Zelda for RND

[Francesco]

That's not a bug, Martijn, Alan has deactivated some chars by purpose - but don't ask me why

[Holger]

I think they're not "deactivated by purpose", but Alan just took an existing font without Umlauts and converted the existing chars to the R'n'D format, skipping the non-existing ones...

[Martijn]

Thinking about this, I came upon an idea. Holger, wouldn't it be an idea to check if there are any Umlauts on a screen and if they are there and aren't supported by the graphics set, then add the letter 'e' to it? For the 'e' is always supported, if the rest of the screen is shown correctly.

This would result in changes like:
Ü -> UE
ü -> u
Ä -> AE
ä -> ae

etc.

For, even if it was Alan's intention to have gaps on his screens (which I don't believe), it is not the intention of other artwork creators who forget this!

[Holger]

> [...] check if there are any Umlauts on a screen and if they are there and
> aren't supported by the graphics set [...]

Well, it's hard to tell if some chars are missing or not -- you would have to check if all pixels are black or something like that ... very nasty ;-)

But I admit that the real problem is my odd font layout, which is neither a real 7 bit ASCII font, nor a real 8 bit ISO-Latin-1 font... :-/

[Alan]

You should have missed this one, Alan...

Quote:
A little suggestion: I would change the way the "lonesome boss" attacks: if you stay still, it attacks you only once, then you have to move to be hurt again. Way too weak for a "boss". Just stay still and then shoot at it... just one little health point lost.

Normal enemies are really more dangerous than that pumpkin-head, I think you should fix this, Alan.

I've finished Zelda in 2 hours of gameplay, killing almost everything on my path and saving around 150 health points when I've reached the pedestal to end the game The average health all along the game was around 250...

Well done! You say that you didn't do very well on your first try(ies), but this just proves you got better at it.......and now you can hammer it, which is cool (for me anyway)

As for the shadow......humm, well I should of made him take at least three hits to die, maybe. But no, a better way would be to turn the shadow into a copy of himself if he touches you and this one runs away from the player, then back to the real one after 10MS........this would give the effect of him really attacking you

About the U character........no I never missed it out on purpose, I always seem to forget about it (since I don't speak German). My apologies to Jue if his name got messed up It's just a straight dump of the SNES Zelda font.....not even rescaled.

[Francesco]

Sorry about saying that you missed those chars by purpose, now that I think back to that I know that I had not the minimum proof for saying such a thing! Let's say that I had that impression, and that I expressed it with the wrong words... my apologies

[Alan]

Not needed, I know what you meant.

BTW they're not in one single Snakebite font and Jue was heavily involved with that game.....funny he never mentioned it now I come to think about it. They are in BD2K3 though

I also have a leather biker jacket with an amazing acrylic painting of Motorhead's Overkill cover on the back, done by my dad (I don't wear it anymore though), he even missed out the little dots over the O in Motorhead........so I filled them in using tipex

[Francesco]

Uh, now I remember my reasoning: since you said you were in lack of CEs - and since I've saw that you have used some normal elements as decorations (for example the gravity ports to make the landmarks) I thought that you had to use also some (blanked) characters to fill some black areas during the construction of each room, or something like this - if I recall correctly, also the semicolon is missing... I was far away from being right, well, anyway...

Two notes...

- Upgrading from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2, I've noticed that cleared-up rooms, when are recreated, show a robot wheel in their middle - just an eyeshut, anyway. I don't remember such flashing elements in 3.2.1...
- The rooms that contain the shadow sometimes have a strange 3x1 niche on the wall, and they also have a strange "phantom" element that runs along the edge... is that a sort of "locator" that finds the position of the player and then creates the shadow on the other side of the room?

All in all, just curiosities (luckily, I am not a cat )

And finally, yes! Now I am pretty good in playing Zelda! The first time I've given up to cheating because tape reloading was too much for my little spare time, but instant reloading just convinced me to play following the rules - well, sort of After having finished it in the "serious" way, I started from scratch just to pick up all the weapons - the previous time I've kept the normal bow until the end - with the crossbow I got killed in just two rooms!

It has been too much fun to see again the tape at fast speed... the fire wand sounded more like a machine-gun (Yes, I did that, I've seen all the 2 hours of playback at fast speed just for fun )

I hope that there will be some kind of data-passage between levels, in one way or another, so that you could make another, wider, release of Zelda - maybe with Princess Zelda herself... poor Princess, in this edition she's just in the Elements Info screen, still as a stone

[Martijn]

> [...] check if there are any Umlauts on a screen and if they are there and
> aren't supported by the graphics set [...]

Well, it's hard to tell if some chars are missing or not -- you would have to check if all pixels are black or something like that ... very nasty

You could check the graphicsinfo.conf for it, couldn't you?

[Holger]

> You could check the graphicsinfo.conf for it, couldn't you?

No, as the font is specified as a whole, you cannot tell this.

[Alan]

I've saw that you have used some normal elements as decorations (for example the gravity ports to make the landmarks)

Unfortunately no. I had to use CEs for everything since they have to destroy themselves every time you leave the room. I would of used normal keys and normal doors otherwise (and saved loads of CEs), but RND doors are indestructible.

- Upgrading from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2, I've noticed that cleared-up rooms, when are recreated, show a robot wheel in their middle - just an eyeshut, anyway. I don't remember such flashing elements in 3.2.1...

Interesting. This is used to find the middle of the screen every time you enter and leave and is one of the last elements to destroy itself. The fact that you can now see it means some timings must of been changed....Holger?

The rooms that contain the shadow sometimes have a strange 3x1 niche on the wall

Yeah I hate that! Most likely it was a horizontal corridor......the invisible shadow which is looking for the edge sometimes gets in the way of the wall making process. It gets out of the way and carries on but the walls are on a very strict timer so they don't finish (it's in the demo tape I made to).

poor Princess

[Francesco]

I've saw that you have used some normal elements as decorations (for example the gravity ports to make the landmarks)

Unfortunately no. I had to use CEs for everything since they have to destroy themselves every time you leave the room. I would of used normal keys and normal doors otherwise (and saved loads of CEs), but RND doors are indestructible.

What? Did you really forget that you have used some normal elements? OK, it was not a gravity port, and it was not a standard landmark, it was an horizontal SP port used to make the pedestal w/sword. You have also used some others, like the yellow emerald for the happy Link, the wall with yellow emerald for the Speed Shoes and so on. Well, just half a dozen in total.

- Upgrading from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2, I've noticed that cleared-up rooms, when are recreated, show a robot wheel in their middle - just an eyeshut, anyway. I don't remember such flashing elements in 3.2.1...

Interesting. This is used to find the middle of the screen every time you enter and leave and is one of the last elements to destroy itself. The fact that you can now see it means some timings must of been changed....Holger?

Just reported this again to avoid it being missed, even if it doesn't seem to be a big issue - well, it's noticeable, though...

Little further note: did you "hide" your demo tape by purpose? Typing the blind command to insert it doesn't work if the tape isn't put directly in the "tapes" folder, I've found it only a couple of days ago...

[Alan]

What? Did you really forget that you have used some normal elements? OK, it was not a gravity port, and it was not a standard landmark, it was an horizontal SP port used to make the pedestal w/sword. You have also used some others, like the yellow emerald for the happy Link, the wall with yellow emerald for the Speed Shoes and so on. Well, just half a dozen in total.

Yes I did forget! It's the last screen though so nothing has to be cleared The other elements you mention are off screen so they don't really count (both happy links are off screen and in the last area)

did you "hide" your demo tape by purpose?

Nope, I'm not sure what you mean here.....you can't see the folder?

It might be something to do with the dates. The battery on this old PC is dead, so every boot up I have to set the clock and date, which I can't be bothered to do anymore so it's always 1/1/97. I suppose this is a good reference though (all the games I made stamped 97 are done on this old PC like pacman).

The tape also states I made it in 1997 to so maybe that's it?

[Zomis]

Thread splitted, discussion about :ist and tapes and stuff continues here:
viewtopic.php?p=8005

[RTAK545]

I found out the system to the room numbers, they just increase going across each row. Since there are 16 rooms in each row and 14 rows, so they are numbered like this:
1 - 16
17 - 32
33 - 48
49 - 64
65 - 80
81 - 96
97 - 112
113 - 128
129 - 144
145 - 160
161 - 176
177 - 192
193 - 208
209 - 224
You can also know the number of the next room you're going to by following these instructions:
North = - 16
West = - 1
South = + 16
East = + 1