My official 4th quest candidate

[AmazingAmpharos]

It's amazing what spending 3 days of a 4 day weekend can get you. Here is the link.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NOQVVCOW

This quest is built in build 984.

I want to avoid saying too much to pre-bias your experiences before you play since if it wins most people who play it would be playing it cold. In fact, I'm not going to say anything about the game because of that. Well, I will say that this is basically a "beta", and basically everything is subject to change. If you have any questions or comments (or worse, bugs), I'll address them, of course. Comments about the design are definitely welcome.

[ms_zelda_lady]

Which version is your quest played in? I tried 2.10 and got "not a custom quest error". Then I tried beta 910 and that gave me a runtime error which I have never seen before. I finally tried it in 2.10.2 and got the not a custom quest error again.

[AmazingAmpharos]

Oh, it's built in 967. I suppose it was silly to think everyone was using the latest builds.

[Boommaster]

Where can I get 967 so I can try it?? Please Thanks

[Questwizard88]

You can get it right here (direct link to it on shardstorm): http://www.shardstorm.com/zc/alphas/967-windows.zip

That's for 967, there there are newer builds than that.

[patrickab7]

Fun quest, just played through it this past week...

-=SPOILER=-

[AmazingAmpharos]

-=SPOILER=-

Did you find all of the other things that were in Zelda-1? Everything was there somewhere.

[patrickab7]

Pretty sure I got everything...went through a lot of bombs(since I was going on only eight at a time for most of the game). Had a few dungeons where I felt like I was missing SOMETHING...obviously in one case, I was. :)

[AmazingAmpharos]

Your endgame inventory should be the same as in Zelda-1. The other really tricky items to find, by my estimation, are the Raft and the Red Ring. If you found those, you probably found everything important in the dungeons.

Anyway, some status stuff and other notes.

As a fun aside, it's possible to beat this game swordless except for Ganon like in 1st and 2nd quest. The minimum number of required items to beat the game is actually one fewer than in 1st and 2nd quests. The required item list to beat the game is:

-=SPOILER=-

Also, given that filefront is going down, I'm going to rehost it on megaupload and put in a few improvements. They are as follows.

-Level colors have been re-arranged, and the internal level numbers have been changed to match. This way, the whistle warps and triforce pieces will match correct 1st quest and 2nd quest behavior. This will break old save files.
-Level-4 now has Rope enemies in it. Previously, those were not in the quest at all (silly oversight). Now every type of enemy from Zelda-1 appears in the quest (even all of the variations on bosses).
-Some changes have been made to Whistle->Stairs secrets to make the quest compliant with a recent change in the rules of the competition. This also fixes a bug no one would have ever noticed in which one of the potion shops was inaccessible.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NOQVVCOW

It's also now saved in b984. I'll update the first post with this.

[Sam Atoms]

Nicely Done. This quest is good and I'll be rooting for it to win the competition. I've beaten levels 1-4, and I've found 5 and 6. So far they've been a bit easy to find, but I suspect that's going to change when it's time for the last three levels. One question: will we ever find out the meaning of the one-word hints given by the "Pay Me and I'll Talk" ladies?

Also, I found a couple of bugs:

* One up and two screens east from where you start, the entrance to the door repair cave is just a big black square, when it should be stairs.

* The whistle warp that goes to the pond where the original Level 7 was, leaves you stuck in the rock.

[AmazingAmpharos]

That first bug is too funny. Did you know BOTH other candidate 4th quests had that bug on the same screen, and I pointed it out in both of them?

I actually found that other bug today and made a few other fixes. Here's the fix list for the latest version:

-Screen 69's secret is now correctly a staircase.
-The return point on a certain screen with a secret is now set.
-The Whistle Warp point for the 7th triforce piece (which you actually get from Level-2) no longer deposits the player in the NW corner of the screen.
-Rooms next to dark rooms in dungeons now have appropriate colors to handle the darkness transitions.
-A bomb drop has been added to an early room in Level-4 so players who come in with few bombs are not screwed.
-Ganon's room is now a dark room as in 1st quest.
-The compass in Level-9 now points to the correct room (oops!).

And the link, using filefront which thankfully did not go down after all (will be updated in first post whenever it feels like letting me):

SEE BELOW FOR A MORE RECENT VERSION.

This is quite possibly the final version.

About those one word hints, I'll just say they are all related, but if you're good about overworld exploration, you won't need them. I didn't actually hide the dungeons that well; they're only a bit trickier than 1st quest (I remembered how much grief finding level-8 in 2nd quest gave me when I was younger and wanted the game to be beatable to those who would rather not bomb every wall and burn every bush).

Thanks for the compliment and thanks for playing.

[Sam Atoms]

Yeah, I figured out the one-word hints after I found the last information woman. I've now beaten levels 1-5 and found all the rest.

Oh, and the black square bug also happens in Arrow Mark as well.

[patrickab7]

Found a couple of bugs...

One instance of whistle-warping trapped me in the top left corner of the screen where Level 7 used to be.

At least one of the red bubbles in Level 9(in a room three up from the entrance) is the kind that freezes your B-button item...and there's no way to recover except to quick-save and restart.

EDIT: Whoops, you found the first one...

[AmazingAmpharos]

You could have fixed it by drinking a potion as well, but yeah, I'll fix that. That's actually a nasty one (and a good find since there was only one; thanks!); I'll put out a fixed version immediately. It also looks like it's never going to let me edit the first post, kinda dumb...

Hopefully final final version:
-One random item disabling bubble has been replaced with the sword disabling one.
-The secret on the northern arrow screen has been correctly assigned to use a staircase instead of a cave.

http://files.filefront.com/proposed4thqst/;13573752;/fileinfo.html

[patrickab7]

Well, technically since the bubble froze your items, you COULDN'T heal with a potion...but thanks for the bugfix.

[AmazingAmpharos]

That last link is in submittable state as far as I know, and I'll be submitting it the night before the deadline most likely (that's tomorrow night). If anything remains needing to be changed, now would be the time to bring it up.

[Sam Atoms]

OK, I've beaten levels 1-8 and I've found everything except for the red ring and silver arrow, which I presume are both in level 9, and the Magical Sword. Am I supposed to have any bomb upgrades? I've found none so far.

[AmazingAmpharos]

The locations of the bomb upgrades (in terms of which levels they are in) are posted in this topic in spoiler tags already. I will just say there are two bomb upgrades in two different dungeons if you don't want to read those and find out more. Perhaps I hid that one a little too obscurely...

Not having found the Magic Sword is rough. You didn't ask about where it was though so I'll leave that one to you I guess. And yes, those two items are indeed in Level-9.

[JP Blanchette]

Where is the Blue Ring located?

[AmazingAmpharos]

-=SPOILER=-

[JP Blanchette]

Thanks! Now I have another question. I recently found Levels 6-9, but I did not found Level-5. Where is it located?

[AmazingAmpharos]

It's on a screen you have to enter via a really tricky method. If you want it just given to you...

-=SPOILER=-

[zeldafan28017]

I beat this quest in only 137 games.

Major Things I didn't find.
Magic Key
Compass and Map in Level 9
bomb upgrades

Ingenious location of Level 5
I either A) found this easier than the offical Alpha's 3rd quest or B)I'm just better at Zelda games now since I beat Alpha's 3rd

Excellent job though. I might make one even though time is already up