Erock's Dungeon Designs 2008 - 2014

Erock wrote:Zack I’m going to be off from school for spring break from March 13-23 this means that I will have lots of time to work on Zelda3C. This is what I would like from you.

A list of some of the things in Zelda3C that you need help with so I can work with them during spring break. I have this time set aside to work on your game so please give me something so I can put my time to good use.

A new post in the diary would be really nice. Thanks again for all of your help. I really want to make this game EPIC, but not just that I want this hack to go down in history as the best Zelda 3 hack ever!

Check out my latest video I’m sending you in this e-mail. It’s crazy. Let me know what you think, will it be in the final game!!!!!??? PLEASE put it in the hack!

Zack wrote:Good afternoon!

My, but you would have to be very patient to wait for my replies. I hardly check my email, and when I do, it's never with enough time to actually write back. And even though I can't review your latest submissions now (I'm at work), I decided to write anyway so you'll know I'm still alive. I did look at the bitmap; how can you jump from one "?" platform to another? lol

As you probably guessed, I've been too caught up in life to work on Zelda3C. It's hard to stay motivated when I can only work on it a few hours a weekend, if that. I keep hoping something's gonna give and I'll be able to get seriously into it, but so far, no luck. I need to admit this inactivity on the diary page, but I'm sure people are tired of hearing there's no progress. Reshaper256 has also been too busy, with school and family, but agrees we need to focus when things let up.

I don't have anything to ask for, as far as a spring break checklist. As you hopefully know, I've only been asking for graphics, music, and general ideas, not full-blown dungeon floor plans or anything to that effect. All I can do is sit down with your emails this weekend, hope to be inspired, and give you some long-awaited feedback. My wife and son will be away at a baby shower, so I should have some peace & quiet.

Thanks for being patient!

Erock wrote:Ok, here are two images with several sprites I’ve pulled from other games. One has a bunch of random graphics, just giving them to you in case you want to use them. It has tombstones, some graphics of gorons, chickens and 2 zelda title screens. Now those title screens are from the game boy advanced Zelda games but you could use one of them for your hack because they are actually different from the original Zelda 3! Anyway I’m just giving you them because this way you can have a different title screen without actually drawing one. Of course I’m only talking about the letters and not the background. I know you were wanting graphics of gorons and here you are already drawn! And check out those bushes from the bomberman game. I think those bushes are a perfect match for Zelda 3C.





The second image just has a list of things and what they could look like if changed. I’m just throwing ideas out there!


On the second image the "change into" one. Check out the flame skull thing, and the new sign graphic, and check out that new bomb graphic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Puzzledude wrote:Why not throw a boomerang to get that key, surrounded by spikes.

Erockbrox wrote:

Puzzledude wrote:Why not throw a boomerang to get that key, surrounded by spikes.

If you watch in the first key dash video.

The keys that come from the dash item are NOT boomerang compatible. Different keys have different properties. The key that you can just place on the ground IS boomerang compatible.

Also the dash item key does not ride conveyor belts whereas the ground key does.

Zack wrote:Erock!

It's time again to process some videos!

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One video demonstrates that you can crash off a statue and pass through a bumper on the other side of a pit, so long as you have the cape activated. Clever!

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Another demonstrates that Link can only hookshot to statues that cannot move.
That is, the hookshot doesn't work on statue sprites.
I'm not sure making the player find the right one is 'fair' because the statues look the same,
and therefore it seems they should all work, regardless of whether they're attached to the floor.
Maybe it would be good to use late in the game.
Thanks for showing me this, as it probably breaks a few of my puzzle sketches.

By the way, you started that video by saying that you only use the bare minimum in your designs, without making them very decorated or elaborate. This is exactly what I want -- the extra stuff would convolute the point you're expressing.

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I watched the bomber slug demo. I'm glad Link can "climb" over the moving pegs.

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You've shown that you can hide star tiles under statues.
I remember this one actually being used in Zelda 3, in Ganon's Tower.
Never hurts to be reminded!

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I like that you can step on star tiles as you glide over them with the hookshot.
That will come in handy...

You can surround the beamos above with spikes to encourage the player
to use an item to walk through it. Very good thinking.
The large block to force being invincible is great, too!

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Here's my description on a "recap" video you created:

Link can create a block, use the cape, stand in the bubble,
and throw the block to break it and lower the blue pegs.

This video also describes that you can make sure the blue pegs
start out raised by placing orange pegs in the room before it.

To make it harder, the ledge could be removed, forcing Link
to detonate the block before it falls into the abyss.

Also, thanks for the bitmap that shows an alternate room.

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Watched the video demonstrating a "cleaner" version of the puzzle
where you must use a block to prevent both peg switches from activating. Nice work!

I also watched the video showing 3 flaws to this design;
it will still work as intended if used in a larger room.

The next video shows an alternate room where Link pushes a statue
onto a conveyor belt, but not only does it look weird, the solution becomes too obvious.
(Of course Link's going to try pushing the statue.)
Again, in a larger room with a wider puzzle, it will be great.

Oh, and instead of using double-rails to guard against bombs,
why not just use a few more blocks?

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The next video describes the following:
You can hide warp tiles under statues.
You can cause objects such as blocks vanish "forever" by making pits appear/disappear.
You can walk alongside pits against a wall.

Quite the education I'm getting today!

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You can hookshot to a message block? Thanks for that! I can think of two situations where I want to use this...

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Nice bottle graphic! I think I will use it, unless an even better one is drawn. This reminds me, I still haven't played AST. could you send a copy? Hahahah, nevermind, I just saw the next email.

...Oh my gosh!!! Why have I not played this yet?? It looks so cool!
I think it would be hilarious to include some of these character graphics, especially the mole -- he could take a trip to Calatia.
Of course, I need to "earn" these graphics by playing the actual game, right away!

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Thank you for reminding me that I also need to play Mother 3. Reshaper256 told me about this many months

ago. I hadn't even thought about looking for graphics there. I remember the graphics in Earthbound for the SNES were too simplistic, but let's see what these are like...

Yeah, those are really nice trees! They're really tall, lol, and many of the graphics lean toward cartoony, but that's not always a bad thing.

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I like the torch puzzle you've sent from AST. You just throw a bomb over the edge, right?
If it take it directly as-is, of course, people will know I simply lifted it from that game.
I'll have to be more creative...

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There are only 9 unopened emails in my Erock folder! (One for each dungeon of Z1-Q1!) I'd continue but a storm is brewing outside, and as you know, I've already lost one laptop to nature's fury. The last one I read was called "I'm all out of ideas!" but we both know that's just a temporary state! Thanks as always for all the time you spend testing and brainstorming. 'Til next time!!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
GameMakr24
Experience the Challenge:
http://www.questforcalatia.net/

Erock & Reshaper256 wrote:Eric!

This is Jonathan (a.k.a. Reshaper256... but call me Jonathan).  I would really like to apologize for my lack of response to your initial email, it came to me during a pretty stressful period during my student teaching, and I never got around to replying to you.  I think the best thing for me to do is simply respond to the last message you posted on the forum, since it's the most recent.  I'm really glad we have some extra help on the project, especially with dungeons.

"Hi I just thought I would check back in with the forum since I haven’t posted anything recently. Well, where do I begin? I know the forum and the diary have been kind of quiet for the last six months which may have convinced people that progress has come to a halt but let me assure anyone who is following this project this is not the case. For the last six months I have actually been working on Zelda3C doing lots of groundbreaking work."

Of course, this is great to hear.  It's good to know that *someone* is getting something done.

"But before I say anything about my progress I would like to talk about how I even got started with this project in the first place. It all started when I was browsing through videos on youtube when I stumbled upon a video of someone playing Zelda Parallel Worlds. At first I really didn’t know what Parallel Worlds was but once I figured out that it was a homemade hack I got really pumped up and inspired. Zelda 3 alttp was one of my favorite video games growing up as a kid and if someone else made a complete rewrite then I could possibly do the same. So my goal at the time was to make my very own hack, a complete rewrite of Zelda 3. I started thinking of a story line and drawing the over world map and creating dungeon rooms for my hack and everything seemed to be coming together just fine except there was one major obstacle I had to overcome, I had never done a rom hack before and I had no hacking and ASM abilities."

I've played a bit of Parallel Worlds myself -- honestly it's too difficult for my taste.  It's ironic that PW may be more in the spirit of the old long vanished "Challenge Games Community" than Zelda 3 Challenge itself will be.  What we're striving for is a more fun, fair, playable experience.  There will a steeper learning curve than the original Zelda 3, of course, but I don't believe forcing the player to resort to savestates is very fun at all.  I'm glad you've decided to team up with us instead of making your own hack alone!  Again, we can use every helping hand we can get.

"I knew that if I wanted to complete my own Zelda 3 hack I would have to get good at hacking so I started reading everything I could about hex editing and assembly languages. Even though I tried really hard to understanding how to hack Zelda 3 I really didn’t fully grasp the material to actually accomplish the type of hacking I sought after. Lets just say I was pretty disappointed. But then one day while I was trying to look up hacking information on Zelda 3 I came across Gamemakr24’s site. That’s where it all changed after looking at all of the work Gamemakr24, Reshaper256, Josh Noullet and many others have done I decided to join forces with the crew forgetting my own hack and instead teaming up with some really talented people. I started sending Gamemakr24 some sprites that I carefully drew in paint and general ideas that could work in Zelda3C. I also sent him some dungeon rooms that I created in photoshop. Then I got hyrule magic and boy it is an amazing program! All this time I had been drawing out dungeon rooms only assuming that they would work in the actually game but now I could test out all my ideas with hyrule magic and make sure everything works exactly the way it should. This made me really happy and was the very beginning of a bunch of progress."

Learning to hack is a long process, and I've been doing this as a hobby for years now.  I've made some major progress with editing enemies and such.  I've also created a system for creating new "Room Tags" as they're called in Hyrule Magic, allowing you to control and trigger events in dungeon rooms based on basically anything you want.  Since you're currently the resident "dungeon designer" as I understand it, I would welcome your input on what types of custom room triggers and effects you would like me to create for you to use.  It should make your job more interesting.

"Over the next several months I started playing with hyrule magic and the Zelda 3 rom testing out every possible idea I ever had discarding the ones that didn’t work and keeping the ones that did. I studied in extreme detail how Zelda 3 works and almost became obsessed with creating puzzles and situations for Link to figure out. I also studied two other Zelda 3 hacks, Zelda 3 Master Quest and Zelda Parallel Worlds. Zelda 3 Master Quest was not impressive at all. Most of the game is the exact same as the original with only added spikes, floor nails and some more enemies. Zelda 3 Parallel Worlds in my opinion is probably the most impressive Zelda 3 hack that is available to date. I really admire all the hard work and effort the creators put into the hack but it is extremely hard and difficult. Sometimes it’s not fun at all like does there really have to be floor tiles flying at you in every single dungeon room? When I played it I tried going through the game without any save-states but I found this to be almost impossible. It took me almost three hours just to get the sword in the beginning of the game! Anyways by studying this game I learned a lot. It taught me lots of things that I should avoid while designing for Zelda3C but it also gave me an idea of what I need to make Zelda3C a great game."

Glad you feel that way, and you seem to feel about like I do about PW.

"I’m using the game in new ways that have never been done before. For months and months I’ve sat down and thought of new ideas for this game, drawing out my ideas on paper and then recreating them in hyrule magic and finally testing and retesting them so they work properly. I have hundreds of Zelda 3 room sketches all over my room on the floor, counters, in notebooks and on the wall attached with pushpins. I’ve been able to create some pretty amazing stuff and without any ASM hacking whatsoever. I really like being part of the Zelda3C team because if I were still going to do my own hack I probably wouldn’t have been able come up with so many dungeon ideas. Being part of a team I was able to focus just on one aspect of the game, dungeons and it really paid off. I think when it comes to making a complete rewrite of a snes game on this scale you really need an entire team of people working on it because there is so much to do. Creating the over world is a huge job but not only that you have to take into consideration the new music being added, new sprite graphics, all the ASM hacks, making sure the story is coherent, making sure the game is fun and well balanced and the list goes on. So in conclusion I’m very proud and honored to be a part of this hack. I’ll still be coming up with new ideas every now and then but I believe the majority of my work is finished. The reason I say this is because there are only so many things you can do with this game that doesn’t require ASM hacking and I think that I’ve pretty much done everything that can be done. Of course I’ll still be staying with this project until its completion and helping out with anything else that I can. I just wanted to write this to kind of sum up what I’ve been doing for the last half year. My thanks goes out to everyone following the project. Have a happy summer!"

Zack has been a loner for much of this project.  Your attitude about the project being "too big for one person" is exactly how I feel as well, and I'd go as far as to say it's too big for even four or five people, to be honest.  What you've said so far about the new dungeon rooms has me pretty excited, and I've thought for a while that we should have someone working on dungeons (under regular supervision by Zack) while the rest of us are working on our various parts of the project (the OW and sprites, etc.). I'm very glad  you've become part of the project, and really look forward to seeing what you've accomplished!

On that note, I'd like to go ahead and offer to work more closely with you on dungeon rooms, right now.  I don't know whether you've actually been building rooms in HM already, or just mapping them out on paper, but we could definitely benefit from being more familiar with what each other is doing and capable of.

BTW, I'm CCing Zack on to this email; please get back to me as soon as you get the chance!

--
Jonathan - "Reshaper256"

Erock & Reshaper256 wrote:Couldn't tell if my reply was sent on the forum... I'm just emailing it too).

"Hi Reshaper256 this is Eric I’ve been working on the Zelda3C quest for calatia hack for a little while now and I’ve wanted to do some coding."

Cool.  Just wondering, did you get my recent email to you?  I'm not accustom to communicating through the Mirai Gamer Forums and would actually prefer normal email or even chat correspondence.  I'm jajomart on Google Talk, and I can download whatever client you use if you want.

"My question is how are you able to change the roms machine language into assembly language so you can modify it? Do you use a disassembly program an order to see the assembly language?"

This is a pretty complex question, but I'll see what I can do.  The Zelda 3 ROM is basically all stored in machine language, the binary or hexadecimal numbers that we ROM hackers know and love.  In hexadecimal form, this "code" can be converted directly to assembly language.

A fellow ROM/ASM hacker by the name MathOnNapkins has done a ton of work commenting the Zelda 3 ROM's dissassembly, which he used his own homemade dissassembler to disassemble.  Geiger's snes9x debugger will also disassemble the code to some extent.  Code can be altered and reinserted/into the ROM via a program known as xkas, by Byuu.

You'll have to learn the ins and outs of SNES assembly language, as well as the assembler syntax, to be able to make any good progress in this area.  MathOnNapkins provided me with many of the documents I used to become familiar with ASM hacking, and there are opcode refrences online.

Just a fair warning, it takes a long time to learn it all, I've really only touched on the basic concepts for you here.  

"I know there is plenty of work that still needs to be done with the hack. I wanted to work on programming different/original bosses for the dungeons but I don’t know how to access the code. If you have the time could you maybe assist me through some of the basis? If I can just get started I can probably figure the rest of it out on my own."

If your intent is to create new monsters and sprites, as I've been doing, I'd hold off on taking on the task of learning assembly language from the ground up, as I had to.  I'm currently making the GUI for an exhaustive sprite editor.  The only person I've told about it at this point is Zack himself, so don't go spreading the word, I don't plan on making it public at the time being.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, but in my opinion your efforts would be best spent on dungeons and puzzles, since we have very little done besides much of the overworld.  You'll get the chance to make bosses and enemies if you wait for me to finish this sprite editor.

"I’m taking a visual basic class right now so I know about programming logic and I know a little about computer programming."

Awesome, I find VB to be the easier language to work with myself.

"One last thing I don’t know if Gamemakr24 has ever revealed any of my work to you or not but I guarantee that you won't be dissapointed. Anyways thanks for your time and I hope we get the chance to actually collaborate together while working on this hack."

No, he hasn't.  I'd really like to see it and collaborate with you, as I mentioned in my previous email.  I hope for you to contact me again soon, so we can get some real work done, and show each other what we've got!

--
Jonathan - "Reshaper256"

Erock & Reshaper256 wrote:"First of all thank you reshaper256 for e-mailing me back I didn’t expect to get such a quick response."

Hah, no problem. I'm trying to stay better in contact now that I'm on summer break. Oh yeah... call me JONATHAN!



"Yeah, I’ve heard of MathOnNapkins before apparently he is creating his own hack Dark Prophecy and he is also working on a new Zelda 3 editor called Black Magic. His homemade dissassembler is it available to download? I’m a very familiar with www.romhacking.net when it comes to downloading hacking tools and programs. I tried to check to see if it were on the website and I couldn’t get romhacking.net to load. I have snes9x, the emulator; does it really have a built in debugger? I’ve never used the debugger before so I’ll have to try it out. You said code could be inserted in the rom by xkas. Where could I get that program?"

Lemme see...

MON's dissassember is attached.

Geiger's snes9x Debugger

xkas 0.06

"Wow, that is incredible! You are making a GUI for the sprites! I guess you are doing it because creating each monster/enemy by hand would just be too tedious and laborious. That is amazing news you must be a pretty advanced programmer."

Well... I seem to get by. I'm not a "programmer" by profession or anything, I do this in my spare time for fun. Haha, thanks for the complement anyway though.

"Now if I remember correctly I think there is a program already out there by Euclid that dealt with dungeon bosses properties. Like it allowed you to change things like “kill boss once” or “kill boss twice” something like that. I don’t know where you can get it or if it would be a useful program that might aid you but I’m just thinking out loud hear."

I remember Euclid making some sort of damage editor, I think that's what you're thinking of. That'll be covered in the sprite editor.



"A word document describing Gunmans Proof, a game that would be perfect for brand new dungeon graphics! I sent it to Gamemakr24 and he said that there is a limitation concerning dungeon wall graphics. He said that in Zelda 3 you can only use Cave, House, and Brick for wall patterns. In this word document there are 8 or 9 actual different dungeon wall graphics that could be used in Zelda3C. That would mean that if you could hack the game to allow more than 3 wall patterns you could have dungeons that look radically different from one another. Not every dungeon would have to use that same old brick pattern that we have all seen before. Check it out and read the file it is pretty self-explanatory."

Oh my God. Lol, that's the words that came out of my mouth when I first saw some of the lower dungeon GFX. The first few pics are a bit too cartoony, in my opinion... but wow, many of these pics are beautiful. This is one of the main reasons I want to get a sprite editor out, so I can focus on other aspects of the project, such as porting over these wonder GFX! I'm hoping the Zelda system is capable of holding these graphics.



"This is a video I made of a Zelda3C puzzle that I created. Most of my work is by making videos with my camera and sending them by e-mail to Gamemakr24. I hope this video inspires you."

Haha, I never knew the blocks did that. That's amazing, although the player would probably need a subtle hint.



"Puzzle with brick: This is an image right off hyrule magic. See if you can figure it out. You enter the room from the right and the only goal is to get to the top door."

My guess is to push the block up one, then use the hookshot to hookshot past the spikes to it. I only realized this after watching your video once, however.



"Puzzle with gap: This is another image right off hyrule magic. See if you can figure it out. You enter the room from the bottom and the only goal is to get to the top door."

Push the lower right statue toward the top of the room, then dash into it to clear the hole?



"This is a list of some graphical changes that I think would enhance the game. All I did was compare two different images together like a before and after kind of thing. Check out that new sign, bomb and bush graphic. If these new graphics could replace the old ones that would be amazing!"

Some of them seem a bit too "Minish Cap" style, but then again they may look good in game. Keep sending stuff like this!



"Ok Reshaper256 it was really fun writing this e-mail to you. Just thinking about this game gets me excited. I look forward to working with you and starting a great friendship!!"

Me too. Call me Jonathan!

--

Jonathan

Erock wrote:Hi Zack. I talked with Jonathan about collaborating with him on creating new dungeon room tags and creating new sprites. In one of my e-mails to him I thought of an idea, lets have a chat room meeting concerning Zelda3C job duties with you supervising. Like get some of the people closely working on this game all in one chat room and let’s talk about what we should be working on. I think it would be a good idea that could make everyone more organized and focused. What do you think? Lets have a meeting about the game so everyone knows what needs to be done.

Zack wrote:Hi Erock,

Sorry I haven't responded to your new emails. I want to get back into reading the old ones, and work my way forward, but it takes a long time to document and organize all these concepts. As you've likely seen, I've been focused on actually finishing Truce Dam. Now that the graphics are done, I'm getting ready to build it into the game. I tend to be very focused on one aspect of the game at a time.

"Hi Zack. I talked with Jonathan about collaborating with him on creating new dungeon room tags and creating new sprites."

Yeah, we can use all the ideas you can think up!

"In one of my e-mails to him I thought of an idea, lets have a chat room meeting concerning Zelda3C job duties with you supervising. Like get some of the people closely working on this game all in one chat room and let’s talk about what we should be working on. I think it would be a good idea that could make everyone more organized and focused. What do you think? Lets have a meeting about the game so everyone knows what needs to be done."

The problem so far is that the project isn't ready for most people. People writing new songs need to wait for a better music editor. Okay, they don't *need* to wait, but they risk spending time on things that may need to be rewritten. Graphics creators send me things all the time that I can't use. What they really need is for me to write out what I do need, but I don't know all my own needs yet. No one is going to create such things as the dam for me -- they don't have an understanding of the tiles involved nor their limitations.

Those people that I do need to stay in touch with, right now, are Reshaper256 and MathOnNapkins, who are writing code that will immediately benefit the project. If I was constantly sending out and evaluating requests from everyone else, I'd never get anything done myself. A meeting doesn't work for me as well as one-on-one conversations, on an as-needed basis, at this point. Eventually I'll want to get the music guys in a meeting, and the graphics guys in another. But right now I'm not ready to assign lots of tasks to people.

Time to check Reshaper256 and see what the latest is! Talk to you again soon!

erock wrote:Ok Zack. I’ve been trying very hard looking for good mountain graphics for Zelda3C. I found a Sega game called Crusader of Centy and the mountain graphics at least look promising. You might have to modify them so the tiles don’t look so repetitive. I don’t know if this is what you are looking for or if it will work for Zelda3C but out of all the games I’ve been searching through, these graphics seem to be the best so far. Anyways thanks for all of your help and feedback.





Included are three screen-shots of the game displaying the mountain edge graphics’.



P.S. To tell you the truth I don’t even know if I like these graphics. They seem kind of bland and dull, but you might be able to use them as a template and draw over them to make them look better. I’m just throwing ideas out there take care.

erock wrote:here is another change this into that list. most images where from gunmans proof