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41

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 13, 2014, 10:51:38 pm »

Splitting the sound for better looping options might be something I can implement. Sounds good. Let's try that first.

Ok. I'll see about getting the songs split up properly and I'll probably just PM you a link to the edited mp3s. If for some reason this idea ends up not working smoothly in GM 8.1, it would very likely work in GM Studio because of the new audio engine it has. But it really would be nice to get it implemented sooner than later.

42

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 09, 2014, 07:11:05 am »

Great. Thanks. That fixed Sahittam's 1st issue perfectly.
Could you do the same for the other background sounds. They all have rather awkward looping right now.

Sure! I looked over the rest of the songs and realized that most of them definitely could use some edits. Of course, if you really wanted to do music looping really well, the game would not loop back to the very beginning of most songs, due to the "intro" part that each song tends to have. I don't remember if Gamemaker 8.1 can be told to start at a certain position of an mp3 upon looping though. If not (or if getting the loop position proves too difficult), the way to do it would be to split up each song into two parts, one being the "intro" and the other the "body" or "main" part. Once the intro ends, the main part starts and once the main part ends it simply loops the main part and does not go back to the intro. This creates a smooth music experience while having awkwardly looping music can be a bit jarring and distracting to the player.

Let me know if you can or want to improve the music in this way. It won't require much extra effort on my part to divide songs up into two parts and to get loop timing right, but you'd have to do some changes to the code for playing music. It should be a fairly simple change, though some songs would not need to be split while others would, so that would mean code for playing songs would not always be the same. Not a big deal though.

And, of course, the other option is for me to simply try to make each song loop as best I can without having the two part songs idea. It would be better than it is now, but many of the songs will still be pretty awkward upon looping, and a fairly fast fade out might still be best on some of the songs, if looping will always go back to the beginning of each song.

43

Zelda Projects / Re: [Trailer] The Legend of Zelda: Shadow of Ruins (Zelda 2 Remake)

« on: July 08, 2014, 04:08:05 am »

If MetroidQuest does come back to this game, and if proper graphics are made for this, it would mean proper music would need to be made as well. I'd love to create an "HD" version of the OST. The limited NES music would no longer be fitting.

It does appear that MetroidQuest has since dropped this project though? I don't think anyone replied quickly enough earlier this year.

44

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 08, 2014, 03:43:08 am »

The easiest way to fix the mp3s is to load them into Audacity(freeware) and cut off the excess or the trailing off end of a song.  Save as a .wav unless you have the plugins for mp3 or ogg. Load the wav into the demo version of Fruity Loops Studio then save as an mp3.

At least that's how I edit my stuff. 

I would have suggested that kind of stuff too, but it made no sense why it would take so long because the mp3 clearly did not end with as much silence as the game gave it before looping. Nevertheless, I edited off the fade of the mp3 and resaved it. It now loops in the game with no pausing and it even sticks pretty much on beat while I tested it (it may differ on slower computers; not sure how GM deals with timing). I looked closer at the original mp3 and I expect it was the odd bitrate that threw GM for a loop (pun not intended, but it sure worked out well). I'm attaching the edited mp3, so you can use it, Martijn. If there are any other songs in need of this or any kind of correction, I can very easily do that for you. And I've already got the software to do anything that might be needed.

On another note, while I was testing the mp3 looping, I ran into an error on my way to the shop. I discovered that it does not like it if you hold out your sword while going into a screen wrap.

Show content

(Image only appears if logged in, due to being an attachment)

Edit:

5. Stunned cactus dudes still electrocute you if you slice them
I noticed that when I boomeranged a cactus guy who showed no signs of being electric, I sliced him and even though he was stunned I took damage.

I believe that's actually how ALttP works as well. No matter what, hitting those guys with a sword will shock link. I know that's how the SNES version works. I'm just not sure about the GBA version, and if there are other versions, not sure about those either.

45

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 07, 2014, 08:48:51 pm »

Issue 1 (the shop music) is something I don't believe I'll fix anytime soon. Blame my lack of experience with editing sounds / mp3 music.

I checked it out, and it doesn't seem like the mp3 is the problem..? How are you managing the looping of music? The mp3 file does not have all that extra silence at the end, just a few seconds, so something else is definitely off in the way it's being told to loop. I'm kind of curious why it takes so long to start over.

Edit: Oh, also just had a thought/question: Are you planning on converting to Studio sometime, or do you think you'll stay in GM 8.1 until the end? If you plan on doing it eventually, then it makes sense to do it sooner rather than later. I say this because I finally looked at the poll and noticed that conversion to GM Studio was on there.

46

Entertainment / Re: Sword Art Online II (an MMORPG VR Anime)

« on: July 07, 2014, 08:22:18 pm »

I guess it's time I finally watched season 1 eh?

I certainly think it's worth a watch. You'll likely enjoy the first arc, though the second arc has more plot problems if you think too hard and some things get a bit more generic and fan service shoots up a bit more.

Loved the SAO arc. I didnt mind the ALO arc as much as some people(it is hated on more than i think it should. Okay it isnt the best comparing to the first arc but it wasnt awful.)

I agree, the ALO arc certainly wasn't entirely bad. There are various reasons why people didn't like it as much but I think that the "tentacle" dudes with Asuna was the worst for me personally. It just seemed a bit tasteless. And many people didn't like how she was more of a victim than in the first arc. Also, various character personalities were inconsistent. It wasn't horrible, but it just wasn't as solid as the first arc.

after watching the first episode i feel like they could get back at something better here. I have high hopes for it but it could very easily be shitty very fast off the bat.

If they follow the light novel as much as possible, it will be very good, imo. So far, they have followed it very well in the first episode.

47

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 06, 2014, 12:37:04 pm »

Whoo, yeah. Nice work on finding all those bugs, Sahittam!
I actually had #11 happen to me in a previous demo. I must've forgotten to tell Martijn about it.

If it's any consolation, Martijn, the original ALttP has its share of bugs that allow for some really odd glitches which can be pretty big game breakers, giving incorrect palettes, filling rupees to max for no reason, wrong warping Link and confusing the game about whether you are in dark or light world, and a lot of other stuff. I expect there are still a good number of bugs to be found in your engine, but you have a remarkably solid engine, all things considered, especially since your engine is like ALttP+ or something with the extra stuff.
It seems like even the most solid game can be broken, even professional games with paid testers, and the more complex and large a game is the greater the chances are of such bugs occurring. And a Zelda game is definitely not a game light in content.

48

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 05, 2014, 11:55:55 am »

Just wanted to note that I have windows 8 as well and have not seen slow downs there. However, my computer is quite new and has a lot of processing power and RAM and pretty much everything else is very good.

The problems about the menu that I mention in that LP video which I just posted was due to a strange fluke where a certain program crashed but did not close and it did some really weird stuff. Actually, you can see a thing at the end of the video that looks like a slight graphical glitch located in the center of the desktop coming out of the desktop character's sun glasses (that's actually why I kept clicking and dragging the selection, to sort of highlight it at the end when I noticed something odd. Though I didn't say anything about it, I was thinking "WTF?", lol).
I have tested the game a bit more with no problems in the menu, and - since other programs were freezing/crashing/lagging during this time as well - I can only assume it was because of that one program's problem and it has nothing to do with this game.

49

Entertainment / Re: Sword Art Online II (an MMORPG VR Anime)

« on: July 05, 2014, 11:44:24 am »

And it looks like we will get the first episode of season 2 in a little less than 5 hours here:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/sword-art-online/episode-1-656625

50

Other Projects / Re: [DEMO 17 out] Alttp - Horn of Balance

« on: July 03, 2014, 09:45:46 pm »

Alrighty, started a play through of the latest demo. Failed pretty hard at going any place, but hey, at least it's not an hour like my other video and it has better mic quality and it's edited to avoid it being stupidly boring.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQ3Xb1M2cE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQ3Xb1M2cE</a>

Martijn, you should PM me and tell me some key things, like, where each dungeon is and what areas to avoid due to being incomplete or something. And let me know if I need something from one area before going into a certain place to avoid getting blocked or something - anything that might cause me to back track a lot. Those things force me to edit the video and it's a waste of time, and I don't get a lot of time to play games these days, so things like that would be a great help.

51

Zelda Projects / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Silent Echoes

« on: June 24, 2014, 07:33:40 pm »

I have seen great looking Zelda games around this resolution! I also want to announce that I don't want my Zelda game to be featured or looked at as a GB style game, nor GBA.

This game that I am about to share does not belong to me and belongs under the user of Dlbrooks33, and this is to share as an example of a successful Zelda game demo: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/110882-the-legend-of-zelda-pearl-of-darkness

I know there are successful Zelda fan games, so I'm not sure why you showed me that game, but I played a little of it and it's quite fun, so thanks for showing it to me (I guess I'll have to look around YoYo games for more).
However, I don't see what the problem is with going with a res of 240x160. I mean, even that game is at that res. To be honest - and not to sound mean - but you can't use GB style graphics if you don't want your game to be viewed as GB or GBA. I don't see why it's a problem either way. That game you showed me feels like something in between the GB Zelda games and the GBA MC and it's quite fun. What's the reason you don't want it viewed as GB/GBA?
If you truly want to make a 2D Zelda that won't be viewed as GB/GBA, then you'll need to do something like Djipi is doing with his Zelda fan game "Skulltula's Amulet". Or you'd want to do something close to the FSA style, which is kind of like MC. The latest large effort OoT2D project would be a good example of that. Perhaps you could try that on the GB graphics. It's basically just various alpha blending with overlays. It gives things texture and detail. Changing the screen size just doesn't seem as effective as a graphical change, if you want it to be viewed as something other than GB/GBA.

I personally had no problems focusing on Link.  I would also like to point out that the screenshots I've had shared weren't in full screen, and it's much more easier to see Link in fullscreen(don't worry)!  And the reason I rather have my ratio this way is because the graphics wouldn't look strange when it's more zoomed out.

tight butthole, I actually zoomed the pics to make them full screen before I made my last post. But I was just giving advice, and you do not have to follow it. It's your fan game, after all.

As far as the homes goes, those were extracted out of ZC and I do not know of a proper way to do it.  Please, if you know how to extract ZC tilesets with it's actual quality, notify me by PM.  Some tilesets shows up grey.

Since you're using Game Maker, it must mean you are using a tileset in png or bmp format, right? You should be able to simply open up the tileset in a paint program and recolor. It's very simple. I could do it if you wanted.
It's been a while, but I remember ZC does have palettes, so you have to cycle through them to find the right one. And I remember there were different ones for overworld and dungeons, so you might possibly have been in the dungeon palettes, as most of those tend to have lots of darker colors and grays.

Once I've released a tech demo of this game, and if you experience some issues focusing on Link then let me know, then I'll change the ratio.  But, I think you'll find it rather easy to focus on him. ^_^

Fair enough. I'll wait and test a demo then.

52

Zelda Projects / Re: The Legend of Zelda: Silent Echoes

« on: June 23, 2014, 11:33:10 pm »

Cool. What program or programming language are you using to make this?

BTW, I bet it'd look much better with GBA resolution/ratio.

As seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions, the GBA res is 240 x 160.

It's smaller and wider than what you have there. Most of the time 4:3 ratios (i.e. 320x240) these days look odd to people because most people now have 16:9 or 16:10 ratio monitors. There's also a lot of interesting research that's been done on how the eyes see things and stuff, and Nintendo obviously puts thought into what screen res they go for. It seems like they are always choosing to go with something wider than 4:3 ratio, which makes sense. From what I've read, keeping it wider allows for the viewer/player to focus best on more stuff than if it was too tall, because of how our eyes see. So, in the end, more stuff can be on screen at one time without the viewer/player feeling like they can't focus or it's too busy or something.

Anyway, I'll shut up now.
Oh, but one more thing: If you give the roof of that house a color, like blue or red, then it would look less bland and more appealing. Of course, the chimney should stay gray. The tiling you've done is pretty nice, especially knowing how limited the GB tiles are. I will certainly play a demo once you get one out for public play.

53

Entertainment / Re: Lindsey Stirling

« on: June 23, 2014, 04:16:22 pm »

Even if I stand still, I can't play a violin well at all. Guitar is so much easier. What she does is pretty impressive to me and I like her music, though I must say that I don't care much for the performance aspect.

54

Graphics / Re: Just a little wip

« on: June 22, 2014, 07:57:00 pm »

Hey wow, looking good. ALttP in GB style, FTW! Really impressive how you've managed to maintain the detail.

55

Graphics / Re: FrozenFire's 3D Graphics Dev Den

« on: June 21, 2014, 06:29:37 am »

Link is no longer headless... now he's bald! Honestly, I'm not sure which is more favorable.



The mouth is probably too bright of a red and ears are a bit funky and need fixing. I need to refresh myself on elf-like ears, I guess. But besides that, I think it's really looking the way I envisioned. I might give him long white sleeves and make some other design changes though.

The size I'm showing is way bigger than it's supposed to be. That's why I made the smaller ones in the middle of the pic, to give a better idea of actual in-game size.
I might double the texture res because I noticed that the eye spacing looked much better on the offset pixel, so I could fix it if I doubled the res. Also, doubling the res seems like it would make it look real nice while still maintaining my desired art style. I'll have to screw around with it a bit more to see what I like best.

Anyway, now it's pretty much just hair and hat that are needed, then on to some attempts at animating him.

56

Entertainment / Re: Zelda Theories, Interesting Facts, and Unused Content Galore!

« on: June 20, 2014, 10:57:24 pm »

I love the Link is dead spin on the story. Makes sense.

Yeah, The Game Theorists come up with some interesting stuff (though some of it is just ridiculously stupid, imo). I found myself wishing they did more on Zelda. Out of the Zelda stuff they have done so far, the "Link is dead" theory was probably the most interesting.

57

Entertainment / Re: Let's discuss the Zelda Wii U [E3 2014 Trailer]

« on: June 20, 2014, 08:58:12 pm »

The open world thing is pretty much a requirement for me to still play this series. And so is voice-acting. If there's another Zelda game without any kind of voice-acting or other actual attention to conveying the story in this way, I'm not that interested.

I guess it would be pretty cool to have a Zelda with full voice acting. For some reason, it just feels like this game should have it. It just wouldn't feel right to have an open world and not have some real voice acting. I have no idea what logic it is that causes me to say this, but it's just how I feel about it. Though, even without voice acting, I will probably go for this game. (I have to get a Wii U though, lol)

Also, though I do not mind the cell shaded art style at all, I would have liked to see another Zelda game with 'realistic' graphics like OoT/Twilight Princess. We've had Skyward Sword and the Wind Waker remake, and this looks a lot like that sort of style. Imagine what you can do in photo-realism with the Wii U's hardware. Though granted, we don't want this to look like some Zelda Skyrim game, so taking a more creative approach is a good idea I suppose.

Yeah. I also think they should re-visit a more realistic art style. If they don't do it soon, I'll probably lose interest in anything new in the Zelda franchise, and instead I'll just occasionally play the older games when I feel the need.
I think it's fine to do this more toon-like art style with this one though, and I actually didn't like the WW graphics when it first came out, but I ended up warming up to it so that I did a complete reversal in my feelings on it, and I especially love the WW HD. That game's world is just amazing. But dang, something like TP with the new hardware would be incredible. I sincerely hope they go that direction next time. It might actually be a good thing that they didn't do it with this, because I expect the next game will benefit from this being made and hopefully the next game will build off of the new things done in this one, most notably the change to the open world.

58

Entertainment / Sword Art Online II (an MMORPG VR Anime)

« on: June 20, 2014, 08:38:03 pm »

Alrighty, so a second season of Sword Art Online is starting next month! ~omomomomomomommomomo!?!?!?!

If you're like me, you loved the first season for the most part, though you didn't care too much for the second arc. But still, it was a mighty good anime, imo. And now we will have Gun Gale Online "Phantom Bullet", serving as the second season.
If - for some reason - you love anime but still don't know about Sword Art Online (a.k.a. "SAO"): It's a virtual reality anime where players get trapped in a MMORPG. I have yet to find any VR anime as intense and epic as this. The . h a c k stuff is just not the same. Though I'm sure some people find the plot of it interesting, it moves too slow for me. And stuff like Log Horizon just didn't catch my interest. There is a reason why SAO made such a big splash in the world of anime. I have high hopes for season 2. As long as they properly follow the light novel, it will be very good.

So yeah, I guess this is the official SAO II topic for ZFGC.


You might want to check out these vids if you haven't:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r9lluFP2z8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r9lluFP2z8</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIeYSXJT7E" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIeYSXJT7E</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTvL7xpj4TY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTvL7xpj4TY</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3qY7-gexOY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3qY7-gexOY</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uM5Lhvbd8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uM5Lhvbd8</a>
These are all so short but it's got me hyped.

Other thoughts:
No, Kirito is not a girl. I won't spoil it, but it's explained very well in the story. Also, Walnut made a humorous comment on a previous topic about the first season being "Ass Art Online" because of the fan service. It's true that it was very obvious about giving the viewer certain points of view just for that reason, and I won't even go into the second arc stuff. But, hey, it's very common in anime, and it's linked in with Japanese culture (i.e. they don't think the exact same was as Americans on "sexuality" and such), and it definitely does not mean the anime is doing it because it is trying to cover up the fact that the plot sucks or something. SAO wasn't without flaw, but it was not all about ass and women. I do have to admit that it did focus a bit too much for my liking with all the women basically falling in love with Kirito, but the VR aspect and game-related details and scenarios are what really made the anime a favorite for me. I expect the same from SAO II, being MMORPG-related stuff as well as boobs and ass. That's just how it is. In the end, I expect to enjoy it very much.

59

Feedback / Re: What Can We Do To Get More Life Here?

« on: June 20, 2014, 07:28:37 pm »

This is a Zelda Fan Game forum in the year 2014. You've been dead for the past 4 years. Just let it go.

It really is interesting, now that I really take some time to look at what has happened in the past few years. When people say "dead", it really just seems like they mean one thing: "No new completed Zelda fan games". But there's been a lot of development, like Horn of Balance, Echoes of Aurelia, some more OoT2d attempts, the Project Zelda Engine, and Atom finished his Zelda game. Also, the King of Thieves community project made a nice amount of progress, and there have been some awesome 3D projects in the style of WW and TP and more. There was also some kind of Skrillex Zelda game, which was completed, I guess, lol. So there is still plenty of development going on and a nice amount of creativity and talent here.

So, as far as fan game completion goes, yeah, kind of dead in that regard, but development is still plenty fresh and going fairly strong. The truth is, ZFGC offers stuff that you just can't get anywhere else. Closest thing would be the Zelda Classic (PureZC) forums or something.


I've got a proposal:

I was going through all the completed projects, and most of those are so old that all links are broken. But dang, I was unaware of many of those and how impressive some of them actually were. My proposal is this: If anyone still has some of these lost Zelda fan games on their HDDs, we could make a topic where we try to save them. The first post would have a list of currently "lost" games as well as a list of "recovered" games. Obviously, people would upload the "lost" games and then submit a link to the DL on the topic, and the lost game would then be moved to the recovered list with the link. The "lost" games list would serve to show people what games are still missing so that someone might think "oh hey! I have that on my HDD! (or SSD, whatever)".

This idea came about because I was planning to start up a Let's Play series for Zelda fan games and was saddened to find that all the ones I wanted to play were mostly just screenshots and descriptions and accompanied by a broken link.
I think it would really be beneficial for ZFGC to try to gather up as many completed Zelda games as possible and have one topic for all of them. If people actually saw what has been done, it could really help people to get inspired and motivated with developing their own games.

60

Entertainment / Re: Zelda Theories, Interesting Facts, and Unused Content Galore!

« on: June 20, 2014, 06:47:37 pm »

Zelda stuff from "TheJWittz" that most people here probably know at least most of, but maybe not all of. These particular videos would fall under the "interesting facts" category.

Mario cameos in the Zelda franchise:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl14ucMAyK8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl14ucMAyK8</a>
There were actually a couple things in here that I was not aware of. Pretty cool stuff.

And on the other hand, Zelda-related cameos in Mario games:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cFoweFrSlI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cFoweFrSlI</a>
I haven't played nearly as many Mario games, so a lot of this info was new are really cool to see for me.
(Note: The video is over at 4 minutes, and the rest of the video is about loot crates and subscribing to the guy)

TheJWittz has some other Zelda stuff, like this:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnh-0GZkjQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnh-0GZkjQ</a>
So it might be worth it to check out more of his stuff. He seems to favor Zelda, Pokémon, and Mario. Especially Pokémon.