Work and life in general has been a tad busy. But, when I get a chance, I’ll work on the game some more. Sorry!

I prepared a nice little photoshop template which makes tiling ever so easy. Well, for floor/platform tiles anyway. Essentially, you just need to make a 16×16 pattern, and fill the entire template with it, and various clipping path magicks take care of the rest. You can also tint it various colours

It’s in Photoshop CS2 format, but if anyone has an earlier version I’d like to see if it works for you. It should, I don’t use anything that hasn’t been around since version 5 or 6, but who knows?

I’m actually still working on it (i.e. it’s not finished), as I’m still adding ‘cracked’ tiles to it. The idea is that there’s two versions of each tiles: a regular one and a cracked one. The cracked one is generally just for decoration, but maybe I could make a puzzle, I dunno. The download below just has two copies of the same tiles, in preperation of the bottom one being cracked.

Anyway, if you want to start making tiles (which I would very much like ), here’s the template:

tiles.psd

Mini instruction manual:

The first two layers are the “Border” and “Highlight” layers. Just leave them alone, they put the nice black outline around the tiles, and that 3d-ish look. Although, you can invert the Highlight layer if you want it to look “pressed in” instead of “bulging out”.

Then there’s the the “Pattern” layer. This is where your design goes. Just paste it in to the top-left corner, and copy it over the whole thing. Alternatively, if you know how to define a real pattern, do so and use the flood fill.

Below that is the colour layer. Double click on it to choose a new colour. Don’t worry. The grey colour on the bottom most layer has nothing to do with this.

Finally, second from the bottom is the “Shape” layer. It merely defines the shape of the tiles, in terms of the clipping masks immediately above it. Don’t mess around with it unless you know what you’re doing.

(Then there’s the background layer which is nothing but the nice cyan background. Incidentally, if you make the tiles cyan, or anything close to cyan, change the background colour to something else, so the tiles don’t become transparent in-game)

I’ve also worked on the engine itself, but I’ve been typing too much for now, so blah.

Edit: I uploaded a new version with a missing tile… <_<

It figures, the one part that’s not supposed to change… does. Bah.

Anyway, I fixed all the bugs on the bug list, and I’m uploading a new demo. All it is is a bugfix release, no new features. Well, except that a feature that was broken before works. So, I guess it’s like a new feature… I would like to thank the following people for pointing out bugs to me:

• Fallen Angel
• Dan
• Brine

So, grab the new demo, because it’s better!

I’ve heard nothing but praise for WP, and death-threats if I didn’t pick it So far, I like it.

I already created a real Downloads page, as well as a Screenshots page. They’re nothing to marvel at, but they serve their purpose. I hope.

Anyway, keep on rockin’, while I figure out how to enable comments on pages

Yay! Finally!

A special note: I put the config program in a seprate archive because of two reasons:

• It doubled the game zip.
• It probably won’t be changing any time soon.

You just need to grab both programs, and stick ‘em in the same folder. Also, run config first to set the keys.

So, what’s new? Well, the screen shots from the other day more or less tell the whole story. But, I squeezed something else in since then: a new font. Nothing against the Arial font, but I think a fixed-width font works better, no?

Anyway, have fun!

This shows two things: First, you can see the new HUD at the top of the screen. I styled it like Ocarina of Time’s layout, with the hearts on the very left (and the magic below it), then the buttons in the middlish, and the map on the right. (There’s a slight bug right now that makes the magic meter transparent, don’t worry.)

Second, there’s an NPC standing there. This guy is actually going to be a black smith, hence the hammer (which, btw, is swinging up and down. Too bad you can’t see the animation).

This shows off a textbox. Nothing special really.

Anyway, I’d release a demo, but I want to get an interface ready so you can configure the keys. If you have a joystick/gamepad and you really want to try it, email me, and I’ll indulge you, but other than that, no one will be able to play, since right now it’s set for a joystick.

But, I’ll get that done asap, because I really want to release something!

After a small hiatus triggered by my computer going kaboom a few times and having less and less time available to me, I decided to get off my butt and start working on this again.

Tonight I wrote and debugged a custom input script. This means that the player can assign any keyboard key or joystick button/axis to any of the “key bindings”.

Key bindings are just actions, such as “Jump”, or “Up/Down”. Further, you can assign two buttons to an “axis” binding (such as “Up/Down”), since most keyboards don’t have axes.

All in all, it’s pretty cool doing the test room with my gamepad Now, to do the rest of the stuff I had said I wanted to >_>

Anyway, I’m getting back to work on it. I’m waiting for sprites from Talon, although those should’t hold anything up.

I… just want to get more done before I release it. It’s just not that much more than the last demo… Maybe make a few towns, get some NPCs in there, make use of the textbox system I spent forever making.

Anyway, as always, I’ll keep you posted.

The first up features Link stabbing his sword forward:

BBCode: [url=http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/]
[img]http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-2.png[/img][/url]
HTML: <a href="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/"><img src="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-2.png" alt="Zelda II: Deluxe" /></a>


The next one has Link holding his sword up. It’s actually the up-stab attack, but looks pretty cool here:


BBCode: [url=http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/]
[img]http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-1.png[/img][/url]
HTML: <a href="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/"><img src="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-1.png" alt="Zelda II: Deluxe" /></a>


Finally we have a button which doesn’t feature Link, omitting him to reveal the triforce that’s in the background of the other two:


BBCode: [url=http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/]
[img]http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-3.png[/img][/url]
HTML: <a href="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/"><img src="http://z2dx.finalfantasyq.com/z2dx-3.png" alt="Zelda II: Deluxe" /></a>


If you put these buttons anywhere, leave a comment, I want to know how far and wide these things go!

Anyway, to offset the goodness of the last paragraph, the music broke. -_-’ I’m working on it, but everything seems to be fine, it just doesn’t play. It doesn’t generate any errors, though, so… >_<

I may post a demo without sound, if I have to. Don’t really want to, though…

I also added a credits screen. It has the credits from the original Zelda II, but it also has the names of the new people who are working it, so I cover all my bases. Which are belong to me, by the way.

I’ll see if I can get the music working any time in the near future…