[5th Quest Entry] Imzogelmo

I do have a hint in there somewhere, which basically says if a room has tiles and sand, the whistle is the key.

(I'm not a fan of visual cues for secrets, that takes all the fun out of it IMO. The Secret Chime is all the hint you really need.)

OK, I give up on this one: there's a room (off the map) in Level 8 that I can't get to. Don't know if I need what's in there, but I'm gonna start Level 9 without it.

A room off the map? I don't recall any non-map rooms in level 8. I'll have to look into that.

couple of overword bugs.

- top right screen of graveyard, grave pushes and becomes another tile.
- one screen up from 2nd quest lvl7, there is a gamble room, exiting puts you in the middle of the trees.

edit:

another one
- ow, 2nd screen from the right in the top row, blow whistle, a blank tile shows up, link walks down like cave walk down.

your redo of lvl2 is a lot better. i still died a handful of times (no deaths in lvl1 or lvl3), so its the hardest that i've tried so far. i HATE HATE HATE the mini dodongos, it seems like their hitbox is really big for hurting link but really small for sword damage. all my deaths in that level were due to those little bastards. never found the compass in lvl2.

Thanks for the bug reports, justin. Uploading a fix for these.

I'm surprised to hear about the baby dodongos being so tough. I really never died from them except one time when I was almost dead anyway... 😞

New version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_ix4ektZqlBdnI0TnRRTWR4NEk/edit?usp=sharing

lvl4 - the room right of the "link" room has a tile error in the bottom wall

edit: also in lvl4, it might just be me, but it looks like in the maze room there is a wall tile in the wrong cset to the right of the bottom door.

the grave repair charge was a mean trick, i was all excited to finally push that grave now that i had the bracelet. thought that might be the blue ring... still no blue ring...

Updated once more to correct the 2 errors pointed out by justin1 as well as floor tile issue in a room near the end of the level.
Sorry about the grave repair. I had so few door repair charges, I felt like violating a grave would be even worse than a door.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_ix4ektZqlBdWoxQ2FjNXNTMUk/edit?usp=sharing

OK, I'm about ready to quit on Level 9. I'm stuck on how to continue.

Here's what I know:

[spoiler]The one staircase leads me 'back' to a different section. From there, there's no way to continue. Saw the map, but can't reach it.[/spoiler]

Coyote, I'll give you a hint, and I'll make a map at some point because I see this being a frequent question. The hint is: most of the passages are one-way. Sometimes there will be a passage that you'd think would lead back to where you came from, when in fact it's a chain of one ways. Also, every trick that I used in previous levels gets reused, so look for that.

[spoiler] By that I mean, you'll have to go off-map, find doors that aren't visible, do some double-block pushes, and walk over some illusory water. That's just off the top of my head. [/spoiler]

I'm well aware of the 'one-way' passages; it's not the first quest that uses it.

Basically: from the Level entrance, I take one staircase, then go back in and pop out elsewhere, and I'm stuck at the 'elsewhere' section. In particular:

[spoiler]There's a room with blue bubbles and blue darknuts, with a shutter door at the top but no way to get to it, with a chain of blocks in the way. I tried pushing every block, used every item in my possession ... nothing works.[/spoiler]

As crazy as this will sound, if you're entering that room from the south, you can't go anywhere--it'll be a dead end. And if you entered from another direction (and you got the clue about this type of room), then you'll know which item to use for advancement. However, that's later in the dungeon, and optional. Go one room south of that, and explore it very carefully.

Imzogelmo wrote:Go one room south of that, and explore it very carefully.

One room south has a bunch of floating eyes (easy to kill) and a lot of red water. I can't get to the right side or the bottom.

There was a room in Level 8 that had a door I couldn't get to, either. Are they related? Is there another item I need, that I never found?

I believe that you missed an item. If you go to the place where level 7 was in the first quest, it has a hint.

Yeah, I got what I needed. Still going through Level 9.

lvl5 - seems possible to get trapped in the level by the red bubble right of the "use the whistle" guy. the only blue bubble i know about is 2 rooms above, but i can't get back there because i can't kill the vires to open the bridge, and i can't backtrack to entrance because of the pushblock guarded by wizzrobes.

edit: nevermind, found a bomb wall and a blue bubble. didn't have any bombs the first time around though.

also seems weird that you colour coded the double push blocks in this level but not in the previous one.

edit2:
lvl8 - two places to possibly get stuck.
if you get hit by red bubble before or after getting mirror shield, you can get stuck fighting the wizzrobes inside that brick enclosure when you leave the item room. i was ok since i had some bombs, but maybe put the return square outside the enclosure.
i was still jinxed and i tried to get back up to item or life room (not sure where the next blue bubble is), i ran out of rupees in the conveyor/target room and while i'm not stuck, its a huge pain in the ass. the $$ for the money or life room seems a bit steep (especially with the 250 bomb upgrade earlier in the dungeon, and rocking the arrows early in the dungeon before getting wand).
i've been in and out of this dungeon 4 times now, 1st - didn't have enough money, 2nd - hit by likelike in map room (stupid conveyors), 3rd - hit by likelike in mirrorshield room (stupid conveyors) and subsequently killed by wizzrobe. i was super psyched to grab the mirrorshield so i wouldn't have to worry about likelikes again (i was hit by another likelike in the mirrorshield room but had enough life to survive the wizzrobes on my 4th attempt). going back out in search of rupees and blue bubble...

edit3:
next run in, take passageway that brings me back to start. uggh.
next, killed by patra2
next, i kill patra2 - what?!?! it wasn't guarding anything. uggh. used my potion. no boss key. go out to get another potion.
next, looking for boss key. looking for boss key... sick of this, look in questfile for boss key. YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!
next, die at boss. i'm done for now. i hate this dungeon - tedious to the extreme.

I was originally going to put a wallet upgrade in the quest, so that the rupee demand wouldn't be so bad, but I decided against it (plenty of extra stuff already). The thinking is that most folks would skip the bomb upgrade until some later time when they just have it at max anyway (you're not likely to need that many bombs). With that in mind, I sprinkled in some 10-rupee prizes in there so you should have enough for the needed arrows. Then, the money-or-life room.. I was just being mean there.

The mirror shield room is one that I died a lot of times on myself, so I know how hard it is. I actually turned the difficulty down on it a lot. It originally had like 4 blue wizzrobes. I don't think you can get stuck there, though. You shouldn't be able to get inside the enclosure if there are any enemies (aside from the red bubble). If that hits you (which is really unlucky as I placed the water there for you to use the ladder on and "hide"😉, then you can leave to the east and go up, up, left, and down to the blue bubble and then down again to try again. If you're out of rupees, then you can leave the dungeon. If you're out of bombs, you're still not stuck, but it does give you less leeway. If you're out of both, I believe the wand is all you need to totally escape the dungeon (and there is always the shortcut near the end of the level). The enclosure's wall being removed is supposed to be permanent after you trigger it the first time though, so the fact you got into the stairs should mean that you're able to leave the room.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something?

when is anyone going to come back for the bomb upgrade? its already level8. i'm thinking i need more bombs for this level (since it is so early in) or for lvl9. by this point in the quest, the player has already uncovered every or nearly every overworld secret - so there isn't piles of money laying around to pick up. its all grinding. i'm just doing laps of the graveyard.

i killed all the enemies, got the mirror shield. when i came back out i was inside the enclosure with the red bubble, it hit me, two teleporting wizzrobes had also respawned, and i was forced to fight them to reopen the enclosure to leave - without bombs i wouldn't have been able to do so. you must have a splitting enemy in the room that is causing the enemies to respawn. easy solution would be to put the return square outside the enclosure, and/or get rid of splitting enemy. OR get rid of the red bubble.

also, how would anyone be able to use the ladder on the water to avoid the red bubble when the water is inside the enclosure? sure you could use it after coming back out, but the red bubble spawned right in front of me.

edit: ya, you have two splitting vires in that room.

edit2: beat lvl8 on my first try today. onto lvl9 with trepidation...

appears that i'm stuck in lvl9. in room with brick wall at bottom with target below it, mirrorrobes and polsvoice and red bubbles. i picked up a clock. can't kill mirrorrobes now, and no way out of room.

also, this quest is giving me an eternal hatred for the glitchy 4-way ladder. been stuck and had to quit too many times.

edit: done. thoughts later.

PHEW!

OK, I finally completed this quest.

Certainly, from beginning to end, the most puzzle-filled quest I've played. I can't help but think you overdid some aspects.

Like the dungeons. Some of your new creatures are plain nasty. The new Wizzrobes, in particular, are tough.

A couple sections are, simply, no fun. The one room with the blue Darknuts and blue Bubbles, you can't reach most of the creatures without the beam, forcing you to either (a) use up a potion, or (b) leave and come back over and over, taking out the single Darknut each time and hoping a heart comes out, repeating until you're full on hearts.

Your new ladder is a bit buggy. On one occasion, I got stuck and had to quit. (Someone else used the same item, but opted simply for a darker brown. That one was more solid.

Died a lot going through that last level. The new sword technique made killing Ganon easier, despite needing 16 hits. (Darknuts are harder, at least the way I usually kill them.)

Heckuvan effort. Became too frustrating at times; I think some of the really obscure clues could use a bit more 'scaffolding'. Not my favorite quest, but a solid one nonetheless.

It seems that my global script isn't quite working. It is intended to prevent clock drops in certain rooms (namely, ones where you are locked in and all enemies are not accessible when they are stopped).

I appreciate the honest feedback, and if it could be made better without serious nerfing, i'm open to it. I really wanted to capture the feeling of not-knowing-quite-how-stuff-works that you feel when first playing a game, while still staying true to existing Zelda themes in most ways.

In particular, regarding the ladder getting you stuck-- is there a certain room or pattern of tiles that is causing you to get stuck? If it is as simple as a redesign on some rooms, then that may be the way to go to make the quest all it can be.

Imzogelmo wrote:In particular, regarding the ladder getting you stuck-- is there a certain room or pattern of tiles that is causing you to get stuck? If it is as simple as a redesign on some rooms, then that may be the way to go to make the quest all it can be.

It was the same room mentioned earlier, where I was stuck. A bunch of Mos in there.

Imzogelmo wrote:
In particular, regarding the ladder getting you stuck-- is there a certain room or pattern of tiles that is causing you to get stuck? If it is as simple as a redesign on some rooms, then that may be the way to go to make the quest all it can be.

it happened to me in multiple rooms. a couple of times i was able to get free by taking damage from enemies. the rest, i just had to exit. the really complex 4-way rooms with push blocks and fake-water seemed to be the worst (the one in lvl9 with the moas as an example). the black goriya room in lvl9 was another time, at least that one the goriyas hit me free. early in lvl9 the pols voice room happened once. and it happened in lvl7 (once in the n-s/e-w bats room) and lvl8 a couple of times (forget the rooms). i think the 4-way ladder is just really buggy in general, so even if you reduced the complexity of the rooms that require its use you'll still have situations where it happens just because.

After an exhausting time with level 9, I finally finished this one. For the most part I enjoyed this one. The levels were nicely designed (except for my comments below on 9), and I always had a way to go. The clues scattered about in both the overworld and in dungeons gave just enough cluing to be useful without giving too much away. I did run into a few glitches, however.

First, I will say that I got hit by the "stuck on the 4-way ladder" bug twice- both times in different rooms of dungeon 9 with moas- once in the room with two push blocks just before the 6-headed gleeok, and once in the room before the room with lots of right-to-left conveyors, 3 bubbles and a bunch of blue darknuts. Both times this happened after I had killed everything, so I couldn't get hit by something. The fact that the second time happened on the very next try after I reset from the first time made me quit for the night, as this compounded with my general criticism for level 9.
Second, when exiting the gambling cave 1 screen N of where level 7 was in quest 2, it placed me in the middle of the wooded area. Fortunately I could whistle-warp out, but that is another minor glitch.

Now for the non-bug critique:
The magic lanmolas were interesting, but since they were always the same color as the conveyors, they became very hard to see- particularly when down to 1 segment left. Was this intentional? I felt it made them very annoying, as their immunities and the terrain of battle already made them hard to fight.

Level 9 got very tedious. Almost every path (other than the one to Ganon) effectively leads you back to the beginning- and, of course, two of those paths MUST be followed, even if you already have the dungeon mapped out, as one leads to the boss key, and the other to the silver arrows (and if you want the map or the red ring, well...). Fighting the grey wizrobes over and over again was not enjoyable- particularly in rooms with many other creatures. Their incredible damage level didn't help that either.

On the plus side, Having multiple secrets (sometimes sequenced) in one room, as well as having rooms with multiple (different) staircases was a novel thing (if other contest maps do this, I haven't played them yet), and I can see a few ways this can be developed further.

As a general comment, I think that the "tail of the chicken" clue should probably have been placed in a room in dungeon 7, 8, or 9, as you don't need the item before 9, and can't even attempt to get it before 6. I had gotten that clue very early on, and completely forgot about it, since the ladder was so far later on in the game. Only the fact that I take thorough notes allowed me to realize the problem with getting various items (I was already partway through level 9 before I got it, and the items from earlier dungeons that require it.

Overall, I think that the quest was very good, but the design of level 9 was more frustrating than difficult (the bug hitting me in there didn't help much either!) Still, it does rank as one of the better quests, IMO, and earns a solid 3.86 / 5 from me.

Thanks for the in-depth treatment. I appreciate it and find it to be quite fair. I hope it was mostly enjoyable, and level 9's insanity was a deliberate throwback to the NES days, so I half-expected to take a ding there.