Zelda Suggestions

[ACagliano]

I have a few questions about what the preferences for my Zelda game are:

1. Would tiled motion (a player or enemy moves one tile at a time) or smooth motion (a player or enemy moves one pixel at a time) be preferred? Please note, if I go with the smooth system, I will need some conceptual advice on how to work collision detect with a tiled map system.

2. Should one or more classes of enemies have ranged attacks (like the bow)? I added a bow to your equipment, but I do not know how to code a ranged attack for either player or AI while the game is going. Help?

3. Should enemy classes be able to launch a ranged magical attack with their element? I know this is not really classic Zelda, but it could make gameplay harder. And, that is basically what the ice/fire keese do.

4. Should the shield be auto-use or press-a-key to use?

Also, I am having a dilemma. I need a way to extract the map data from the app and put it somewhere where it can be kept. I first decided to try an AppVar that gets archived when the game is not in use, but that is a problem as there is not enough RAM to hold the data. Other ideas I am looking at are a separate appvar for each map, or to create a group file. Any thoughts?

[LincolnB]

My opinions:

1. Would tiled motion (a player or enemy moves one tile at a time) or smooth motion (a player or enemy moves one pixel at a time) be preferred? Please note, if I go with the smooth system, I will need some conceptual advice on how to work collision detect with a tiled map system.

DEFINITELY smooth-scrolling, IMO. You can still go tile-by-tile if that's what you want but please make it smooth. I can help with this part, I'm pretty good at this.

2. Should one or more classes of enemies have ranged attacks (like the bow)? I added a bow to your equipment, but I do not know how to code a ranged attack for either player or AI while the game is going. Help?

3. Should enemy classes be able to launch a ranged magical attack with their element? I know this is not really classic Zelda, but it could make gameplay harder. And, that is basically what the ice/fire keese do.

Not a bad idea, ranged weapons are nice. They're also good for adding puzzle elements, like shooting a switch across a bridge and stuff like that. Again, I can probably help here as well.

4. Should the shield be auto-use or press-a-key to use?

I would personally go for press-a-key to use. Keep in mind it's still your decision, do whatever.

Also, I am having a dilemma. I need a way to extract the map data from the app and put it somewhere where it can be kept. I first decided to try an AppVar that gets archived when the game is not in use, but that is a problem as there is not enough RAM to hold the data. Other ideas I am looking at are a separate appvar for each map, or to create a group file. Any thoughts?

You could use a similar technique to what I'm doing in my current project - I have a massive appvar, or two or three, permanently in the user archive (unless I decide to unarchive it to edit levels and such). This/these appvar(s) holds all the levels for the entire game. When I get to a level, it copies 768 bytes (the size of one level) into ram where I can access it and whatnot. In your game, you might want to copy data from this appvar into ram whenever you move screens and such.

[ACagliano]

My opinions:

1. Would tiled motion (a player or enemy moves one tile at a time) or smooth motion (a player or enemy moves one pixel at a time) be preferred? Please note, if I go with the smooth system, I will need some conceptual advice on how to work collision detect with a tiled map system.

DEFINITELY smooth-scrolling, IMO. You can still go tile-by-tile if that's what you want but please make it smooth. I can help with this part, I'm pretty good at this.

2. Should one or more classes of enemies have ranged attacks (like the bow)? I added a bow to your equipment, but I do not know how to code a ranged attack for either player or AI while the game is going. Help?

3. Should enemy classes be able to launch a ranged magical attack with their element? I know this is not really classic Zelda, but it could make gameplay harder. And, that is basically what the ice/fire keese do.

Not a bad idea, ranged weapons are nice. They're also good for adding puzzle elements, like shooting a switch across a bridge and stuff like that. Again, I can probably help here as well.

4. Should the shield be auto-use or press-a-key to use?

I would personally go for press-a-key to use. Keep in mind it's still your decision, do whatever.

Also, I am having a dilemma. I need a way to extract the map data from the app and put it somewhere where it can be kept. I first decided to try an AppVar that gets archived when the game is not in use, but that is a problem as there is not enough RAM to hold the data. Other ideas I am looking at are a separate appvar for each map, or to create a group file. Any thoughts?

You could use a similar technique to what I'm doing in my current project - I have a massive appvar, or two or three, permanently in the user archive (unless I decide to unarchive it to edit levels and such). This/these appvar(s) holds all the levels for the entire game. When I get to a level, it copies 768 bytes (the size of one level) into ram where I can access it and whatnot. In your game, you might want to copy data from this appvar into ram whenever you move screens and such.

I could definitely use help on 1, 2, and 3. I have no AI experience either, so any help would be welcome. You would, of course receive credit.

On 4, the press to use option is my preference as well.

I could do a few appvars, one for each major section. Then, the app would need to know which to look at for the map. I could probably handle this, but if you have alot of time and want to help with this as well, I won't say no. Or I may create a group. We'll see.

[LincolnB]

Great. What exactly do you need help with, concerning smooth scrolling? What exactly it is?

[DJ Omnimaga]

Smooth movement, but enemies can move tile by tile (gradually moving from a tile to another kinda like old Final Fantasy games) and it should be fine.

For programming help, you should ask in the ASM sub-forum,,though, to get a faster response.

[LincolnB]

Oh wait a second, is this in ASM? I don't know ASM, but I'm pretty good with Axe.

[ACagliano]

That is a shame. I do appreciate the offer tho. Perhaps you should learn asm? I just got into coding it myself.

DJ, I will do that.

[LincolnB]

Perhaps you should learn asm? I just got into coding it myself.

Sadly, I don't have access to a computer whenever I want, as long as I want. My parents limit my computer time (but not calculator time MWAH HAH HAH) so I can't get into computer programming like I'd like to...Basically, that's why pretty much everything I program is on-calc.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Well in Axe a Zelda game could be coded easily, as I did it in TI-BASIC with crappy libs (I wish xLIB app or DCS7 came out in 2004) but it would obviously be larger.

[LincolnB]

Yeah. As in most games, the hard part is not usually the game engine, it's the part about making tons and tons and levels, placing items and enemies, stuff like that.