NeoFirst Development Diary

[_L_]

Which one?

WAIT I MEAN

Just fine, thanks. Still buggy.

[Din]

Note to self: Find super duper secret weapon... whatever it may be...

[_L_]

Most slain enemies, in addition to Rupees, drop one of these two items: a healing fairy, the time-limited invincibility Clock, and the Kill All Enemies item that kills all enemies when you collect it. However, for extra variety, I've added a few special status items to the mix.

What's unexpected is that only some enemies can drop these items, and the colour of the enemy determines what sort of item it has the potential to drop.

Green enemies are the only ones that can drop a Guardian Acorn, which doubles your defense and lasts until you change screens 8 times.

Only Red enemies are capable of dropping a Piece of Power, which adds 2 to your melee attack power and lasts until you change screens 8 times.

Blue enemies, the strongest and least generous of all, simply drop a Bomb Flower, providing one extra bomb. This may seem almost without merit, but it is the only occasion that enemies will drop bomb ammunition! For most of the game, you must ration your bombs carefully and restock through regrowing bomb flowers or the many shopkeepers. Consider this item drop to be a mild relief to your resources.

This works out pretty well because Green and Red enemies tend to appear in safer areas of the game, and in tougher places most only Red and Blue enemies will appear, so the Guardian Acorn won't be present to assist your endurance. Also, Guardian Acorns are bound to be helpful near the beginning of the game when your health is low, but would provide altogether too much protection when coupled with the Blue Mail or Red Mail.

I'm considering, also, the possibility of including spell items that, when used, consume magic to grant you a defense or offense bonus for only the current screen. Well, it's not like there are too many uses for the magic meter at present...

[_L_]

Bait? Isn't that the most useless of equippable items?!

Yes, except in this game! For bait now has a use!

As you know, recovery hearts don't appear normally in NeoFirst, due to Link possessing his regenerative Heart Ring. But sometimes you just need a quick boost of vitality. Refuse to believe it if you must, but laid-down bait can be consumed by enemies - and when that happens, you're rewarded with a heart!

"The way to a Moblin's heart is through his stomach."




And there it is!

However, youngling, know that enemies won't devour bait twice in succession! Furthermore, feeding an enemy has the effect of increasing their HP! So deploying bait is a slightly risky proposition.

It's likely, quite likely, that certain enemies may have different reactions to bait than others. I will, however, tell of one enemy that has a particularly unique reaction to bait.

Feed this duck for the first time in a game, and it will drop a Bomb Bag.

This is known as "turning a bit of lame Castlevania trivia into Zelda canon."

By the way, Bomb Bags work a bit differently in NeoFirst. They function like Missile Tanks or Heart Containers - acquiring one increases your Bomb capacity by 4. Thus, they can be hidden in roughly the same manner that Pieces of Heart Containers can be hidden.

[_L_]

Once the Forest Abbey has been done and dusted, and a three-pointed item of yellowish hue has been obtained, you must move on to the next level! But it's perched atop a high peak, which was formerly known as Mt. Frostburn, but is now given the slightly more fearsome and rhyming name of the Fire Spire.

But, to even begin to climb the Spire requires some further exploration!

The vine-clad walls leading up the mountain is blocked with trees and a boulder. The boulder can't be passed unless it is pushed three times. At this point, Link doesn't possess the means to push a boulder more than once! This is a troubling obstacle.


Link has two paths available to him.


First, he could learn or discover the secret path across the Endless Desert, learn the secret to awakening the Armos Knight, and claim the Power Bracelet resting beneath it.

I think the secret involves water... that's right, isn't it?

Or!! There is a more straightforward possibility. He could find and venture through the hidden entrance to the dungeon beneath the cemetery, known as Life's End. This dungeon has an exit above the foothills that leads past the boulders. But can Link withstand the dungeon's obstacles?

Life's End is full of darkness, skeletons...


...and bottomless pits.

This dungeon is a drain on your still-limited resources! Most all of its rooms are dark, requiring use of your recently claimed magic-consuming Red Candle. And once you've learned that the secret of permanently inconveniencing the reviving skeletons is to use bombs, you'll find yourself running short of those, too. Perhaps a brief sojourn in search of a spare Magic Container or Bomb Bag might be a useful preparation?

[_L_]

News has just reached my ears! Your hookshot has more capabilities than just pulling you toward wooden objects and bewildering various enemies. You can also use it to steal enemies' projectile weapons!

Use the hookshot to grab enemies' pointy sticks, even as they fly at you!

When your hook snags a pointy stick, it gets pulled toward you, safe and unbroken, and it goes straight into your arrow stockpile. Reclaimed ammunition! (...But is it a spear or an arrow? Well, it's a pretty small spear, if it is so.)

This means that these enemies are suddenly useful for helping you resupply your arrows. It's a pretty useful technique! Let's hope that these enemies show up in dungeons when you need them.

And this isn't the only kind of weapon that can be seized with the hookshot!

You... you surely can't grab the bombs that these Octobombs are spitting... can you?

Maybe you can! It's risky engaging these enemies, though, as their bombs take off 4 hearts per hit and cannot be stopped by any shield! Oof! Better wait until you've found some defensive attire.

And, there's one particularly cheeky trick you can pull on a certain foe.

This is the only way to obtain a boomerang in this game!

Yes, you can steal the Goriyas' weapons, right from the moment that they appear! Once you've snagged a boomerang, it's yours for the rest of the game. But be careful not to use it on Goriyas - they've learned how to snatch speeding boomerangs with their bare hands, and they'll just nab yours, causing you to lose it. Best engage them with another weapon!

[pkmnfrk]

Okay, that's just brilliant. Makes me wish I'd thought of it first!

[ShadowTiger]

I think that the very last sentence of L's last post was by far the most brilliant of them all. I have no idea how you managed to script that, but then again, you're L, so...

[pkmnfrk]

I think that the very last sentence of L's last post was by far the most brilliant of them all. I have no idea how you managed to script that, but then again, you're L, so...

I know exactly how he did it, and... again, I'm green with envy

[_L_]

I don't take pains to be overly mysterious. What you do is:
* Set their Boomerang Defense to 'Ignore'.
* In the global script, if an LW_BRANG has a Collision() with an NPC whose Weapon is WPN_ENEMYBRANG, then destroy the LW_BRANG, set Link->Item[I_BRANG1] to false, and play some sort of sound effect.