It would be cool if the information given to the player about the monsters was limited to the protagonist's knowledge of them and new enemies would have to be defeated at least once to be able to get some information,would also be cool if after defeating a set number of the same type of enemy youd get the complete information about them like weakspots or which tools or attacks you should use based on the ingame experiences the character has gone through,imho i think your character just knowing what to do out of nowhere or get told on the spot how to deal with everything by a navy type companion defeats the aventure and exploration aspects of an adventure game. As for bosses or mini bosses their information could be learn through story telling and lore in the game and during battle,this would encourage exploration and paying attention to the story,so when facing a boss you could atleast have the knowledge of a tale told to you by an npc related to the story or through a painting depicting a legend or a battle against such creature,so when trying to get info on them during the boss fight,instead of an out of game info dump,we could get an in game character realisation like "Its looks just like that torn painting behind the old library" or stuff like that and after trying what was saw in such painting,trying to get information during battle could yield a different dialog confirming it.
Sorry for imminent wall of text, this one got me inspired. That last idea could very easily be expanded on and extend to normal enemies as well. Assuming they are based on folk spirits and folklore, you could find scraps of information about how to best defeat them by talking to NPCs, or by finding notes and/or books/torn pages, etc. scatttered about the game world, or by visiting shrines, making offerings, stuff like that. It would definitely encourage exploration. People would likely have been living with creatures like these since time immemorial or at least stories about them. Even today, in our own world, we have customs, advice and superstition around how to deal with particular supernatural beings. It wouldn't be too far fetched that people would know how to fight them. Even if you choose not to have a lot of NPCs, they might still have written some of that information down. It could function like an alternative to levelling up. Enemies become easier to defeat, not because of some arbitrary number, but because the player character has gained actual experience in fighting these enemies, as well as using the information that they've come over in the game world itself. I think that could help the whole world feel a lot more alive and imersive. It becomes a bit like collecting gear, but without having to deal with the hassle of always switching between it whilst in combat, and instead being more prepared before an encounter. For example, you could have some lore tell you to look for certain signs, like a black fog or something, to indicate a dark spirit, and then another piece of lore tells you what powder, or what have you, to put in your lantern, or a particular sort of gear. Combine that with combat experience, or some hearsay, having told the character that the mask is a weak spot and so you will be able to switch the targeting marker to that spot, or it happens automatically. It could help with making soft barriers as well. Informing a player that some enemies are best left alone until you have gathered the knowledge on how to best defeat them. Sure, a player could, with skill, push through and defeat the spirits, but the fight will be a lot harder and the player is encouraged to solve the puzzle, rather than to brute force it. This could also extend to whole enemy classes. You could for example learn that, vampires are weak to wooden weapons, but this one vampire enemy is clad in armour which cannot be easily damaged by wood and has to be broken off, before they become vulnerable to that type of attack. Spirits become corporeal and more vulnerable to physical attacks when you throw salt on them; this one here has a mask, break that and it will fizzle away. Depending on how complicated you want to make it, you could keep a count of how many times an enemy has been defeated and have a progression of that last one, where initially, you can target the enemy, then you can switch the target to a weak point, which might glow, and after a while it automatically targets the weak spot. Based on how much knowledge and lore you have gathered on that particular enemy. And then you could throw in a curveball by having one [potentially optional bonus-] boss who is a shapeshifter and throws all that to the wayside and you have to rely on raw skill alone. This is a really great concept which really ties both the player and the enemies to the world itself and makes the whole game world a puzzle made up from smaller puzzles which you have to work to solve.
I actually recommend a bestiary for this reason, so as a player you can keep track of enemies you've encountered with little notes either made by perspective of the player character or just general observations about the monster. I really dig monster lore in video games and fantasy/scifi universes, so seeing a game with a diverse enemy palette that has one of these is always a plus for me.
@@mr_sauce_cooks I agree, but also add it's capable in capable hands. But there isn't really a lot of people who know what best practices are. So.. not many capable hands. (relative to amount of users and people who make tutorials). But computers are ridiculously powerful these days, so you can get away with a lot.
Out of all the Zelda Theory videos I've seen, I have never heard of the sign changing, very great observation! Also great progression, great video editing, and thank you for providing such a treat, so excited to see this game fleshed out fully one day!😊
To me, there's nothing more unsettling than "false safe spaces." Areas that look warm and inviting to lure you in, that abruptly become cold and hostile. Fairy tales used them all the time
As someone who is also trying to make a game inspired by old N64 classics, your videos have been a massive inspiration to me. You've really managed to capture the essence of those games and I look forward to seeing future improvements and features
I have so much respect for you and this project. I played the crap out of OoT and this is clearly a visual ode to that game. The style is brinding back memories I never had, which is quite the feat. Also refreshing to see something akin to feudal Japan, as opposed to the "standard" high fantasy themes. Keep up the good work!
I can 100% get behind what you said about creating everything yourself! A lot of game devs I talked to just have the "effectivity" in mind and outsource where possible (which is a valid standpoint) and can't get their head around it when I tell them I'd like to do it on my own, so it was refreshing to hear this from a fellow dev :D
something about that door opening animation just really ties things together and as you say about the enemy descriptions... just makes it feel like a game! very exciting!
Every time I see an update to this I get excited, I legitimately can't wait to play this game if and when it comes out. I feel like there has been such a void in terms of legitimate Zelda-clone games on the market that aren't standard top-down like A Link to the Past or just bare-bones in terms of comparisons for the sake of clickbait. This is also a nice little behind-the-scenes for me since I've always wanted to try my hand at game development and like seeing how different people tackle similar problems to get different results. Very well done figuring out ladders.
The moment I saw the ladder stretch up to the heavens as the slider went up, I audibly went "What a thrill!" I had a good chuckle when the sound clip played RIGHT AFTER I said that.
Never push yourself down. Blueprint is programming, coding and such, it's just a different method of doing that. Your work's legitimacy isnt hurt by it at all
transitioning from blueprints to c++ is how I learnt to now code in 8 different languages. once you realise that its the exact same thing when broken down into logic it becomes a very easy transfer if you can make anything in bp
Considering i know nothing of programming and game design, im impressee how interesting and engaging youve made this process. Im always keen for update videos!
This looks so awesome. The door walk animation turned out really well and seamless, same with the climb animation. I also love how the walk cycle accounts for sideways motion. And the lantern joshing around looks cool too. But the walk cycle looks very stale when you move straight ahead I think, I feel like the upper body should be moving up and down, it looks like it's level throughout the run cycle.
quick note on the target lock breaking: you should only break the lock if the enemy line of sight breaks and stays broken for an amount of time, like a few seconds. that way you don't get annoying situations where your lock breaks repeatedly just because the enemy moved quickly in/out of view. adding onto this, there should be a second range for breaking target lock by distance, larger than initial lock range. something like 1.25-1.5x range, since the player will naturally move around the environment once locked on.
If you've built up all the systems for this game with unreal's visual scripting, I'd contest that you *can* code. Or program at least, which is what people generally mean by that. Just because the language you've learned with is higher level and has slightly more forgiving syntax doesn't mean it ain't coding. (Honestly a fair amount of the complexity of C-derived languages isn't even helpful complexity it's just the consequence of using a language that was designed to be written on punch cards in the 70s lmao, it's great that there are finally languages like this that are more accessible to more art/design-minded folk)
Dude, I always love seeing your update videos! I know you want to do everything yourself but if you ever consider having someone help you with the music, I have a lot of ideas on how I could contribute!
literally sang snake eater when i saw the ladder scale go up. got caught off guard when i heard it xD you say you're not a programmer but this is some damn good work!
That ladder gag got me XD So great to see you back again, I've missed your devlogs. I hope the one guy working on Space 64 comes back too, I miss his stuff.
Following up Ladders with "S" immediately made think it was going to be Snakes. Nope, turns out to be signs. I imagine getting the animation right for climbing a ladder can be tricky, but a door seems like it would be a simple thing... right? 0:13 - I'm pretty that is the big obstacle most folks who want to make a game face. The screen of numbers and odd letters blurring together tend to be the turn off point. 1:21 - Given it's Kokiri Forest, said sign may have well grown. It may still be a living plant. 1:50 - I do like carrying over the sign texture to the text box. It's a nice background and is a nice little touch. 2:37 - Ahhh, so that is why it's done. I was thinking it'd be simpler to just have the door push open rather animating the character opening the door but that loading explanation makes a lot of sense. 4:04 - Funny little moment. Cool to see your world from that top-down viewpoint. 6:30 - I figured being able to switch targets at any point and so smoothly would have been enough of a fix but it's cool that you're going the extra mile. 7:59 - Provided you keep those sound effects in, I feel your ghostly enemies here going through walls and slapping the protagonist makes a lot of sense.
I remember having ladder issues with a project I made a while back. I think I just used the find look at rotation in the Z axis to make the player look at the ladder before climbing
great video! one tiny critics though, "cinematic door transition" is a two-sided sword, it has that positive aspect you mentioned, but if the numbers and necessity of going through doors is not perfectly balanced, that good feeling cinematic experience will quickly turn into "ughhh not another god damn door..." , be careful with that
Absolutely loving this project so far. Excellent! As a note, just from the footage you showed us of your lock on disable on line of sight, it might be a bit frustrating to not be able to target an enemy the camera can see even though the player can't technically. Perhaps checking if the camera can see an enemy instead of the character would help this, if you deem it a good fix. Keep on keeping on!
Not only is the game looking a lot more immersive with all the new animations, you’ve sold me completely on the N64 look, no doubt!! Your video editing is next level, it’s quite fun and engaging! Keep up the great work!
I spot a few areas where on a pure systems level, there's a quite a few good, not so hard optimizations that can be done. It's impressive how far you've gotten with your skills and blueprinting abilities! One could nitpick for an eternity and get almost nothing done. And I think that's one of the things you do really well! To get something done, and then you iterate on it. It has made this dev journey into one of my favorite ones to follow. Keep it up! If something pops up that you are wondering about blueprints, feel free to shoot me a message. I'm sure I have a few tips & tricks that could be helpful.
Really shows the power of Unreal if someone who can't program can do all this. I would suggest that for sign posts you make a font, or use one that's available, and just display the text so that the player doesn't have to stop, press a button, and then read it. Otherwise, it's looking great.
I feel like adding a ranged weapon would be a cool idea because being only being restricted to a melee weapon would probably make the combat seem dull after a while. Maybe something like a throwable bottle of holy water or something like that would fit in with the theme of the game, but idk. Also the game looks very cool good work :D.
Love it! I really like the showcase of your problems AND the solutions you chose. I bet if wouldnt be so much into PS1/2 Horror Game Dev Stuff, I totally would have done the same and tinker around with my absolute favorite games OoT & Majoras Mask. :D
