it, that is the natural instinct of any man .-)
-- and I come out in the next room.
- So, now the inevitable remark on quality: On the old Amiga, we had "softening", I learned to do it once on Deluxe Paint 2 and 3 - it's a much more cpu-saving method to smooth the edges of any graphics than the nowadays totally decadently used "Anti-Aliasing" or "Anisotropic Filtering": NO CPU or RAM is used AT ALL: You JUST REALLY simply "soften" those ugly steps by PRE-RENDERING (!) between two and ten layers of surrounding VERY thin lines around the shape of the graph, which then, to the outer direction, fade into the background colour. I did it some 15 years ago with a phrase written in some nice font: a one-pixel outline with a little darker colour than the font has, and repeat that some times. You get a totally soft font, or any graphic. For that, NO one needs ANY kinda high resolutions, which just slow down the framerate. That would be a simple and MEGA effective way of getting away the big pixels. You would just need to maybe double the resolution to be able to succesfully apply such a a softening filter.
- So, all muttering is finished, now to the really good remarks of mine:
MAN! You make DREAMS come true! It is the IDEA that counts.
HOW did you do that? Did you take the info from the original game and transform that into 3d? Ingenious!
Now: The main style and concept of the app is MEGA well done.
I just want to say that if you would work really a lot on the usability (the user-friendlyness, also meaning the compatibility with any kind of mouse and other pc configurations) as well as on the graphical quality of that Zelda "mod", man, that is WHAT ALL PEOPLE WANT, and SURELY not windwaker or ocarina of time ( I heard twilight princess wasn't that bad, but it's too much comically done, probably, and all folks have only a PC and DO NOT WANT any kinda consoles - that was different when the NES was new, even the following SNES came out much later when all was already different, also the MOOD people THEMSELVES were in!!!).
- Personal remark: I refuse iso-view-games. I ONLY play 1st or maybe some good 3rd perspective games. OK on the old NES, there were some mega well done sidescrollers, and also games viewed from above, of which for me, Zelda 1 was the ONLY really "good" one, meaning it gives STILL pleasure to the freak as well as the total noob-casual gamer. EVRYone can use it, and that IS an advantage. Bill Gates STOLE windows from Macintosh, where he worked before, and Win is a very easily usable, therefore "good" product, it's just not Gates who invented it, he is just the world0's most successful conman.
But the principle holds: Easyness. Usability. Compatibility. When a proggy works, however, whereever it's installed, and any idiot can use it, THEN it is a good, because tolerant program.
You completely already follow this principle. I myself have never really learned to program except some C (and pascal .-), but I would like to see you form so much this little app that something GRAND would come out -
Parallel ideas:
I mean, lots of people ask themselves if they don't wanna finally do some Zelda-Totalmod for let's say Oblivion, at best playable in multiplayer
in the LAN. Oh well: Of course, then in the Oblivion-Mod like that, the trees, for example, could surely not be arranged in a straight line like in the original Zelda. There are lots of possibilities for good re-takes here.
All could just be in a Zelda-like style, including quests, but also, it would be mabye better to really stick to the layout of the original Zelda
map numbers one and two, meaning when you finish Zelda Original all is in
a different place. Or begin with the map number two, as did some people
who did that Zelda for PC which is TOTALLY unnecessary because there are LOTS of emulators for NES.
I return to your approach stating that your way is the most Zelda-authentic, the most original way of finally getting Zelda on its feet for our future.
Intresting analogy here is also that just until this or last year, most Morrowind fans said it was impossible to mod Morrowind into a multiplayer mode, now there are even two or even more mods with which evryone CAN successfully and almost totally bug-freely do that.
Stay a pioneer and buccaneer, Radix! You are the root of the root!
Developer
