Zelda: Perils of Darkness is RELEASED! ( Go Download! :D )

[ultimaweapon]

Alright, for land instead I'm making it look like these. I'll call that area the corrupted area, because darkness is totally covering it already. Looks way better anyways.

Either one here is a great choice.

For Lava here's this.


This for lava looks cool too, makes the rocks look charred from heat.


EDIT 2: This looks as orange as it can be.

The first one here is a great choice. Also going back to the original choice for water is best as well.

[The3Dude]

I added a new feature to the dungeons . Though it's a small one it will mix things up a bit more.
The lefmost block in the center row of dungeons isn't always the push-able one anymore. It could be all the way on the right, near the middle or maybe even the left still.


Dungeon colors showcase.

DARK


DARK(Dark Rooms)


LAVA


Rooms with Lava (Floor is lit)


UNDERWATER


Underwater Pitfall Rooms (Can't actually fall in )


ICE




Also I will be removing the cracked walls for the overworld and dungeons, my reasons are here.

1st reason- Quote from Gzip, "I was never a fan of cracked walls since it takes the fun out of finding the secrets. I see hacks resorting to walk thru walls more when they have this feature. I did always like the trick in alttp where you could tap on hollow walls with your sword."

2nd reason- I just finished playing Charade's Legend of Banjo hack and Gzip's thoughts on it are very true. You already knew there was a pathway there before having enough bombs. Takes the "secretive-ness" out of it.

If you disagree, please let me know why I should keep it. "Getting rid of them can also frees up more space for graphics "


Also, I will need beta testers after making the 4th dungeon, I'm not waiting before I finish all the dungeons before testing so if you'd like to be a tester please comment. I only need 4 testers, have 1 already so that leaves 3. First 3 to post will be picked most likely.

Things are coming along well.

[Googie]

Those pics are bad ass, I really like 'em.

I liked the idea of cracked walls, it gives your hack some extra flavor.

[NiO]

I do think cracked walls are a good option, if this was my hack I would make it like this.

1- Keep the cracked walls but make them barely noticiable, something similar to what you did with the trees, something that sometimes can be unseen if you are not paying attention.

2- Have fake cracked walls, with this I mean, you can add the sprite of a cracked wall and the player could use the bomb there but nothing will happen, because its not destructible.

3- Maybe like someone already mentioned, use the sword sound to know if they are desctructible.

4- If adding all of those ideas you think is still too easy, then make only a few cracked walls sound, and others that dont, so the player will have to take a risk to waste a bomb to see if it opens something or not.

Just some ideas, I remember reading somewhere that people hacking Zelda tends to do it even harder than it was.

[ultimaweapon]

I added a new feature to the dungeons . Though it's a small one it will mix things up a bit more.
The lefmost block in the center row of dungeons isn't always the push-able one anymore. It could be all the way on the right, near the middle or maybe even the left still.


Dungeon colors showcase.

DARK


DARK(Dark Rooms)


LAVA


Rooms with Lava (Floor is lit)


UNDERWATER


Underwater Pitfall Rooms (Can't actually fall in )


ICE




Also I will be removing the cracked walls for the overworld and dungeons, my reasons are here.

1st reason- Quote from Gzip, "I was never a fan of cracked walls since it takes the fun out of finding the secrets. I see hacks resorting to walk thru walls more when they have this feature. I did always like the trick in alttp where you could tap on hollow walls with your sword."

2nd reason- I just finished playing Charade's Legend of Banjo hack and Gzip's thoughts on it are very true. You already knew there was a pathway there before having enough bombs. Takes the "secretive-ness" out of it.

If you disagree, please let me know why I should keep it. "Getting rid of them can also frees up more space for graphics "


Also, I will need beta testers after making the 4th dungeon, I'm not waiting before I finish all the dungeons before testing so if you'd like to be a tester please comment. I only need 4 testers, have 1 already so that leaves 3. First 3 to post will be picked most likely.

Things are coming along well.

I am fine without the cracked walls Just give me the option to have plenty of bombs! 

Those dungeons look awesome. You know I'm always willing to help you out.

[The3Dude]

Those pics are bad ass, I really like 'em.

I liked the idea of cracked walls, it gives your hack some extra flavor.

Alright, I guess I'll just keep them in, I'll just have an addon patch that hides all the cracked walls.

I do think cracked walls are a good option, if this was my hack I would make it like this.

1- Keep the cracked walls but make them barely noticiable, something similar to what you did with the trees, something that sometimes can be unseen if you are not paying attention.

2- Have fake cracked walls, with this I mean, you can add the sprite of a cracked wall and the player could use the bomb there but nothing will happen, because its not destructible.

3- Maybe like someone already mentioned, use the sword sound to know if they are destructible.

4- If adding all of those ideas you think is still too easy, then make only a few cracked walls sound, and others that don't, so the player will have to take a risk to waste a bomb to see if it opens something or not.

Just some ideas, I remember reading somewhere that people hacking Zelda tends to do it even harder than it was.

On your last sentence, do you mean you want it hard?
What I could do is make the dungeon ones less noticeable, because they are very easy to spot. The cracked walls in the overworld and bushes in the overworld are harder to see because all the colors... so those are good. My main problem is the dungeon ones.

I am fine without the cracked walls Just give me the option to have plenty of bombs! 

Those dungeons look awesome. You know I'm always willing to help you out.

. Don't worry max Bomb count in this hack is 20. When I said I have 1 tester already, I meant you because  you're the first one I'm sending the beta to. Watch your email, it should be sent today!

[ifightdragons]

I'd recommend against removing cracked walls. It's one of the biggest annoyances of the original game. Going around blind looking for what might be cracked walls pretty much anywhere and everywhere is not the least bit fun. It's bad game design. It's just not reasonable to expect players to clank their sword on every inch of the game. So adding the sound, while a nice touch, doesn't really mitigate much of the annoyance. Add it for sure, as it's a nice bonus, but don't remove cracked walls because the sword clanking is added.

Like others have suggested, making cracked walls less obvious and noticeable is a good way to do. Some could be fake as well, but this is a precarious balance. Adding just a little too many fake cracked walls is sure going to more annoying than fun.

By the way, the designs and palettes so far are really, really inspired! You're doing great.

[Trax]

I always thought that the concept of cracked walls was an unsolvable problem. If you have no cracks, everything is a goddamn hit-and-miss, not to mention a loss of time more than anything. Assuming you don't use save states, the number of bombs required becomes ridiculous. On the other hand, if you have cracks, then they are not "secret" anymore. You see a crack, you bomb, you know it's a passage. The only difference with a regular door is that you need a bomb to pass. And that's it. It's like the bomb is the key.

Neither option seems to add any reasonable amount of fun to the game.

The only "in-between" I can imagine is that the cracks are not easy to spot. If you have textured walls that already have cracks in it, but a cracked wall is just a little bit more cracked, then it means you can miss it if you are not paying attention, and it's not a total guessing game on every wall of every room. So, I'd go with that. That would be my suggestion. Make cracks hard to see. And that would be applicable to trees as well.

[bogaabogaa]

It depends on the game designee if cracked walls are a good idea or not. If you have hints in the game and unique location that makes it distinguishable it might be satisfying to find a hidden door. It also depends what you hide behind it. A player should not get stuck if he misses a cue. In dungeons you have tools like map and compass so a good designed dungeon should not be a issue with plane walls. It also depends on a player if he likes to think about such things so a optional patch could also be a solution.

[Queue]

Over 30 years ago I bombed every overworld wall and burned every overworld bush (obviously plenty of spots were out of reach, but you get the idea). I systematically went row-by-row on each screen. It was terrible then and it's terrible now. There were many times more "bad" bomb / burn spots (arbitrary spot in a stretch of flat wall / bush-line) than good ones (only 2 or 3 flat wall edges, a bush pattern that implied a cave, etc.).

In dungeons, bomb-able spots are only centered on walls, and with the map and / or some process of elimination, the player can puzzle out which walls are worth bombing.

Binding of Isaac's somewhat-subtle X-rocks are an example of bomb-able (scarce resource consumption, essentially) rewards done well.

[Vanya]

For my part, I will say that I'm firmly in the camp that wall cracks should stay and be difficult to distinguish.

There is a dungeon in ALttP that has a multitude of fake cracks. That was almost as annoying as having none at all but definitely worked better as a concept. (I'm pretty sure there was a minor graphical tell to the real walls, but I don't remember 100% clearly.)

One more thing I would like to mention is that even while playing BotW I sometimes get a fake bombable wall effect going on when certain rock formations look similar to the obvious bombable walls.
There are plenty of cracked rocks that definitely look like they should be bombable.
So it's sort of the opposite effect.

So one other possibility is to maybe even create 2 different cracked wall graphics for the overworld and 2 fake cracked wall graphics. That way it isn't super obvious which ones can be bombed, but you can easily mistake them if you become lax about it.

But at the very least, yes, have real and fake ones that are subtly different.

And a good rule of thumb for this sort of thing is to make the graphics reasonably indistinguishable when placed on the screen but still be obviously different if viewed side by side on a blank screen.

[pleasejust]

agree with Vanya 100%

[The3Dude]

Thank you everyone for your feedback!
I haven't replied until now, but I've been watching your feedback, I changed the graphics for cracked walls in overworld and dungeons, they are harder to spot, the dungeon ones used to be totally obvious, but not anymore , you might miss a few walls if you aren't vigilant.

Thank you for all your kind words, I am trying to make this hack so everyone can enjoy it, not just hardcore players.

Also, big update. Testing is now happening . The whole overworld and the 1st 4 dungeons are explorable/playable. I'd really appreciate volunteers for testing. I would like to know feedback on the overworld and dungeon designs most of all. Anything that sticks out to you that you like or dislike please post here... That is if you're a tester.

P.M me for details. I only need 3 more testers I already have ultimaweapon as a tester.

[greenghost420]

how can i be a tester? this looks good nice work

[nosynose]

Sorry for the late input, but to be frank, personally I don't like the title "Looming Darkness". It just doesn't sound very cool to me. You might not want to change your mind about this, and that's totally okay, but let me suggest some alternatives anyway:

Towering Darkness
Creeping Darkness
Haunting Darkness
Shrouding Darkness
Lurking Darkness
Darkness Menace
Twilight Perils
Darkening

And congrats for reaching beta!

[The3Dude]

Sorry for the late input, but to be frank, personally I don't like the title "Looming Darkness". It just doesn't sound very cool to me. You might not want to change your mind about this, and that's totally okay, but let me suggest some alternatives anyway:

Towering Darkness
Creeping Darkness
Haunting Darkness
Shrouding Darkness
Lurking Darkness
Darkness Menace
Twilight Perils
Darkening

And congrats for reaching beta!

Thank you for your feedback! I actually like shrouding darkness for a title, but sadly because I made the dungeons prettier ... All the graphics space is taken. I can't have a name longer than Looming Darkness...

Does "The Legend of Zelda: Darkside" sound better? Or maybe even The Darkside of Zelda, instead of Legend?

[nosynose]

Thank you for your feedback! I actually like shrouding darkness for a title, but sadly because I made the dungeons prettier ... All the graphics space is taken. I can't have a name longer than Looming Darkness...

Does "The Legend of Zelda: Darkside" sound better? Or maybe even The Darkside of Zelda, instead of Legend?

Oh no, the dreaded space issues!
I'm not so sure about "Darkside" myself, but how about:

Zelda: Brave the Dark
Zelda: Roaming Darkness
Zelda: Grim Darkness
Zelda: Darkness                   ?

[The3Dude]

Hmm...

Oath of Darkness?

Prophecy of Darkness?

Veil of Darkness?

Shadowing Darkness/ or Shadow of Darkness?

I might have to thin the letters to fit some of these names.

[gzip]

I like Looming Darkness. Next pick would be Veil of Darkness. Shroud of Darkness?

[The3Dude]

I like Looming Darkness. Next pick would be Veil of Darkness. Shroud of Darkness?

I like Looming Darkness too, it sums up the story.

I'll just leave it. It also is a callback to one of my other favorite franchises. Kingdom Hearts. There's a card that's called Looming Darkness, when you use it, the next room is full of enemies.



Looming Definition: v appear as a shadowy form, especially one that is large or threatening.

(of an event regarded as ominous or threatening) seem about to happen.
"there is a crisis looming"

Maybe he didn't like the name because it reminds him of "Fruit of the Loom"