Zelda 1 Redux / The Legend of Zelda Redux

[Queue]

...and I wouldn't want to encourage eye strain for players scanning trees for abnormalities.

Your concern is admirable, but playing on a screen where you have to strain to see anything is user error. It's absurd to make the experience worse for people not doing something wrong to accommodate those who are.

However, all of this seems misguided in the first place. Is there gameplay value to making the burnable bushes hard to find? To put things plainly, Zelda 1 had no effing idea what it was doing; a lot of it was arbitrary or guesswork as far as mechanics are concerned. To find every burnable (and bombable, though that was even more tedious), you either painstakingly re-entered a screen using the blue candle (and hoped your aim wasn't off to give you a false negative) or you waited for the red candle (etc.) and did things slightly faster, but still not quickly. It is an anti-fun mechanic. Putting in obviously burnable (or bombable) spots just saves either tedium, or being encouraged to look at a guide. The door repair rooms already give a memorizable penalty mechanic so that burning every location will be punished (not that I think that's a good gameplay mechanic either).

Subtle can work, see the Binding of Isaac X rocks. But it's not the only option, and given the limited tileset, using it on good new art (the prototype already made), adds more aesthetically than would be gained from a near identical subtle bush, either of which are a gameplay improvement over vanilla.

[pleasejust]

The gameplay value is making burnable bushes hard to find is so that they're not easy to find. Why even have to burn a bush. Just put the staircase tile in place of a burnable bush. Subtle is fine. For those that notice it, it's a clue. That's all.

[ifightdragons]

It's unquestionably a solid and important gameplay improvement to avoid players seeking blindly for trees to burn.
It's literally one of the biggest frustrations and most common complaints of the original game. Bearing that in mind, I can't agree with what Queue is saying.

It's also a further improvement to not make this too obvious, as to remove any sense of discovery and adventure.

People who have proposed a slightly altered tree sprite seem to be on the right track in my estimation.

[AdamDravian]

I agree with Queue, but don't feel strongly about it. A Link to the Past is widely considered to be the best of the classic Zelda games, and it doesn't go too subtle with its hints. Instead of the player having to do tedious trial and error or pixel-hunt for clues, it becomes more about taking mental (or written) notes on the prospective secrets you come across and then remembering to come back to investigate them once you have the item needed to do so.

[ifightdragons]

I agree with Queue, but don't feel strongly about it. A Link to the Past is widely considered to be the best of the classic Zelda games, and it doesn't go too subtle with its hints. Instead of the player having to do tedious trial and error or pixel-hunt for clues, it becomes more about taking mental (or written) notes on the prospective secrets you come across and then remembering to come back to investigate them once you have the item needed to do so.

From what I'm reading, it seems you disagree with Queue. I might be misunderstanding, but I gather that Queue thinks the trees are fine as is in LoZ, although it's arguably one of the most tedious aspects of the entire game. But as I said, I'm having trouble understanding exactly what Queue is saying.

But it's not an apt comparison at all, as there are virtually no discernible clues to differ a burnable bush from a normal bush in LoZ.
ALttP at least has a clever overworld design that hints at secret areas.

In the original, it's just trial and error on every screen. You have to burn every bush on every screen in order to find the ones you're looking for.
September 17, 2020, 04:56:33 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

The gameplay value is making burnable bushes hard to find is so that they're not easy to find. Why even have to burn a bush. Just put the staircase tile in place of a burnable bush. Subtle is fine. For those that notice it, it's a clue. That's all.

Does that mean you're for or against discernible bushes? It's hard to actually understand which way you're arguing here. It seems you're on board with discernible bushes, but then the whole "Just put the staircase tile in place of burnable bush" comment just swerves in the complete opposite direction.

[AdamDravian]

From what I'm reading, it seems you disagree with Queue.

No, Queue and I were both arguing for why it'd be a good thing to have the burnable trees be more noticeable. The way Queue started his post could give the impression that he thought that changing the trees adds no value, so I see where you might have gotten confused.

[ifightdragons]

No, Queue and I were both arguing for why it'd be a good thing to have the burnable trees be more noticeable. The way Queue started his post could give the impression that he thought that changing the trees adds no value, so I see where you might have gotten confused.

Thanks for clarifying, gotcha.

[Pleiades7]

I do understand the complaints about the dry tree sticking out too much.

So as you can see, not even changing the palette is a good option for this.
I would like to ask for help for possible mockups for the tree.
I'm thinking of maybe a similar tree but with fewer foliage to represent a dying-out tree with leaves falling, but I'm open for suggestions for this tree sprite.

Use this one.

Best overall compromise.

My thinking is that: If it is TOO subtle (i.e. changing the dots, or a few pixels, etc.) then people with bad monitors or some type of graphic filter that redraws the graphic (e.g say, in retroarch) won't be able to see the tree anyways. The dry tree as it is sticks out too much. This does too, but not as bad -if I were playing this the first time a tree like this would make me wonder what that is about, prompting me to explore, which is what a clue is supposed to do, and how we should be looking at this. However the original dry tree sticks out so much, it practically screams "look here!".

I don't think users here should obsess about this. Some proposals to remove dots from the tree would make a first time user think the graphic is a glitch.

Again, we want to make this look like a hint, not a glitch from a game glitching. My 2 cents.

[blipform]

I realized that only Quest 1 gives the hints (walls, trees); Quest 2 is full-on blind guessing. So it matters less imo if it stands out.


Use a different foliage, like a Willow Tree? To make things more interesting, spread some fake Tree markers everywhere. Add a bunch of grouped Willows so you won't know which one hides the staircase.

When you get the candle, you'll remember to try them all later. Like when you run out of bombs but know where the cracks were.

[The3Dude]

I also had this problem earlier this year and it seems the only workaround is to make the trees subtle while not being obvious. When I first played Zelda 1, I thought maybe something was different about the burnable bushes/trees. I was wrong in the end, they look exactly the same as the others. But if something like these screenshots is done for example it would make it easier to tell the difference.



The one Link is facing is the burnable bush. It looks almost identical except the trunk of the tree is darker.
It would be rewarding to know that because you were looking out for a secret, you found one because of it.

Here's my take on burnable trees with the original tree being in the top-left for reference.


BUt, IF you WANT obvious, you could even leave the staircase sprite underneath the tree/bush sprite. That way when you burn the tree it just looks like you uncovered the stairs.

[ShadowOne333]

Holy crap what happened here.
I go missing for one day and the whole thread turns into a warzone.

I knew the tree stuff was gonna be controversial but not THAT controversial, damn.
I am still torn as to what to do about this.

I for one really want to make use of a custom sprite (even if that means ditching the custom one I made lol), but I also don't want to go the "change some pixels" and call it a day.

A lot of good points were given for sure, from both sides.
I'll try to address both sides:

• The reason why I don't want to simply change some pixels in the original sprite is because not all people play on pixel-sharp HDMI TVs (some still play on CRTs with flashcarts or repros); and even those that do play on HD TVs, there's those that prefer applying filters (like bilinear) or shaders (CRT) to give the game the retro look it had back then, and the pixel changes would REALLY be hard to spot on those.
• As for making an entirely different sprite that sticks out a lot, I agree that indeed they give out the secret flat out in the face and that might turn down some people from exploring and finding stuff out on their own or by subtle hints (and I do agree that blindlingly flaming every tree is just not fun).

I have some time today to make a mockup from what I have in mind, hopefully this sits well for most people. I will take into consideration the mockups you guys have been sending.
If not, then I will release an optional patch that completely disabled both cracked walls and burnable trees, for the purists.

[pleasejust]

It's also a further improvement to not make this too obvious, as to remove any sense of discovery and adventure.

exactly

A Link to the Past is widely considered to be the best of the classic Zelda games, and it doesn't go too subtle with its hints.

AS much as I love that game, never liked the lack of subtlety in Alttp. The markers on the map right out tell you where to go next. Some of the sense of discovery was gone. Aside from visual clues, talking to villagers to find clues on locations would've been nice which could be an option with this hack.

[ultimaweapon]

I believe the trees should be a bit more noticeable. I believe all trees have like 6 dots on them. Burnable trees should have 9 dots so that I will be a little bit noticeable plus give the impression it's starting to die out.

[ShadowOne333]

Took a look at all the mockups, and I compiled the ones that most people had a good reception for, or the ones that I thought looked good.
I will put them from left to right in order of less modifications (starting with the original), to most modifications. DannyPlaysSomeGames and Shadic's mockups are similar (in that they change a few black spots to the foliage), so they're interchangeable.
I did another mockup of my own (3rd tree set) that kinda tries to balance the subtle changes with a bit of a shape change to make the tree appear as having less foliage, then Iridium's mockups follow, then ending with the current dry tree I made:

Original / Danny & Shadic' / ShadowOne333's New Mockup / Iridium's / Shadow's original dry tree


Let me know what you guys think, and if any of those look good for implementation.
Vote by numbers:
0 is obviously the original tree so it doesn't count.
1 (Danny/Shadic), 2 (My new mockup), 3 , 4, 5 (Iridium's) or 6 (my original dry tree).

I made another one just for shits and giggles, this will be #7:

[EthansDreamLand]

I prefer #3.

[AdamDravian]

2. With 7 being a close runner up.

[line2666]

1st thought is 2, then 7. 1 as an optional difficulty patch. But if we can see what they look like in-game overworld, that'd make a deciding clincher.

[Supergamerguy]

2 is the minimum change I would prefer, the whole vagueness of Zelda 1 (the trees being a prime example), is why I'm waiting to play Zelda 1 for the first time in the form of this redux hack.

[CoolCatBomberMan]

#2 is by far the best. Different enough that you can tell it's burnable, subtle enough that you won't notice it right away.

[gzip]

Less is more here. The more you have to search the better. Add an optional patch for something more obvious. I also like bogaa's flute idea, that would be pretty cool.