The Legend of Zelda: Horn of Balance is a very good project for all that it features, with many of those features being uncommon in other projects. When testing out the demo one often feels that they aren't really playing a fan game; which is a testament to how could the features all fit together and the attention to detail each one of them was subjected to. The project is also made by more than one user, has had frequent updates throughout the month of February, has shown high quality, and has garnered significant user interest and votes. It is for all of those reasons that it was chosen for Project of the Month for the month of February.
1st: LoZ: Horn of Balance by Martijn dh, FrozenFire, NotAlphaMan (12 votes)2nd: Surface by Mamoruanime (5 votes)3rd:
LoZ: Ocarina of Time 2D by
Xfixium,
Cypras,
Ethelon,
TomPel,
Mamoruanime,
DJvenom,
noseblunt3,
SinkinDevil (? votes)
Voter Comments
Nomination
Anyway, I nominate The Legend of Zelda: Horn of Balance by Martijn dh, FrozenFire, and NotAlphaman. It has had good and frequent updates over the month of February, it has had a team effort, and through such the quality of the project has improved. Horn of Balance was something nominated last time that had a lot of merit and in my opinion deserves and has earned the award.
Votes
Horn of Balance. It always has new updates. Has solid game play and the overall quality is exceptional.
Err, I vote for Horn of Balance because I wanna see a another zelda Potm, and besides that, Mammy already had this month, so I think it's fair to pass it to martin.
Hmm. I do believe I am going to have to place my vote on horn of balance. It has high quality features and looks very nice. I want to see more of it. I also want to see more of surface. Both are good games, but HOB deserves the potm this time. sorry Mamoruanime 
keep up the good work!
I vote Horn of Balance, because it is a great a game that tries to recreate the LttP feel instead of the more recent and more favorable MC, FSA or any 3D style. Additionally, Surface was Project of the Moth last time and I think it is time to pass on the torch.
I vote for Horn of Balance, because it already looks more like a (fantastic) game than an engine, because it gets updated very often, and because it's a team project.
Horn of Balance
Great progress
I can't haiku D:
Needs moar cowbell
surface won last month, i have to go with horn of balance. both great lookin games though =)
Horn of Balance, since Surface won last month in all its gorgeous glory. That's not to say that Horn of Balance doesn't look great though, and I'm very interested to see its continued progress.
I choose Horn of Balance, because it's got decent progress, is a Zelda fan game (which is the point of this forum), and because Mirby voted for Surface.
Cool story brosef
Voting Horn of Balance too
Like Surface more though
I vote for Horn of Balance, I really like the way they are recreating LTTP. It is also one of the WIP topics that has good progress.
Recent Media
Developer Q & A
Q. What is the horn of balance?A. It's a magical instrument that you have to find early on in the second part of the game, which will aid you in restoring balance to the worlds. All in all it will be a major story element and gameplay mechanic. Consider it the counterpart to the Ocarina in that it is a multi purpose instrument (with one major story/gameplay difference which I will not spoil just yet).
Q. What can you tell us about the story in general?A. I'd say it's great, but I'm biased. We've got backstories and motives for the mayor characters and villians, plottwists, tragedy, regret and betrayal. The purpose of the game is still beating dungeons, but story will play big part between dungeons. And also in them during key events like encountering/beating a boss for instance.
Q. Why are you doing this project with LTTP graphics?A. I suck at spriting, grew up with alttp, have never played MC and these sprites are available aplenty. I do not believe the graphics matter all that much in the end, as long as the gameplay is done right.
Q. What are the benefits of having external resources with your project?A. Before, I had sprites for Link walking upwards with a green tunic and red tunic and a yellow tunic (for instance). That's a waste of memory since you only need one tunic at any given time. Also you have to code using switch commands if you want to change Link's sprite. If tunic = blue the use sprite_Link_Walks_Down_Blue etc. The advantage off having such resources externally is that I can upload only those sprites that belong to the current tunic. So in the coding I can just reference sprite_Link_Walks_Down and the tunic's color in that sprite has already been set. To me that feels very polished.
That being said. NotAlphaMan suggested returning the resources internally and working with custom made colorpallets (like we are now building for the enemy sprites). I had not done it that way because it requires editing my engine heavily. I'm always looking for improvements though so I might try it out regardless.
Q. Your demo features a lot of dungeon when other's demos focus on the overworld, why?A. I'm just being pragmatic. Building the overworld with a night and day systems, weather systems, NPC's, transition effects between rooms, having it compatable with a dark world etc is pretty hard to do right in one go (= understatement). Not to mention that it should be build so some places are only reachable after certain events or with certain items. Building the entire overworld first will (in my eyes) needlesly force you to do revision upon revision.
Building a dungeon first will insure you start small and are working on a closed off piece of the game. It's a nice way to get started since all of Link's actions are present anyway. And once it's done, it's done. More so then with the overworld anyway. There will still be plenty of revisions needed during development, but you'd only have to do those for your one dungeon.
And finally there is the matter of quitting development. I'm
not planning on doing so, but it could happen. If I quit then I'd rather leave behind one or two finished dungeons then a (half)finished overworld and no dungeons. Building this way is not as flashy as working on an overworld I guess, but it's generally the flashy games that have a short lifetime anyway.
Q. Speaking of dungeons, how difficult was it designing their layout?A. Designing dungeon layouts is a lot of fun. You can get as creative as you want. Just take your time. I've already got a lot of notes on various other dungeons with pretty outrages gameplay ideas, which I just collect so I can pick the best for the end result.
I first wrote down the path the player has to make. It does not involve any gamemaker. Just a piece of paper and a straight line from entrance to the boss. Then I thought up the dungeon gimmick (which is finding and lighting 4 torches to get to the master key), so I started adding branching loops, also deciding on the number of rooms needed to get through a loop. Then I drew those lines on paper in the form of rooms (=rectangles) and I started working on the finer details like doors and placement.
I really wanted to give the player the idea of one complex whole so I created rooms that are connected with more then just doors. Like the moat that surrounds the center of the dungeon and the cannonballs that have paths crossing several rooms. I also wanted to tease the player a little with the master chest in plain sight and area's out of reach the first time you see them. To motivate them to explore and make sense of it all. Finally I adding in a shorter route to get to the boss after getting the master key. Since the boss will be hard (!) I feel reaching him should not be.
After all that I finally touched gamemaker again and worked on it making up the rooms as I go along. As a general rule no two rooms may be the same.
Q. In terms of programming, what was the most difficult aspect of the project so far?A. That's a good one. It's been one challenge after another. Out of the things I have to say that animations and timing issues are the hardest for me. The pick up + throw animation and jumping off ledges for example are pretty dreadfull to get just right.
Q. What was your favorite programming aspect?A. Optimizing. Definitely. I spend a lot of development time on improving existing systems. I started doing this when I had no understanding of gamemaker and without the pro version so I had to get creative a lot. Now that I've learned more I find that those old solutions will hold me back if I don't update them. And luckily I don't might fixing it. Helps keep the engine managable. You wouldn't believe how many objects, scripts and sprites are in this thing already. Any change at cutting or merging resources and/or objects is welcome.
Q. Your topic mentions that you are still looking to recruit. What part of the project could use help?A. Design for the most part. As I mentioned earlier, I am already planning more locations. If someone is willing to help design rooms, locations or towns then I welcome it. Just as long as they are teamplayers and don't mind working on my idea's next to there own. I understand that some people just want to have full artistic freedom and do whatever they want, but truthfully ... that's a really bad reason to join a
team to begin with.
Q. Beyond that, how can users here assist you and the team with the project?A. Well, the user feedback here is getting better and better. I've also posted on other sites and ... well.. There were some great and usefull comments there also but most doesn't go beyond "great" or "make it 3d"
. What really helps me is comments on the difficulty, the glitches and errors or the way that one sprite is two pixels to far to the left even. So if people keep making constructive observations then that would help me most I think. And if people want to help even more, then they can always send me a PB.
Beyond that just check out my request topics when there are any. Right now I'm looking for a soundeffect that I can use when Link is walking on a metal surface. Haven't had any replies to that one yet.
