(I was never one for witty blog titles u.u mainly because I can't think of anything good heh)

Announcement

First off I would like to welcome Miracle to the dev team! He's always been helping out a little and now he's helped out a lot, so he officially joins the team. I always planned on doing everything myself, so I could be proud of the fact that I was able to do so. However after seeing some of the stuff he's made and being blown away I don't give a shit about going solo. Take a look at some of the stuff he's created/edited:













These title screen mockups had me making this face :D and I've since done some work and made my own working version of this title screen.



It's still a WIP. I need to code the numbers for high score and I'm going to use the newer logo. We gotta try and make it animated with little sparkles or something.

I'm looking forward to working with Miracle ^.^/

Game Updates

The latest advances in the game come in the form of minigames. I'm never satisfied with what I have in the game. I keep looking for ways to add new features and gameplay(will I ever finish this game? o.O). It's going relatively smooth with the things I'm trying to create.

The idea is to have little snippets of these minigames incorporated into the main game, then after you complete them they open up as arcade style minigames complete with multiple levels, high scores, and kickass title screens like you see above. Some will be exactly the same as in the gameplay, but some will have different configurations for the arcade version.

Some of the idea for minigames include:

Autoscrolling - Cleverly labeled Rupee Run by Mircale, the screen scrolls on it's own and you have to collect as many rupees as possible. If I can think of other things to implement in an autoscrolling level I will, but it might be limited to rupee collecting.

Projectile Blocking - Still in the early stages of development, one configuration has you in a fixed position in the middle of the screen while enemy pelt you with projectiles from all sides. You simply face them to block.



Colosseum - Fight waves of enemies. Pretty straightforward. There might be a game mode where you fight with your current equipped gear, or a predetermined set of gear. I'm still working on coding enemies so I haven't put much thought into this one yet.

Boomerang Freezing - We gotta work on more clever names for this stuff haha Freezing Frenzy? xD Basically you have a room of enemies, some moving some still, and you have to get them all frozen with the boomerang at the same time. They don't stay frozen for long, so timing and position is key. This is just a concept so I don't know if/how it will work or even it's any fun.

Horse Racing - Or some other kind of racing. I don't have any horse graphics, and I doubt there is any need for a mount in game, but there could be some racing minigames. Maybe even just betting on automated races heh

Gambling - As is usually goes, a random thought(like betting on horse races) spawns a new idea. Gambling! Dice games, slot machines, card games... the possibilities are endless. This should be fun to code :D

RPG battles - When I first started this game I wanted to combine ABS and RPG. I've long since abandoned the RPG elements, but maybe I could introduce them in some kind of battle minigame. Who knows. The game was designed with RPG fights in mind, so luckily it would take minimal effort to do this.

Tetris close - Why not? A suggestion from Arandomgamemaker that might be fun to play around with. It doesn't have to be complex shapes like in tetris, it could just be some form of falling block game. I like the challenge of coding stuff like this.

Stealth game - A suggestion from Ashes of Emerald, this is something I always wanted to do in a game but never really though of doing in this game. Perhaps I should?

Mazes - Another from Ashes, needs development but sounds like fun.

Memory game - Another from Ashes, another that could produce something fun with further dev time.

Musical game - Another from Ashes(I love it guys, keep em coming!), there will be significant usage of the flute in game so this is a natural conclusion. I'll try and code a system like playing the ocarina in OoT.

Digging game - Another from Ashes, there is no shovel item in game but that doesn't mean I can't make one specific to a minigame!

I can't remember if there are any other ideas floating around, but there's gonna be lots of games for sure! Most of the time I try to come up with ideas that incorporate equipment or existing gameplay mechanics. So I'll try and think of something for the candle, for example. Maybe you have to burn down a village as quick as possible :P As always, I encourage ideas. Most of mine come from other games or even life situations, so don't limit yourself to stuff from the Zelda universe.

Besides minigames I have been working on enemy AI. I created a nifty little system that makes enemies perform certain actions when getting hit. Each type of movement has varying patterns. For example, shooting. You can hit an enemy and it shoots in whatever direction it's facing. You can hit it and it will turn toward you and shot. You can hit it and it will shoot non stop. It still needs some testing but from my first wave of testing it seems to work pretty well. Things are looking up for a greatdecent ABS experience in this shitty engine we call RM2k3 ^.^

I also added a new feature; Achievements.



The greyed out ones are hidden, so you won't know what is needed to unlock it. I was thinking of creating a way to get tokens that allow you to unlock a greyed out achievement.

There is already a system in place for tracking item usage so I figured I should make a practical use for it. The achievement system works in levels. At first you have access to one screen of low end achievements like kill 100 enemies. Reaching that goal will give you achievement experience and unlocks a new goal for that category. Kill 100, then 300, then 500; for example. When you get enough achievement exp you gain access to the second screen with all new achievement or higher goals from old categories. There will be worthwhile rewards such as item upgrades that you can't obtain any other way.

My job contract ended so I'm currently on a open ended vacation which gives me more time to work on the game. Which is good because I'm in one of my rare motivated moods. Things are getting done at a good pace and with Miracle helping out I'm excited about the outcome will be.