So I just spent maybe an hour or two playing this game. I enjoyed what I played of it so far. Made it to the end of the first dungeon but didn't beat it. I lost to the boss and decided to come here and make some comments on the game. I took some notes on some various things I ran into or noticed while playing. I have them split into three sections.
The first is the smallest, yet the hardest one to actually get people to notice so even though there are only a few they all mean a whole lot in terms of game design. These are the things that stood out and that I liked:
- Auto-Scroll Text - I'm not a compulsive save-scummer and I also ran into a bug right near the beginning that made me go through the intro text multiple times. This was much appreciated.
- Sound When Walking Over Tall Grass - Little extra things like this mean a whole lot in any game. Definitely makes it feel like a developer cared about the game they made.
- Key Indicators - The small key indicator is something we're all used to in modern Zelda games, but the GameBoy interpretation of it you made felt very nice. Also liked that it showed the Big Key opposite of the small keys.
- Dual Currency - I just thought this was an interesting concept to introduce.
This second list was the things I absolutely did not like about the game, along with a few bugs I seemed to run into.
- Let's start with the first bug I ran into right at the beginning. For some reason whenever I bombed two or more objects at the same time and destroyed them the game crashed. I managed to set it off three times in a row which made me really appreciate the auto-scrolling text
- Something else from the very beginning. Is it possible to run out of bombs before you are actually able to refill them at all? If so that is kind of a big problem. I didn't experiment with this at all though.
- The health danger sound only plays in the left ear. I spend 90% of my time playing Zelda with about 1 heart because I am terrible at video games. While I hate the sounds the Zelda games make at me all the time this one was especially infuriating since it was only in one ear.
- I didn't always continue moving after a screen transition if I was holding a direction button down so I had to let go of the button then press and hold it again after most screen transitions.
- Further if I was holding down two directions at the same time only one of them stopped responding. Generally the one in the same direction as the screen transition.
- The traps in the first dungeon move waaaay too fast and they don't seem to correctly detect Link being in their path. Half the time I was able to walk through and they either didn't respond at all, or responded too late.
- I was able to "scout" rooms that had doors slam down to trap you by walking back the way I came. It kind of killed some of the tension you get in Zelda games from walking into a room and suddenly being trapped in it.
- I got trapped between a dog and a house. We basically occupied the same tile. It moved out of my way after a bit. This was a bug that didn't really inconvenience me.
This last list are just some things I thought felt weird. Basically they are things I don't really agree with yet I find to be perfectly valid design choices. Most of this comes from playing the Oracle games on my 3DS a lot lately.
- There is a bit of a delay between cutting a bush and the items appearing. Like it just feels a tiny bit too long? I don't know.
- The textbox seems to break lines at awkward spots.
- Pressing space to open a locked door seems weird.
- Hardhat Beetles taking damage instead of being pushed around just felt a little weird.
- Link doesn't always hold an item over his head? I can't remember clearly but I think I received an item form the elder and it didn't do it? Might just be making it up, or the "got item" sound played without actually getting an item?
- Enemies always come back when you go to a different screen then come back. Official games seem to have a buffer of something like a few rooms before that happens. Fighting the same enemies again because you chose the wrong direction it kind of tedious.
- If you stand in the warp between mini-boss room and entrance you will constantly warp.
- The boomerang causes damage, but also doesn't seem to be able to kill enemies. I kind of like it, but I also find it a little bit weird.
- The way you can refill your bombs on the chain-chomp mini-boss is a nice way to trap the player but not make the fight excessively difficult. My only issues with it is it seems just a little bit too infrequent for my taste.
So, now that I've posted all these words about your game I definitely want to say
Congratulations on finishing your game. It's nice to see someone have their hard work pay off for them.
I hope none of what I said discourages you in any way. Those are basically by exact thoughts at different points playing your game. Your first dungeon boss seemed to be fairly creative at least going by Zelda games. I don't think I've fought a boss with that kind of gimmick before. Though I do think the constraint of the room size due to being similar to the GameBoy games hurt a bit, but it isn't bad. If others are like that I'll definitely enjoy playing the game some more. I'm planning to do so at some point. If I ever manage to beat it I'm sure I'll have some more comments to give you.
Again, good job on finishing this. It's pretty exciting to see a finished game here.