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Zelda Projects / Re: [Demo] The Legend of Zelda: The Shadowgazer (3/6/2008 - Maren boss video)
« on: June 03, 2008, 01:50:40 pm »
I've finally finished the segment I've been working on - the Maren boss battle - so I guess it's update time. 
Download (640 x 480)
I first introduced the Maren over a year ago, but they weren't a fully-formed concept. Since then I've pretty much nailed it down and begun to put them in the game. My original intention was that whenever you were in the nightmare realm and you 'solved' a person's particular nightmare, the Maren responsible would be revealed right there and then, and you'd have to fight it wherever you happened to be. I quite liked the simplicity of that but I was worried they'd just be like glorified Poes and I really wanted them to be more intimidating. But if I made them any bigger it might be problematic if, say, the room was quite small or there was a lot of obstacles in it, and if I made them any tougher than the Poes in OOT or TP they'd be more like mini-bosses and having to kill them over and over would just become a chore...
So I came up with the idea of having one Maren per area (using the example of the places you've seen in the last demo, there would be one Maren plaguing Castle Town, one for Kakariko Village, one for Lon Lon ranch, and maybe one for whichever ship happened to be in port) and that Maren would be responsible for all the bad dreams in its vicinity.
Once you've helped all the inhabitants of a particular area and the parasitic Maren no longer has any hosts, a portal opens up that goes right to the heart of the nightmare (basically its lair - once a binding circle where Noon imprisoned it all those centuries ago) where you have to kill the weakened Maren once and for all. It would be more like a mini-boss battle, but obviously there would be far fewer of them, and I might contrive some !@#$% about them all sharing a kind of hive mind and learning from your previous battles, adjusting their attacks according to your expanding arsenal - just to keep you on your toes!
A slain Maren drops the Nightmare Locket it wears round its neck. These lockets contain the tortured soul of the Maren, and can be taken to Noon for him to 'exorcise' (since the Maren were not always evil
) essentially turning a bad dream into a good one, and releasing it into the world again. That's the final stage of cleansing an area of nightmares.
I'm posting a video now that I'm (for the most part) satisfied with the animation. As I've said before I've been trying to get it to 'swim' around in the air in short, fluid bursts like a squid, with the pointed edges of its cloak flexing like tentacles, and as you can see it's virtually there now. Since the majority of the sprite is flat black I really have no excuse not to make the animation as good as I can. And the 'ink' it squirts fills Link's head with nightmares and temporarily disorientates him. What that means for the player is the controls are reversed - which is why you'll see me stumbling all over the place at certain points!
Other things you may notice from the new video are the small changes and tweaks I've been making to the engine. Diagonal rolling has been introduced; walking speed has been increased (for the last time); Link now flashes red when hurt; you can throw the boomerang diagonally now, and also charge it to release a whirlwind and blow things away; stuff like that. There's other stuff I've done based on suggestions, like increase the size of the triggers for picking up objects, but nothing particularly evident from the video.
Hope you enjoy.
KM
Download (640 x 480)
I first introduced the Maren over a year ago, but they weren't a fully-formed concept. Since then I've pretty much nailed it down and begun to put them in the game. My original intention was that whenever you were in the nightmare realm and you 'solved' a person's particular nightmare, the Maren responsible would be revealed right there and then, and you'd have to fight it wherever you happened to be. I quite liked the simplicity of that but I was worried they'd just be like glorified Poes and I really wanted them to be more intimidating. But if I made them any bigger it might be problematic if, say, the room was quite small or there was a lot of obstacles in it, and if I made them any tougher than the Poes in OOT or TP they'd be more like mini-bosses and having to kill them over and over would just become a chore...
So I came up with the idea of having one Maren per area (using the example of the places you've seen in the last demo, there would be one Maren plaguing Castle Town, one for Kakariko Village, one for Lon Lon ranch, and maybe one for whichever ship happened to be in port) and that Maren would be responsible for all the bad dreams in its vicinity.
Once you've helped all the inhabitants of a particular area and the parasitic Maren no longer has any hosts, a portal opens up that goes right to the heart of the nightmare (basically its lair - once a binding circle where Noon imprisoned it all those centuries ago) where you have to kill the weakened Maren once and for all. It would be more like a mini-boss battle, but obviously there would be far fewer of them, and I might contrive some !@#$% about them all sharing a kind of hive mind and learning from your previous battles, adjusting their attacks according to your expanding arsenal - just to keep you on your toes!
A slain Maren drops the Nightmare Locket it wears round its neck. These lockets contain the tortured soul of the Maren, and can be taken to Noon for him to 'exorcise' (since the Maren were not always evil
) essentially turning a bad dream into a good one, and releasing it into the world again. That's the final stage of cleansing an area of nightmares.I'm posting a video now that I'm (for the most part) satisfied with the animation. As I've said before I've been trying to get it to 'swim' around in the air in short, fluid bursts like a squid, with the pointed edges of its cloak flexing like tentacles, and as you can see it's virtually there now. Since the majority of the sprite is flat black I really have no excuse not to make the animation as good as I can.
And the 'ink' it squirts fills Link's head with nightmares and temporarily disorientates him. What that means for the player is the controls are reversed - which is why you'll see me stumbling all over the place at certain points!Other things you may notice from the new video are the small changes and tweaks I've been making to the engine. Diagonal rolling has been introduced; walking speed has been increased (for the last time
); Link now flashes red when hurt; you can throw the boomerang diagonally now, and also charge it to release a whirlwind and blow things away; stuff like that. There's other stuff I've done based on suggestions, like increase the size of the triggers for picking up objects, but nothing particularly evident from the video.Hope you enjoy.
KM
. I guess I should thank you.
