[Coppermustache]

I initailly started this project because I just wanted to dip my toes into rom hacking due to my great interest in gamedevelopment and my even greater fear for coding. But now this is slowly turning into something actually presentable so I thaught I should let you people know about it.

I am working on a rom hack of "The legend of Zelda" for the NES, it features a completely new overworld, new dungeons and new enemy sprites to fit a steampunk aesthetic that Im trying to go for. The overworld is split into multiple segments that you unlock as you beat dungeons and collect their respective items similar to a metroidvania game. The Idea was to see how different of a game I could make while using utilities like zeldatech, dungeonmaster and yy-chr.
Heres a short overview of my progress:
-Area 1-3 finished
-Area 4 and final are still untouched
-5 out of 9 overworld enemys recieved new sprites
-Dungeons are mostly untouched
-3 Dungeon Enemys have received new sprites
I can not tell you how long this will take since this is my first hack and I have no idea how many issues I will run into. But Ill try to keep you guys informed. Feel free to share your thaughts and ideas on the project.


Update from 16.03.2021
Some progress has been made, some problems have been solved and some new problems have arrived, seems like a good moment for an update.

-The overworld has been completed!
-8 out of 9 overworld enemys received new sprites
-2 out of 9 Dungeons have been finished.
-Some Dungeon sprites have been edited
-4 Dungeon Enemys received new sprites
-1 Boss received new sprites

Things are really taking shape, my biggest issue right now is getting the warp caves to work and removing the lost woods and lost mountains.

[Ok Impala!]

Looks like a cool hack, I like Steampunk idea! Are you planning on changing the dungeons too and give them a new Steampunk aesthetic? 

[Coppermustache]

Thanks man, at first I was unsure if I could even do something interesting with the dungeon sprites
but then I gave it a shot and it looks a lot more fitting now. So thanks as well for pointing this out.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

My suggestion is watch your difficulty curve. Zelda 1 can be brutal -- try to keep the game fair. Some Zelda 1 hacks that I've tried have been great and all but when they get unreasonably difficult, I stop playing.