Topic: The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Hours (April Fools' 2008 Project) - Brainstorming Topic

[marioman]

I may not be one to give a valid opinion, but I would like to see it done.  I think that a little momentum was lost when the deadline for this year was not met, but I think that interest could be stirred up again.  I think that if a project of this type of potential popularity was completed, EVERYONE would know of this site.  Who knows where it could go from there.



Bottom line, the project has a good start, and I think that it would be a shame to discard the effort that has been put forth thus far.

[marioman]

OK, I found a little info on Wikipedia that confirms the differences of the games:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Oracle_of_Seasons_and_Oracle_of_Ages



So, it seems that Ages went from color puzzles to time travel.  Also, there was definitely a game that was going to be based on Zelda II, and it was probably going to be the Courage one.  (Judging from the 2 old, 4 new format.)  This may just be old news, but it is good to confirm things.



Additionally, I notice that in the artwork for Ages/Seasons, Nayru is holding the Harp of Ages.  I am sure that I have seen artwork somewhere that shows Din holding the Rod of Seasons too.  Therefore, since Farore is holding a book, I would think that it wouldn't be that far-fetched to use the book as the Day/Night switcher.  You could collect pages for it a la Myst.  The pages could be like the different songs for the harp or the different gems for the rod.



Just a few thoughts.

[JonLeung]

>_<



As it is, I truly do not know the status of this project.  Just a moment before coming into the forums, I was thinking about finding a new project that would have legs to carry it through...like the Super Mario Bros. 3 one that worked out pretty well.



As for this?  I was going to put it all on my own shoulders.  And it's still possible.  But with work the way it is, I'm not sure I'd be able to find time to continue until it's about time to decide to try this again or work on something else altogether!

[RT 55J]

I haven't really done anything...



<.<;;;



/Runs



In all seriousness we might be better off just doing 3 or 4 dungeons and claim that the rest were unfinished. I've lost most of my motivation to work on this.

---

Dot? Dot. Dot!

[marioman]

My philosophy is that if you are going to do something with this great of a potential, do it right.  Then again, I am not doing the actual mapping...

[RT 55J]

Given the lack of posting in this topic I'll assume that we have all chickened out of this project.



My idea to remedy this problem is for us to make a bunch of debug rooms to "test" various aspects of the "game".



Example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=a61SoJIRP1Q



Ideas:



- Environment test

- NPC test

- Enemy test

- Item test

- Day/night cycle test

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Dot? Dot. Dot!

[marioman]

At that rate, what's the point?  This is supposed to be a map prank for an entire game.  A set of debug rooms would not be as believable or publicized.  It has been done millions of times before for other games.



I still think that we need to stir up a little more interest...somehow.

[Revned]

Umm, wasn't this supposed to be a secret?

[marioman]

I thought so.  Not sure what Jon is up to, but I just PMed him about it.  I'll let you know what's going on.

[JonLeung]

The poll's not going to be up very long - and it's not like anyone's going to remember come April...



And sadly, I'm not sure how likely this will see the light of day in a completed form anyway.  I thought I could do this myself even giving myself another whole year but now church, work, and other commitments are making it difficult to make time for this.



If we're to continue doing April Fool's maps at all, it would be better to find something that more than one person actually wants to see completed.



I thought Super Kid Icarus was a good attempt considering it was just me and I only had a month to do it.  Maybe it didn't fool a ton of people but it must've been better than Mega Man Solid X.  (I still don't remember hearing why someone here...I think it was Revned...said he didn't like Super Kid Icarus, though.)  



But we need more collaborative projects.  I thought Zelda would be good because just about everyone must have played at least one Zelda game (or am I mistaken?).  Maybe "Oracle Of Hours" needs a revamp.  Considering how much (or how little) work has actually been done, maybe we just need reorganization.  But given the level of "meh" I'm not too sure.  While I never wanted to consider myself the "head" of the project, that's kind of what it came down to and maybe I need to "step down".



Because I run the site and I stand to "profit" the most from the hits blitz, the point of the project when it involves others should be for fun (and also learning techniques of manipulating images as I did with each project, too).  So I'd abandon OoH the instant we find something we'd all rather do and can do together.

[Revned]

You've got half a year to finish it up. Just because people aren't working on it now doesn't mean they won't later. I didn't dislike Super Kid Icarus, I just never really liked the real Kid Icarus games.

[JonLeung]

Revend, I should thank you for the Tile Slicer/Splicer if I hadn't already, 'cause that was essential in getting Super Kid Icarus done and on time.



And you said the Tile Slicer/Splicer was created because of what I did (manually!) to create the first April Fool's Project, the Link's Awakening Advance overworld map.



But I don't want every April Fool's Map Of The Month to be just me remaking a game tile by tile.  That only goes so far.

[marioman]

@Revned:  That's exactly what I have been saying.  There is a general lack of interest for any April Fool's project at the moment.  Since there is a LOT of groundwork already completed, I am sure that there will be a lot of momentum once people get good and ready to start up again.



The only things that I see that need to be completed as far as planning goes are bosses, level details, and a few items here and there.  From there on, it will be completely visual.



I have another idea that may or may not be even the slightest bit reasonable.  It is just something that I am going to throw out there and see what happens.</disclaimer>



Would it be worthwhile to try to locate a Zelda fangame site somewhere to take the maps and actually make a game?  We could find somewhere and present the idea with the understanding that we will not do any of the actual work other than level design.  (I am sure that level design is one of the hardest parts of making a fangame.)  It would be really neat if we could have videos, screenshots, etc. and then eventually release the "official" game.



It is just something to think about, but the first (only) priority is the maps, of course.

[JonLeung]

It's nearly December, which leaves four more months...



There's something I don't like about the dungeon I was working on - namely that I didn't take into much consideration about the pits...well, I suppose I could replace the openings meant to be pits with oil or something semi-fitting in a clock tower...  



I'm still not sure about continuing where we left off or scrapping it in favour of something else.  I wish I had time for either - the advantage of doing the Zelda one is that there kind of is a framework of ideas to build on, so we wouldn't have to do much more brainstorming.  The disadvantage is that if it's just me, then I have to make more time for it, as opposed to a project everyone is involved in and then I can just make two stages instead of eight or something.  But then of course we have to brainstorm again if we're doing something else.



Or we could have some other kind of joke, I'm still not sure.  Personally I'd like for there to be some effort put into it...not just something like "OMG the site was hacked" kind of junk.

[marioman]

If we scrapped this idea and took a new one, we would have to brainstorm again and that would take time.  Maybe some type of perk needs to be offered to mappers who help/finish on time?