Goat In!

The goats are in the barn.  That is, the tutorial section of Twilight Princess is done.  It's been a good couple years since I played it, so my perspective is as clear as possible.

What Are We Doing and Why?

Nintendo has done their best to integrate this game's tutorial with the beginning of the story. Honestly, I think they succeeded.  Each of the little tasks you undertake help establish game mechanics for future use, then put them to the test.  Let's go one by one and discuss where each fits in.

First, you have to find a cradle for the pregnant lady.  Doing this requires climbing vines, jumping from platforms, and using the hawk.  Each of which is given a little instruction via NPC dialogue. The goal is disconnected from the mechanics, and the game is attempting to teach you these things in the background, rather than straight up instruction.

Next, you have to catch a fish for a cat.  I've seen a decent amount of criticism over this one.  People wonder why Nintendo devoted time teaching you fishing, something you don't use for a while, and is a minigame mechanic anyway.  Really, the fishing is incidental: this is teaching you how to equip and use B items.

Then you buy the slingshot, giving you a look at how shops work.  You also have to spend some time gathering rupees. Doing so demonstrates that exploration can often be rewarding in this game.

You also learn to ride the horse and fight in this sequence.  The former is done in a goat herding minigame, the latter in a more traditional step by step tutorial.

Tutorial Dungeon

While I didn't recognize it as such at the time, this is what searching for the kid and monkey really is.  It's a test asking you to demonstrate the things you learned earlier.

You have to use items, explore, and fight your way through a small cave system.  I really like the way the tutorial leads into this, and gets the player up and running rather quickly.

Was It Too Long?

People complain about the length of this section all the time.  In fact, it's usually noted as a starting point for Nintendo's overly long tutorial sections in later games.

All told, it took me an hour to go from the beginning of the game, to completing the tutorial dungeon.  I'd estimate I took around 20 minutes on the true tutorials, including cutscenes, then got stupidly lost in the tutorial dungeon for a bit of a time loss.

That's really not all that long, when you consider that is probably less than 5% of total play time in Twilight Princess.  Plus, seasoned Zelda players will race through this quite fast.

Looking back, the complaints don't seem as justified, and nothing feels like unneeded padding.

More To Come

Stay tuned for stuff I would improve and a comparison to Skyward Sword.

Also, I'm going to analyze the whole game like this.  Be on the lookout for Part 2.

Twilight Princess Design: Introduction

The game I'm working on could be charitably called a Zelda clone. A 2D one, but still.  As such, I've been looking quite heavily to all Zelda games for a bit of inspiration.  Zelda games usually evoke certain feelings, and, more than anything, it's those I'm trying to replicate most.

The Goal

In the next few articles, I'm basically going to be taking design notes while playing Twilight Princess. I'll be trying to find out what makes it tick, then sharing my thoughts with you.

Why Twilight Princess?

It isn't the most popular Zelda, you'll find a decent number of people who hate it. Personally, I thought it was good.  Most importantly, it was one of the best at invoking a particular feeling: that you've come a long way from where you started. Occasionally, you stop and think "wow, I've really been through all that."

I want that feeling for Hero's Handbook, so why not look into how Zelda has done it?  I hope it's not sheer amount of content, that sure would be disappointing.

I'll also be looking for dungeon design pointers, because Zelda is where you look for those.

Final Comments

Don't like my reasoning?  Let me know in the comments.  Alternatively, enjoy the ride.

Oh, and I'll be spoiling the crap out of the game, so heads up.

Upcoming Content

Posting has slowed a bit here, in large part because I am working on other projects.  Rest assured, I haven't forgotten about this.

Now, on to the update:

New Project Update Soon

This is where a large portion of my time has been going.  Here in the next couple days, I am going to put up some screenshots and discussion on Hero's Handbook to show where that's been headed.

New Post Series

Starting sometime this afternoon, I'm going to start posting a series called LoL Talk. I play League of Legends, if you haven't noticed, and I'm going to devote a little column to it.  I'm terrible, but still have stuff to say.

I might make some more videos...maybe...no promises. 

GML: 8 Directional Movement Part 2

In the last segment on movement in Game Maker, you built a small, simple little object that moved around an empty space.  It was pretty neat, sure, but only the starting point.  After all, what's a game without walls!

2013 Final Update

Alright, the year's coming to a close, so now would be a great time to look back at some things.

Fungicide

Let's start with Fungicide, the first game I released.  It's still a work in progress. Very playable, and very addictive, but nonetheless incomplete.  I should probably focus any future efforts on finising up the campaign and just let the disaster that is the multiplayer component burn itself out.

The sad part is, Fungicide was intended to be a coop multiplayer shooter about zombies.  The main engine came together nicely, but the networking just blows up. With some concentrated work, I could probably still pull it together.

On A Rainy Day

On A Rainy Day was second.  Just a fairly simple puzzle platformer.  This game was actually put together in two nights or so, as somewhat of an experiment.  It got a lot more attention than I would've expected, given that.

I still like the idea of moving objects with the mouse.  You can go a long way with a mechanic like that.  Saddly, it hasn't gotten too much polish.  You may just see that type of thing in my future games.

Ant Attack

My third game was Ant Attack.  An arcade-type game where you smashed ants for points.  Probably the least polished game I've released, but still rather fun.  The music was the best part.

Finally, Insomnia.  This game featured some of my best pixel art thus far.  I like games with a horror atmosphere, so I decided to make one of my own.  I have this one labelled as a demo, which it is. Two more game sections are planned out in my head.

Insomnia

Insomnia needs more threats.  I don't feel there was quite enough to keep people one their toes.  You can't go walking through the halls without a care in the world, and have a horror game at the same time.  The atmosphere and sound design were good.  The sound effects were rather sparce, partly to help out my Windows 8 players.

The Future

I will keep working on these, especially if players ask for updates.  You'll find, though, that I have the attention span of a gnat.  When my players aren't interested, I probably won't be either.

As a present for those of you who read this far, (seriously?) you get some information and a screenshot of another project I'm working on.  It's called The Hero's Handbook, an action RPG.  It's similar in design to the 2D Zelda games.





It's not a bad looking game, as far as pixel art goes. The gameplay so far is fun, but it's no where near good enough for any kind of release.  Lots of work to do yet.

The guy there?  His name's going to be Zulo by the way.