Fairy Dream

[Nick]

The Legend of Zelda: Fairy Dream
By LinktheMaster and Nick

http://celestialrealm.net/fairy/images/title.png

This thread is pretty much a copy of the development thread at PureZC. However, we intend to start mirroring updates here.

Introduction:

This is the story of a fairy named Steve that is half-heartedly out to rid the world of evil monsters. Clichés, corny jokes, fourth walls, and learning the concept of shutting up are only some of the obstacles he will have to face on his completely selfless quest of forcing a mute child to do all his work for him. (Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.) But when an ancient evil resurfaces, Steve finds his resolve tested as he is dragged into a situation far more serious than he expected.

Updates:

Nick and LinktheMaster are working on several other projects, so updates are not going to be very consistent for a while. But we assure you the quest is being worked on when we have time.

Latest Update

New Subscreen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mozzvjTD1Oc)

Screenshots:

http://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo001.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo002.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo003.png
http://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo004.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo005.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo006.png
http://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo007.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo008.pnghttp://sotw.purezc.com/ZCExpo/2012Spring/FairyDream/FDExpo009.png

Trailer 2:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXGAKLHZ48Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXGAKLHZ48Y (if the embed doesn't work)

Trailer 1:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDmR1KaIm6U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDmR1KaIm6U

Quest Info:

One day, LinktheMaster and Nick decided to try combining their efforts in the hopes of being motivated to make a quest that has a chance of being finished, given Nick's horrible track record of one completed quest out of a good 10-15 serious quest creation attempts ("The Nick's") and LinktheMaster having some of his own. Most of this motivation came from the boom of group projects that began around 2007-2008, including the successful release of Lost Isle.

Yes... Fairy Dream was started in 2008 and it is just now getting to a point for its efforts to be shown off. Of course, part of the delay was due to LTM and Nick being graphics perfectionists despite having a very low talent for drawing custom tiles. The quest was originally using a variation of PUXDOR which looked rather pretty, but it also played around with our weakness to the point of clogging development. Thus, in late 2010, after coming up with the idea earlier in the year but being too busy to do it, they had a sudden burst of motivation and began converting the quest to the Gameboy tileset. Thus, Fairy Dream was renewed.

...

Anyway, you people are not here to read a developer blog (or are you?), so let's get to the important information about this quest.

This quest is heavier on the text than a typical quest due to the fact that it focuses on the plot quite a bit. While it starts as somewhat of an affectionate parody, it will still be taking its main plot seriously. So if you are here for a quick hack and slash quest, this probably isn't the quest for you. But don't fear this too much. We hope to break up typical monotonous quest plot text with fully scripted cutscenes that have such innovative features as fluid character movement, being able to tell who is speaking, sounds, and whatever else we wish to be extremely picky about.

Speaking of scripts, this quest is extremely script heavy. While it won't be featuring jawdropping gameplay changes, we will still create a variety of scripting in the game. Our goal is to integrate the scripting in a manner that feels natural and helps enhance the existing gameplay and narrative. Expect to see things such as a custom dialog box system, custom puzzle types, gameboy style ledge dropping, gameboy style dungeon shutters, modified and perhaps brand new items, minigames, custom bosses, and whatever else we decide to script.

The final quest will feature four expansive dungeons with numerous minidungeons, several sidequests, and multiple difficulty settings.

Demo:

Fairy Dream Demo 1 was released on April 15th, 2012. This includes all the way through the Forest Palace and includes 3-5 hours of gameplay.

Please read this section before grabbing the demo.

The quest warns you on startup, but press L+R+Start to save! The typical method of saving in ZC will not work and you will lose progress!
Fairy Dream contains mild language.
This quest demo requires at least Zelda Classic 2.50 Release Candidate 3 to play.
If you play the demo in RC4 or later, there will be minor display issues with FFCs going under certain layers. We intend to fix this.
While S. Town offers a few things for you to do (minigames and quests), it is still rather incomplete compared to how it will be in the final quest. Only 1/4 of it is accessible, while the rest is blocked off due to being incomplete.
If you complete all the sidequests in the demo, you will get a special prize.
There are 8 Heart Container Pieces scattered throughout the demo.
While we'd rather people not do this on their first playthrough, you can skip certain cutscenes by pressing Start twice.
If you want to know what the options in the options menu do, refer to the included readme.
We intend to release an updated demo in the future to fix several of the issues people have with the original demo.


Download Fairy Dream Demo 1 (http://celestialrealm.net/fairy/uploads/FairyDreamDemo1.zip) (Requires at least 2.50 RC3)

This is the latest version of the demo.

[LinktheMaster]

Hey everyone. :) I just wanted to reserve this post for future updates as well as add in some extra info.

Video Archive:

This is a list of old videos we posted in updates for easier viewing. :)

Random Cave (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2RbeZCzTEnQ)
Scripted Enemies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=prNeuQBdgz4)
Welcome to S. Town (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MM0fN4O9FH4)
Sidequest System (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZgBJlGnBu1E)
Cutscene skipping (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v33N8f85TLA)
Minigames (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZHsq8qP0dvQ)
The Subscreen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mozzvjTD1Oc)

Userbar:

Here's the official Fairy Dream userbar for anyone who wants to put it in their signatures.

http://celestialrealm.net/fairy/userbar.png (http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?94576-Fairy-Dream)

http://celestialrealm.net/fairy/userbar.png (http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?94576-Fairy-Dream)

[CJC]

Isa, huja wha? It's like a super gameboy game...

This is so awesome I can't think of anything to say. Just... wow.

[Brasel]

Launching the manhandla head after decapitating it is a nice touch.

[Rambly]

I know I've already posted about this quest over on Pure but I'm gonna reiterate my opinion on it here: This is one of the best quests to come out of the ZC community in years. Sure it's not the prettiest quest ever made, but it's got some really unique boss and enemy ideas and the dungeon design is top-notch. I'd heartily recommend this to everyone!

[DarkDragon]

There's a bug with the Colosseum: twice now the latest RC has hung right after I got hit (when it usually gives me the option to restart the battle). Maybe it's a coincidence, but both times I picked up some rupees at the same time as I got hit.

Also, is there a reward for getting a high enough scores? How high do I have to go? I kind of suck at ZC ;)

[LinktheMaster]

I have heard of that bug. Saffith actually did some testing, and he believed it had something to do with the number of enemies in the room and strings. So, there may actually be a ZC bug there. I haven't had a chance to fully test that out yet, though

But there are prizes, but it's based off of seconds. It's been a while since I designed in, but from what I remember, 50 seconds = 5 rupees, 100 seconds = 20 rupees, 150 = 50 rupees, 200 rupees = piece of heart. I actually suck at ZC too, so I've never gotten it. :( I've gotten closeish. We'll probably tone it down a bit for the future.

[DarkDragon]

Finished the demo, after it was recommended to me in the ZC Discussion thread. Only found four pieces of heart, but there's at least one suspicious area I noticed that I was too lazy to go back and investigate with the wand.

Very nice work. Can't wait for the full version! Do you guys have an ETA?

The dungeon design is great, as were the two boss fights, and I loved the random DDR minigame. "Manhandla" could have been a little harder -- he felt way easier than "Aquamentus" (I died to him several times before realizing I should pay attention to his attacks instead of kamikazeing like a regular Aquamentus, heh.)

The humor... meh, it didn't really click with me. The opening cutscene in particular fell flat, with later parts of the gaming working better for me. In particular the fox(?) that you meet on the way to the second dungeon was characterized beautifully.

But probably the most impressive thing about this quest is the technical achievement. How many lines of ZScript did you write? I'm impressed the ol' compiler can handle it -- props to whichever ZC devs have taken over maintaining it.

[Nick]

Thanks for the feedback. :smile:

We don't really have an ETA at the moment other than "when we don't have our hands in several different projects." All I can say for certain at this point is given the years that have gone into Fairy Dream already, we definitely intend to finish it.

Manhandla is definitely going to be harder in the future since many people have commented that he was too easy compared to Aquamentus.

As for the humor, I admit that parts of the earlier humor fall a bit flat. We wrote a lot of the Amaran and intro dialogue in 2008 and even we find some of it a bit too silly or overly drawn out now. Fairy Dream was originally going to be a full out parody quest with little to no serious plot and it's kind of obvious those roots still exist just by looking at the intro.

We're probably going to be revising a lot of the dialogue to fix that since we don't want to give that as the sole impression anymore. Some rather embarrassing conversations such as the overly long Pops2 conversation will probably be redone from scratch. We're also going to be revising some of the rather specific memes that were used and shortening some conversations that went on too long. But at the same time, we're not cutting out the humor entirely since it's been ingrained into some of our characters (especially Steve) and we want a mix of humor and serious stuff. Some of our humor just isn't going to work for everyone and we understand that, though.

It's nice to know that some of our characterization is good. We've tried to give the main characters distinct personalities, though we haven't been sure how successful that was since people rarely comment on the story other than saying "too much blah blah blah" or "it was great."

As far as the ZScript, I think the demo had a little over 20,000 lines of code (without comments). We're well over 21,000 lines as of right now. We've had some "holy crap ZQuest can't handle this" scares a few times due to discovering things like limits to how many if's can be in an if-else chain and that limits exist to how many lines of code can exist in a single FFC script. The developers have actually had to bump up a few of the limits in ZScript because of us. But overall, it is pretty amazing that ZQuest has been able to handle most of the stuff we've thrown at it.