Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 139

[Dark Nation]

Well, it's been a while since the last update. I hope you all think it's worth it.

What's new/fixed:

1. Fixed zgp.dat to account for the new template screen.

2. Enhanced the import combo function so you can now specify a starting page like with the import tile function.

3. JayeM has done a new zquest.txt file for beta 136.

4. Items now animate in ZQuest.

5. Items continue to animate when Link picks holds them over his head now (before, they stopped). I suppose I could put this as a quest rule if someone has a reason that an item should stop animating when Link is holding them.

6. The trigger enemy finally works.

7. When you push a non-heavy pushblock onto a trigger, it will now make the secret sound when it's supposed to like the heavy ones do.

8. Pushblocks now flicker when viewed with the lens, instead of disappearing. Should I change this back? Or should I find another way to represent them?

9. Enemy placement flags no longer show up with the lens.

10. The "Lens Hints" quest rule works now. Basically, when you view a flag under the lens, you will see what item triggers it flickering there. For instance, a burn flag will show a flickering blue candle. Some flags have multiple things showing up. For instance, the "reflected fireball" flag shows a mirror shield with a fireball reflecting off of it. Reflected magic and wand magic exhibit similar behaviors. Strike flags cycle through all of the weak items that will trigger them: blue candle, bomb, arrow, boomerang, sword, sword beam, wand magic, reflected magic, reflected fireball, hookshot, hammer (not necessarily in that order). Give the new lens rule a try and tell me what you think. Also, if you have the "whistle->stairs" screen flag set, then a whistle will blink slowly (instead of flicker) on at the place where the stairs appear. Also, the fairy flag has a fairy on it now. Should this be taken out or changed in any way? Before, it was a flickering white square. If you want to see what this square looks like, look at a walk-through dungeon wall with the lens (like in level 2 of the second quest, I think).

Tomorrow morning, I plan to add the autobackup feature. It will, when you save, export a qsb file (qsu file with a qsb extension) with the same name.

Now that I think of it, I think the map and qsu export and import functions are wrong now because of the new quest format. I'll look at them tomorrow morning and fix them as well, if needed. The zgp import/export functions should already be fixed, since I had to use them to export a new zgp.dat file.

I'm sure that the bug that previously was corrupting quests that had exactly 256 combos is still around. I think it's a roaming bug, though, so something else may trigger it now. Whenever you save, export a QSU file as well, just in case.

Another feature I plan to add soon is the ability to select a graphics pack when you start a new quest. Right now, it defaults to newdefault, which is included in the zgp.dat file. I can add more easily. Thoughts? Any ones I should definitely include? Already plan on using newfirst (with Warlock's permission) and BS1st. What about Glenn's CGBZ set or Orion's Z3 set? Maybe even demo.

Anyway, here are the files:

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 139 for DOS
+zelda.exe
+zquest.exe

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 139 for Windows
+zelda-w.exe
+zquest-w.exe


If you missed them the last time around, here are the support archives:

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 139+ Support Archive
+1st.qst
+2nd.qst
+3rd.qst
+new enemy tiles.pdf
+new.til
+newfirst-fixed.qst
+zelda.dat
+zgp.dat
+zquest.dat

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 126+ Windows Support Archive
+alleg40.dll


If you already have the beta 136+ support archive, just download these two files:

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 139 NewDefault patch
+zgp.dat

Zelda Classic 1.92 Beta 136+ ZQuest help file (you may need to right-click on this and do a "save as").
+zquest.txt

[Overlord]

Hmm.. everything sounds great. For the push blocks, how about having them turn to a different CSet under the Lens? that way people could specify what color they turn by editing the cset.

Including a LTTP Tileset would definitely be a must. Glenns would be nice, but although it has a lot more, it is still GB based, as is Newfirst. LTTP is unique. But may I suggest using Clorals? Orions is good, but I prefer Clorals.

[Cyclone]

3. JayeM has done a new zquest.txt file for beta 136.

Yay. This should be a starting point for a ton of questions I've been getting from my contest participants. Can someone attach it here, for now? (Can't download at present.)

5. Items continue to animate when Link picks holds them over his head now (before, they stopped). I suppose I could put this as a quest rule if someone has a reason that an item should stop animating when Link is holding them.

I like this. For those with animated medicine, it now continues to bubble upon pickup.

6. The trigger enemy finally works.

Hear that, Jigglysaint? You can finally try this thing as you wish.

8. Pushblocks now flicker when viewed with the lens, instead of disappearing. Should I change this back? Or should I find another way to represent them?

Flicker is good. It helps us tell apart the ones that are meant to be pushed, and the ones that disappear.

10. The "Lens Hints" quest rule works now. Basically, when you view a flag under the lens, you will see what item triggers it flickering there. For instance, a burn flag will show a flickering blue candle. Some flags have multiple things showing up. For instance, the "reflected fireball" flag shows a mirror shield with a fireball reflecting off of it. Reflected magic and wand magic exhibit similar behaviors. Strike flags cycle through all of the weak items that will trigger them: blue candle, bomb, arrow, boomerang, sword, sword beam, wand magic, reflected magic, reflected fireball, hookshot, hammer (not necessarily in that order). Give the new lens rule a try and tell me what you think. Also, if you have the "whistle->stairs" screen flag set, then a whistle will blink slowly (instead of flicker) on at the place where the stairs appear. Also, the fairy flag has a fairy on it now. Should this be taken out or changed in any way? Before, it was a flickering white square. If you want to see what this square looks like, look at a walk-through dungeon wall with the lens (like in level 2 of the second quest, I think).

Now THIS I gotta see...

Another feature I plan to add soon is the ability to select a graphics pack when you start a new quest. Right now, it defaults to newdefault, which is included in the zgp.dat file. I can add more easily. Thoughts? Any ones I should definitely include? Already plan on using newfirst (with Warlock's permission) and BS1st. What about Glenn's CGBZ set or Orion's Z3 set? Maybe ven demo.

I think include any established tileset, and put them on various pre-set combo pages (new quests only). There is definitely enough tile room to do this now. Problem is that enemy tiles, etc. will have to be moved into place by the questmaker himself (herself?); the land tiles can be put onto various combo sets, however. Thus, Classic can be cSet 0 (was there another?)...NewBS can be 1 and 2...LttP can have 3 and 4, maybe...and so on.

Actually, maybe different tilesets can be grouped by enemy in a miscellaneous location of the tile pages. Thus, a single page of Darknuts, and a single page of Ropes, etc. It's then a matter of copy and paste between tile locations. And it's all right there. :)

Cyclone
[email protected]

[JayeM]

Hi Cyclone...the zquest.txt file is right here . I was going to make one for 135 that you could give to the contest people, but if you think this one will do let me know.

[Cyclone]

It should be fine; I'll just edit it back far enough for them, and ask them to copy over the one in the Beta folder they currently have.

If I give them future betas, also (DN permitted it, I recall), then I'll also likely have to look for further updates. It's been a while since I've investigated the Readme, so I'll look at its' structure and possibly add to it for future betas for the competitors. :)

I have to get my ass going on writing guides for some of these features, as well; looks like 2nite is free, so it might be my best opportunity.

Cyclone
[email protected]

[Jigglysaint]

"Hear that, Jigglysaint? You can finally try this thing as you wish. "

Will do! BTW, it just occured to me that if we were to have multiple "boss flags", then you could set up more events per d-map. Also, would the new hookshot trigger flag now make the HS bridge combo obsolete? I mean, that was the idea of the whole thing, right? If not and it was to work just like Zelda 4, then I believe that would be one of those blocks that would be hard to implement, like the lock blocks. I think the tile itself is a normal block, with a subroutine(look at me, I know programming lingo !!!). When the hookshot hits the block(not really a combo since the data such as walk flags and other effects are at offset 20000), a sprite that allows link to walk accross the bridge would appear. I don't know if it is a sprite or not, but making combos that produce effect sprites are part of Zelda games.

I have no idea if any of my cracking of Zelda 4 data would be helpful, it only gives me ideas on how things in that game are make.

[Nightmare]

Wouldn't the Graphics Pack blow up the file size? I'm a little concerned about that.

Also, PrinceMSC's tile set should be considered.

-NJS-

[Cyclone]

Originally posted by Nightmare
Wouldn't the Graphics Pack blow up the file size? I'm a little concerned about that.

Also, PrinceMSC's tile set should be considered.

-NJS-

Well, think of it this way: every tile already exists. You can copy and paste a "blank" tile, meaning there must be SOMETHING there. So I doubt it can blow up file size by THAT much.

Cyclone
[email protected]

[Jigglysaint]

I just thought of something to supplement the "trigger enemy". A screen, or enemy flag that defeats all the enemies when an item is obtained. What this means is this: You put the trigger enemy in the two rooms you want to have linked, with the boss flags. Then, you select the flag that defeats the trigger enemy in the room with the boss key(it is still a misc item). When you get the boss key, the trigger enemy is defeated, and so is the one in the other room. So you collect the item, and the door opens. No mess, no pit warps, and you don't have to use a dead-end room. Plus, you could put it in a chest, not easy to do the other way. And also, no need to use a "fire guy" to sub for the enemy that gets killed. A person in a room counts as an enemy if there are no others on screen, and getting an item that is set to be held up(like in the custom take anyone you want room), the guy disappears.

I say that this will really increase the amount of things we can do with the game. One more thing, how about a combo that detroyes enemies? Seems worthless, but it would allow switches to trigger things in other rooms. Plus, if Dark Nation make more boss flags(could be called event flags), you could make dungeons have multiple events. Anybody think that this would be good?

(I know that Dark Nation wants to implement boss keys, but untill then, this is good too because it doesn't have to be used to make boss keys).

[KJAZZ]

Originally posted by Dark Nation
Items continue to animate when Link picks holds them over his head now (before, they stopped). I suppose I could put this as a quest rule if someone has a reason that an item should stop animating when Link is holding them.

Yea, maybe for the triforce..

Originally posted by Dark Nation
Thoughts? Any ones I should definitely include? Already plan on using newfirst (with Warlock's permission) and BS1st. What about Glenn's CGBZ set or Orion's Z3 set? Maybe ven demo.

Here's what I think you should include in the default (with the authors permission, of course..)

• Classic/Newdefault
• BS
• Newfirst
• Revenge2
• CGBZ
• Maybe Orion's Z3 Set

As for demo, I don't know. Ask the public. I don't really care that much about demo..