Hi! I gave your game a quick shot, I just played for maybe 30-45 minutes, not sure exactly. Have some feedback!:
Pros:
I thought the graphics fit well together and presented a decent aesthetic. There wasn't anything that jumped out to me like, oh wow, that's an amazing map, but I was impressed with how you've got so many minish cap and other game NPCs done in the alttp style, that was a nice touch.
The sword felt really good to use, the range was really nice (I hate how short-range the sword is in ALTTP). I think maybe a heftier sound effect might make it feel more powerful rather than whispy.
Hyrule town felt really full, and the field felt like a field and good to explore, but it wasn't too bare, there was a lot going on.
Cons:
Link moves SO SLOW. This almost made me stop playing after less than five minutes. It felt like a chore to get anywhere and the beginning of your game is like, ALL walking around, that's all you do and it's so slow. When I walked into the main area of the swamp (with the dungeon entrance) the game started lagging a ton and moving "slowly" through the water was like hardly moving at all.
It's hard to figure out where to go next. I gave up trying to find the haunted forest where the Deku prince went. The king never game me directions so I looked around a little, but the aforementioned lagging made it painful to look around that area. Your maps in the menu look nice and they're beautifully detailed, but since they only show you the immediate area, they aren't super useful for wondering where to go next. Since you walk so slowly, not knowing where to go sucks, since if I guess wrong I waste like two minutes just wandering over here to see what's up.
The dialogue at the intro was long and kind of boring. If you're playing a zelda fangame, you've already played Link's Awakening and you don't need that recapped. If you aren't going to show Link getting picked up by Ralph, then tell it more quickly. Also, if you can leave Link's Awakening out (if it's not relevant to your plot), go ahead. Something like "After Link saved Holodrum and Lybranna, he boarded a raft and traveled across the sea. His raft was destroyed in a thunderstorm, and when all seemed lost, no one other than Ralph, his friend from Lybranna, rescued him. They sailed to Hyrule, where Ralph's sister sat in the royal court" or whatever. You've got way too much in there right now.
- also a technical note, if you press ESC during that intro, the game doesn't close. It waits until the game officially starts to close, which is weird.
More pros because compliment sandwiches are the best way to critique:
I mentioned already, but the minimaps in the menu look great, I love the detail. I relied on them heavily because it was so much quicker to look around an area to see if it was a dead end than to walk (since walking was so slow).
I went a few steps into the trading quest (I gave the tent guy his rope), and I had fun. It was a little obvious, but still made me feel a little clever remembering who needed what by the time I met the postman.
The music and sound effects were nice, in balance level-wise, and all went together pretty well. I thought it was weird that you use adult link sound effects when he's just traveled from Holodrum where he was clearly pretty young, but aside from that, they were all nice and I liked how many other games they reference.
I really like the tree that wants help finding his leaves. That's just the kind of quirky kooky zelda character/sidequests that I like.
Anyway, keep it up. Make Link go faster!
Hi, Max! Thank you for playing my game, nice to hear that you played it for so many minutes. Here are some answers for you:
GraphicsI'm glad you like the graphics, as they are a nice mix of tiles from LA, ALTTP and TMC. I have recolored most of them myself to fit in my game. Also, as you said, I have modified a few NPCs from TMC to look like they are from ALTTP.
SwordI'm also happy with the sword mechanics. It will sound more powerful later in the game, I have 3 upgrades planned.
Hyrule TownThanks! Personally I feel that the NPCs seem a little unlively, because so few of them actually have animations. But it's good to know someone out there still thinks they look good.
Hyrule FieldThere's going to happen a lot more in the next big release. As you might already know, there will be 8 temples in all.
Link's movementYou are really the first person to say that he's slow? Sorry to hear, but I currently have no plans for adjusting his speed anytime soon. However, me and my co-worker are working on smoothening up the collisions with walls and stuff, and we may have to change Link's code a bit. Maybe, just maybe it will affect his movement speed too. When it comes to the swamp water, it is on purpose. You will find a new item later on that will let you freeze the water and walk across it (wink wink).
Lagging in the swampThis is the first time I hear about that. It has never happened to me on any of the computers I have used. Do you mind me asking which PC you have?
Navigation & Mini-MapThank you for noticing the details in the mini-map. A lot of work went into making it. If I'm not mistaken, there are a few parts of the overworld that don't have a mini-map version yet. BUT, I want to have a realtime mini-map in the lower right corner in the future, so that might happen soon. It will make it a little easier to find out where you can go. For now you can make use of the look ahead function (using the arrow keys).
IntroSometime in the future I'm hoping to have more of a show-don't-tell feature in the intro. You should know that you can skip the entire intro by holding down Enter! The Escape key didn't work because when a text box is drawn, the game freezes until it's gone. The next update will feature a new code for text boxes. This is actually what we're working on right this moment.
SoundThanks. The music choices are very well thought out, and I want to have just as many different soundtracks as there are different areas of the overworld and inside houses. All of the NPCs will also have a unique sound to them, but right now we had to omit many of them to save sound capacity in GM8. Hopefully we will be able to put them back in GM Studio (which we are using from now on.) Young Link's sounds didn't feel right and they were a little annoying. I suppose he actually did some natural growing up during the journey away from Hyrule (haha).
Thanks again for playing. PM me if you want to get access to new versions before everyone else and help us test the game and make it better!
