Author Topic: The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Hours (April Fools' 2008 Project) - Brainstorming Topic  (Read 240930 times)

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Offline DarkWolf

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I'd really like to join a group project for once, but I just don't have the time I used to for making maps and I already have so many games I want to do.

Offline JonLeung

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Since we're on the second page (if you have 100 posts per page) I might as well post my Clock Tower progress here now:



(Direct link to this post can be done through here, I think only if you have 100 posts per page.)



4th floor:

User posted image



Outside portion between 3rd and 4th floor:

User posted image



3rd floor:

User posted image



2nd floor:

User posted image



1st floor:

User posted image

LAST UPDATED: Feb. 18

Offline Revned

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Frankly, the clock face looks too flat. Might want to try adding texture of some sort. I like the idea, though.



Also, I think it would be best if you made a separate topic for each dungeon, even if nobody has started on them yet. That way people can easily see what's left to do, and what has already been done.

Offline RT 55J

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I might as well post my progress.



http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/6850/level1dp4.png



It's supposed to be based off of Level 3 from the original game.



That torch in the middle would not be lit at the start of the dungeon. You'd need to go to the northmost room to do/get/eat something to light the torch. You'd bottle the flame to melt ice, ignite bombs, urmom, etc.

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Offline Captain Drake

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I could do level 3 as well, probably.

Offline DarkWolf

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I think the clock face looks fine considering the color depth limit of the project.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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I'll be bouncing ideas for the overworld during the weekend, maybe in a separate thread. Feel free to contribute then.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Current project that are on hold because job burnout :
-Drill Dozer (GBA)
-Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis)
-Naya's Quest (PC)

Offline RT 55J

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I suggest that you bounce your ideas in another topic.



Anyways, I updated Level 1. Now it comes complete with hanging corpses. Woohoo!

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Offline JonLeung

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Looking good, RT 55J.



Hmm, I guess we need dirt (Mole Mitts obstacle) and stone (Leever drill obstacle) tiles because we would want them in the later dungeons and for TerraEsperZ's overworld map.

Offline RT 55J

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I think I'll be able to make the dirt and stone tiles.



JonLueng, could you make a small image with the dungeon items (map, compass, keys, etc)?



Anyways, I made another update to Level 1.

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Offline TerraEsperZ

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Okay, I'm finally ready to get involved for the overworld. First off, is this dungeon list final?



-Main Dungeons:



1: Ice Cavern

2: Flower Garden

3: Beach Cave

4: Hourglass Palace

5: Clock Tower

6: Vampire's Crypt

7: Temple Of Light

8: Excavation Site

9: *Final Dungeon*



-Others:



Hero's Cave



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Each dungeon will have to be associated with a distinct region with a couple more to round things up. We'll need an area that changes depending on your animal companion, as well as yet another Fort for the Moblin King. As for the regions surrounding the dungeons, I need people's advice as well as preference.



For example, I have some nice ideas for a snowy area, but having it for the first dungeon feels wrong to me. The cold climate should feels like a dark and desperate place and thus be reserved for later, but that's only my opinion. Anyway, I'm picturing something mountainous like the Snowfall area in Majora's mask, with chasms and everything. Having this place in darkness would have to the mood I think, but that's just my preference.



For the Flower Garden, a forest will do nicely, but I'll have to find a way to make it interesting in terms of layout and plant sprites. Is this the dungeon that needs open flowers to reach it? I'm picturing jumping from flowers growing on the face of a cliff to reach the entrance.



I've been thinking about the Beach Cave. The name is fine, but I think it would be nice if the cave was located on the face of what, during high tides, look simply like a big piece of rock out in  a bay. When the tides are low, we could see a few decorations like the remains of wrecked ship or heck, make an minor dungeon with that. Plus, we'd see that featureless rock now sports ornate decorations with mermaid statues as well as a door.



I need some ideas for how the Hourglass Dungeon dungeon is supposed to look. A desert isn't exactly interesting by itself, even with the occasional rock and ridge. Knowing how you picture the dungeon would help that, plus we could always incorporate the typical "lost wood" labyrinth where you need to go in a specific series of directions to reach the dungeon, or another type of puzzle where you need to move in a certain way or else you are brought back to the entrance.



The Clock Tower should definitely be located either in an abandoned village or the main village, yet you could only enter it using whatever item you have after the fourth dungeon.



The Vampire's Crypt should definitely be a night area, but hopefully I can make it look different enough from the graveyard in both Oracle games. I'll have to think about this one further.



The Temple Of Light could be a place of worship with statues, columns and other examples of ancient architecture. It should be a beautiful and peaceful place bathed in light, with little fountains and stuff like that, unless someone has a better idea.



The Excavation area should really be connected to the story, which would explain why you have to avoid the enemies there. I was wondering if the stealth part was in getting inside the dungeon or part of the gameplay once inside? Because I'd like to try and work in some of those Indiana Jones references, like having mine carts. Maybe have a few places where you ride a cart inside the dungeon that takes you outside for a few seconds just for some variety before going back inside in a different place. In any case, I'll need more details for what you all have in mind.



Is the Hero's Cave a dungeon you visit near the start of the game, or near the end once you've powered up? That would influence its location.



Is there any idea of what the final dungeon is going to be? Or who the big bad guy is? In Ages, the final area was the Dark Tower which was near the starting area but was incomplete until you had all the seeds; in Seasons, there was simply Onox's Castle which was a much less interesting place both outside and inside.



As for the general disposition of all those areas, I'd like to change the formula a bit. Say, have a mountainous area at the bottom of the map, and have the beach either on the right or left side of it.



Anyway, I'm just brainstorming for now. Feel free to throw any ideas you have my way :)



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Current project that are on hold because job burnout :
-Drill Dozer (GBA)
-Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis)
-Naya's Quest (PC)

Offline JonLeung

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The dungeon list I think is pretty much final (as much as anything COULD be "final" at this point, really), though the names might change.



I too expressed some concern about having an icy dungeon as the first.  But I think it wouldn't be too bad, you can still have icy chasms and stuff which would actually be a simple, early-type of obstacle as the Roc's Feather is the first item in this game.  I think something like Majora's Mask's Snowfall would work fine, but if that seems too dark and chasmy, perhaps something more like Twilight Princess's Snowpeak would work.  That ends with a downhill "chasmy" area, and before that is a climb up a snowy mountain, but I was really thinking about the first part, which is a body of water with ice floes (is that what they're called?), which could also provide some water to jump over and hence the possibility of getting a Heart Piece or other areas once the Roc's Feather from inside is obtained.  Anyway, we probably need more nighttime dungeons so darkness would work, here it's not like it's meant to be downright creepy, like the crypt stage later.  But RT-55J should have input on this, especially regarding the dungeon entrance.  Every dungeonmaker should have a say on what it looks like from the outside.  But that won't stop me from making some suggestions in the meantime!  :P



For the forest/flowery dungeon, I too was imagining large flowers on a cliffside that are open during the day.  Many dungeons have a day/night requirement and for this one it seemed like an obvious choice.  I was originally imagining large four-petaled flowers that open up (each petal would be another "standable space" in each of the cardinal directions to the center, also standable), but when it's nighttime, the entrance wouldn't be reachable since the flowers would be closed (Link wouldn't be able to even stand on folded up petals or bud or whatever, but mostly the petals aren't there to shorten the gaps enough to be jumpable).  But now that I think about it, the flowers maybe ought to have eight petals, or at least be "fuller" so as to cover all eight squares adjacent to the center portion when open.  It would make plotting jumps a lot easier.



I like your ideas for the Beach Cave, I have nothing to add.  And we ought to have a few small "minor dungeons", like you mentioned.  Not a priority at the moment, but if we have time it shouldn't be too hard to have a few.  Minor dungeons are only a handful of rooms, right?



I've called dibs on the Horuglass Palace. I'd imagined it to be one of the few dungeons where it's actually playable in day or night, and the only one where there is a difference by doing so, but I think it should only be enterable in the day.  Perhaps the player can still exit the dungeon via the main entrance to step outside to change the time to night, but they wouldn't be able to leave the screen of the entrance.  Well, actually, it's more important that they're kept out at night rather than in, actually, so a one-way thing like a ledge might work.  Anyway, the idea was that I'd make a five-floor dungeon which would actually look like it was actually an overall hourglass shape, with the floors reversed in the night.  Lots of shifting sand and puzzles involving pits.  For the exterior, I'm thinking it would be a giant hourglass, but it wouldn't be "clear" (ie. it's not meant to be read from the outside, stupid as that sounds).  Maybe it could look like a big stone hourglass (maybe it'd look like the Pyramids in terms of large brick styling), or look like an hourglass carved in the face of a desert cliff wall.  Either way, the entrance would be on the central part...the narrowest part of the hourglass, so maybe it'd be a big thing with stairs on a whole screen leading up to it, or the hourglass could be partially submersed in sand.  The top part doesn't have to be fully built as there's no reason for it to be visible to the player, even if there's more of the map to the north (imagine Hyrule Castle in A Link To The Past, for instance).  Hope that's not too complicated.  Maybe it should be nearly half-buried in sand, that'll make it easier.  (Or rather, half "under" the sand..."buried" makes it sound like it's physically stuck, which it can't be.)  I do like the idea of hiding it in the desert, Lost Woods-style...



For some reason I hadn't put much thought into the outside and surroundings of the Clock Tower, depite the fact that that's probably the dungeon furthest along.  I don't remember if I ever said that it needed to be day or night, but probably not, as it doesn't really matter, aside from the colour of the sky in my brief "outside" portion that's not really outside.  You've seen that part, I assume.  The Clock Tower is grey.  Don't make me change it.



The Vampire's Crypt is definitely dark, definitely a nighttime thing.  The name itself was under some contention (is that the word I'm looking for?) because some people didn't like the idea of vampires but because of the day/night theme I think it's pretty much a given that there should be a dark, shadowy, creepy dungeon that smells of death.  Graveyards seem to be a staple of Zelda games, but perhaps a grand mausoleum/crypt entrance will be enough to make it unique.  I seem to recall Ocarina Of Time's Shadow Temple to be little more than a hole in the wall, for instance.



Looks like we're on the same wavelength (ha ha) for the Temple Of Light.  The Temple Of Light I imagined would also have angled mirrors rotatable (via Spinner gears) for the light puzzles, perhaps those could be outside, but more as a decorative thing since they probably don't have much real purpose with sunlight already everywhere outdoors.



Ask RT-55J what he meant when he thought up the Excavation Area.  The "sneaking around" bit he wants to implement reminds me of the infiltration of the Gerudo prison camp thingy in Majora's Mask.  So I imagine (and hope) that all that sneakiness will be entirely outside.  As expected of such an area, there will be plenty of tiered holes, ladders, and piles of dirt, making for interesting sneaking terrain.  And at this point most of the game's tools are available to Link, so tool-based solutions are possible too (perhaps there could be broken tracks that actually serve as Spinner tracks, for example).



I guess we still haven't come up with an idea for the major baddie.  Any ideas?  And any ideas for the name of the overworld?



It's cool that you're going to try to mix up the map a little bit.  But I'm having trouble imagining the mountains anywhere but "north".  The top of the map is where it's easy to put the sky and clouds as a background, giving the illusion of height.  If the mountains are in the south, at best it'll just look hilly.  And while sky isn't unusual in the middle of the map (like A Link To The Past's Dark World on top of the pyramid right in the center), I'd probably avoid it here.  It'd stand out (a lot more than my suggestion to not have the hourglass necessarily complete) and while it might be something a real Zelda overworld designer might actually do, the awkwardness might clue someone in to the fact that all this is fake sooner than they ought to realise it.  If you get my meaning.



The overworld must have features that involve the items.  Most naturally, as a way to ensure a particular order of the dungeons, as discussed earlier.  I already designed the Spinner gear switch and the Spinner tracks, which ought to be used for areas meant after the Clock Tower.  We still need the dirt that the Mole Mitts would dig through, and the very similar rocky blocks that the Leever Drill would drill through.  Other overworld elements are kind of a given.  You know what they are.  Caves where Rupees or Pieces Of Heart might be, or simply as a means of passage...some would have bombable entrances.  A town-ish area.  NPCs there but also in the wild, perhaps implying a sidequest.  Trees with seeds.  And you are already aware of the animal companion regions.  Don't forget the Maku Tree!  But I didn't really need to tell you all that.



Anyway, it looks like the overworld is in good hands!  :)  Seems like you're asking the right questions and already have some ideas.  I don't know how much I helped there...the dungeon entrances in particular will probably fall into place soon as the dungeons themselves get made.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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A frozen river or lake might be interesting, and I'll definitely add a few chasms just for show. I'm eager to hear RT 55J's thoughts on this area.



I think having 3x3 flowers would make them much too big and cover too large an area; 2x2 would be more than enough considering that you could have a few places where you'd need to jump across 3 or 4 of them one after another. Maybe have a few places with vines as well where you'd need to jump from a flower and grab the vines on the wall.



Having a giant stone hourglass made of pyramid-style stones would look cool. I wouldn't bury it too much actually; I'd simply put the entrance at the bottom of the screen to leave more room for the building. Considering that most of the time, the screens with dungeon entrances barely have any feature of importance aside from a door, I'd really like to practice my spriting abilities and create good-looking exteriors.



As for the Clock Tower's location, the main town would work well, because otherwise it would need in a place where people live or once lived, and I don't want to rely on "ancient ruins" too much. And why in the world would I want to change its color :D ?



I don't have any idea for names yet unfortunately.



And yeah, I hadn't thought about the sky being in the middle of the map, so I'll move it to the top, but I'd really like to not have the entire north portion of the map being one big mountain again. I'd really like to put the bay on the side for once though.



As for the Maku Tree, I hadn't forgotten about him. I'm currently sketching out how to make him look different from his two existing cousins. Everything else like stairs, cave entrances, rocks, pieces of heart, seed trees, have all been taken into account. I'll try and sketch a basic map of what I'm thinking about within the next few days.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
Current project that are on hold because job burnout :
-Drill Dozer (GBA)
-Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis)
-Naya's Quest (PC)

Offline JonLeung

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You're probably right, 2x2 flowers would probably work better.



I think you'll have a lot of fun with this. Reminds me of when I did the Link's Awakening Advance map two years ago. There are a lot of elements you can already use, from the two Oracle games (as well as Link's Awakening/DX), so some days you can work pretty quickly, but there are also many original elements that will test your spriting skills. I don't think I ever had to make totally new sprites/tiles for my LAA maps, but I did have to recolour and tweak some pieces. It's probably more fun for you because it'll be more rewarding than my mere "tracing over" which became obsoleted the instant Revned made that (actually very handy) tile slicer/splicer.



No pressure, but the overworld is a big deal in this project. Not that there isn't effort put in the dungeons, but I think the overworld will go a long way in "selling" this. If my somewhat shoddy LAA map fooled a couple people, a totally original series of maps that look good could fool hundreds of times more people. At least I'd like to think so. :)



I look forward to your sketches, your spriting skills, and the final product!



EDIT: I must admit, you seem more than capable of doing the overworld and I really hope you do have fun with it, which is the point. I always felt you were in the same boat as Revned when it came to things like this, and he hardly made any effort to hide his displeasure with last year's project. Not that I don't appreciate him coming through with a couple maps despite that.  So I thank you for making time for this, but I really hope that you have some fun with it along the way too.



I think that with enough polish, this year the project will actually have the potential to fool people, which should also add to the worth of doing this.



(And next year, if you guys are still around, I think you and/or Revned should take the reins in heading up an April Fool's project.  Or someone else other than me, anyway.)

Offline RT 55J

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A frozen river or lake might be interesting, and I'll definitely add a few chasms just for show. I'm eager to hear RT 55J's thoughts on this area.



What do you think I am? Creative?



On a more serious note, I can't help reading your plans without think Termina. Perhaps it could be set a couple hundred years after Majora's Mask (or whenever the the Oracle games are on the 'timeline'). Don't think that it would mean you'd just be transplanting MM from 3D to 2D. Just look at how different Hyrule is in each game.



Anyways, to actually answer you question, I originally thought of having the dungeon on the top of a mountain, with a screen above the entrance being the summit. On that screen you'd have to push a block or something to let light into the dungeon, thereby lighting the torch (and falling in the process). However, I do like your idea of it being on a frozen lake. I'm leaning more towards it being an island (TMC) rather than a cave (OoT). I also think that some chasms would look pretty sweet if done right. They could possibly be dried out riverbeds.



If my somewhat shoddy LAA map fooled a couple people [...]



I'll admit, I was one of those people. :P The next year I wasn't fooled a bit given the fact that I already knew what the project was beforehand (and the idea seemed quite absurd).



Speaking of knowing beforehand, the title of this thread should be changed, as even unregistered users can see the thread in the most recent posts list.

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