Messages

[TRANSLATION]

Hi,

thanks a lot for taking the time to answer, Diarandor and Christopho!
There's actually a few things here, so let me tackle them one by one:

TRANSLATION

Would you translate it into German after the English release?

Actually Yes, I would I will probably not be able to spend more then 2-3hrs a week, but assuming it is fine if it takes a couple weeks, sure, yes, let me help. I did not yet do any game translation, so you might need to help me a bit at the beginning, but I think I'm up to the task as I'm native in German and my English is well practiced. I'll send you a DM with my e-mail address - contact me once the English translation is done and I'm happy to both test and translate. Should I play MoS XD before that?

DONATIONS

People can always help with donations to the team, to support our work (and the websites), and also to motivate us and work slightly harder when we can.

I'm actually glad you bring this up. Yes, Solarus absolutely deserves donations. But with THAT page? http://www.solarus-games.org/community/donate/
Let me be direct please. At least for me, the donation page is very unattractive and discourages me from donating as it shares next to no information. Suggestion: Make actual costs visible (e.g. what's the hosting cost?), write down a wish list what you would want to do with the money (and list how people can contribute besides sending money, e.g translating, how about free hosting, etc.), maybe let the donor even chose for what to contribute. Show how many you got donated already and how you used that. Can I specifically donate for development of the Engine? What would X€ do if donated for development of game Y? Who actually gets the money and how are you distributing it?
You don't need to go full "kickstarter", but a handful more of sentences and transparency would do wonder, I believe.

ROADMAP QUESTION

I was wondering what the actual vision and roadmap for Solarus is for the mid- to far future?

Thanks Diarandor, you partially answered this by saying 1.6 will include more technical features. But still, what's the vision for the Solarus Engine and Quest Editor? Is it mostly done? Does the team have explicit goals? Is there a "Vision Statement"? Any plans for expanding plattforms or amount of users?

MY SUGGESTION

My personal opinion: if you cannot spend 1000+ hours on a project, then you cannot make a good game like MoS DX.

I've expected that retort - and I believe you are right. In the end, great games will always need great dedication. But right now, this is very discouraging to start with. If more can be achieved in less time, this may get more people into creating quests and some of them will maybe stay and invest those many hours for great games. But as the initial start saying "1000+hrs required" is a huge turndown.

On the technical aspect of what I'm suggesting, Christopho got it:

we already had dicsussions about a GUI that would allow people program their events without Lua scripting. It should be possible to do it without losing the power of the Lua scripting, if we simply make it optional.

Yes, of course optional. The power of Solarus needs to stay for where it is needed. The idea where I'm coming from is basically a standardized subset of Solarus (defined Items, enemies, etc) where such GUI-only would quickly get me somewhere. And afterwards creators can still polish and tweak in full detail with Lua.

I'm dreaming of smaller dungeons and quests people can "quickly" create (whatever that means), are hosted here with public rating, with tags like "puzzle focused" or "hard fights". And as the player, I can download the "dungeon of the week" and have 2hrs of fun on the weekend. If they are based on the same standardized subset, maybe it even could be modular part of an overarching story-line where creators contribute optional dungeons and areas.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to take anything away from Solarus and MoS DX is absolutely amazing. But I feel Solarus could maybe also be an engine not only for 1000+hr games but smaller games (or modular parts of it) and for those, it needs to be less effort. Does this make any sense? Of course, this would be very long down the line. I just wanted to share the thought.

Thanks,
Marcus

[I was wondering what the actual vision and roadmap for Solarus is for the mid- to far future?]

Hi,

I was wondering what the actual vision and roadmap for Solarus is for the mid- to far future?
I saw the "Situation Review" blog post from mid-2017 [1], but this is more like a snapshot and does not really answer where the engine project is going.

Suggestion:
To put my question into perspective, I have a few ideas of my own. Disclaimer: However, please let me start with underlining how amazing Solarus already is and how much joy I had in particular with Mystery of Solarus DX. Further I am fully aware that any of the points below probably mean month or years of work. Therefore please just treat it as general suggestion / idea source.
I would love to see many more games like MoS DX, even would love to create my own zelda-like ARPG, but time-requirement to create such games even with the amazing Quest Editor seems astronomical. I just can't spend 1000h+. And I assume many other can't as well. Therefore I suggest to add an "additional layer" on top of the Solarus Quest Editor to hide away more of the (needed!) complexity underneath to simplify game creation and focus more on story and puzzle creation - at the cost of flexibility.
What I have in mind is a "standardized" Solarus zelda-like game set where for example >20 weapons/items are pre-defined, >50 enemy types are pre-defined, mutiple tile sets with preconfigures tile-functionality and pre-configured entities (e.g. NPC house) etc. Yes, this already there but mixed with all the customization possibilities and level of detail the Quest Editor has. Yes, of course I will eventually need to touch some lua code to create my custom events. Yes, of course I will eventually need to manually change some wall tiles to passable to create a secret entry, etc. But unless I'm at that level of polishing I would love to see that hidden away behind GUI elements and drag&drop to further ease creating games. Somewhat (a very bit) like RPG maker but with the full power of the Solarus Quest Editor underneath if needed.
In short: I would love to have a "Simple Mode" available in the Quest Editor so I can just drag and drop standard enemies and maybe even standard rooms and puzzles together. Of course one size does not fit all, but I imagine it would be a great way to reduce entry level skill needed and maybe get more people into creating games - and who knows, maybe the best puzzle designers and story tellers are not the best coders and therefore hiding the coding more would maybe increase not only quantity but also quality? To run the thought even longer, at some point this website could even host dozens or hundred of Solarus games, maybe community rated and such... (now I get carried away).

Thanks!
Marcus

[1] http://www.solarus-games.org/2017/08/29/situation-review-for-solarus-projects/

Yes, but it is absolutely not related to the bone key and is foundable with the cape [...]

Okay, but then I would like to criticize something else: The game should give at least slight hints on this through the telepathic grandma. E.g. "Now that you have the cape, you should re-visit Doungeon XYZ", or after having the bone key "I feel there is something special in one of the later dungeons. Not every wall is as solid as you think"

There are a few more things in the second half of the game where I was expecting Grandma to give hints but she just stopped with the shop remark. E.g. Dungeon No 6 (Inferno) was something I would not have found without the Walkthrough as I was checking under each rock before completing dungeon 5 and even had already all three inferno stones. There was nothing pointing me at revisiting the area at all.

But there is no piece of heart there.

In the Dungeon 8, yes there is: Right next to the boss room. I would have missed that...

Hi,

through google I found the use of the bone key (nice!). Won't say it here to not spoiler anyone. But how comes this is completely unmentioned in the game? I would have never found the access in that dungeon?! Same for the heart piece there...

Whats the thinking behind this?

Thanks,
Marcus

I might pitch in with English --> German, but no way I can help with French. I can't speak any.

Hi Neovyse, Hi Christopho,

thanks both of you for taking the time to answer. As you both mentioned Mercuris' Chest, is there a timeline? How big is the team?

Neovyse, I saw the manual and the packaging on the link and I am really fascinated. Best thing (besides the game itself) I saw in weeks

Thanks!
Marcus

Hello Neovyse!

The Manual, the packaging and the PDF guide are really fantastic work and it makes me happy to see the love in them. Unfortunately for me, I do not speak a word of french, so it is all guessing.

Still, I looked up a thing or two and noticed a bug you might want to fix: Walkthrough PDF page 35 contains the wrong table. Further suggestions: You should also link the packaging and the manual here, because this is the page google finds first: http://wiki.solarus-games.org/doku.php?id=zelda_mystery_of_solarus_dx

So now that I also found the manual, I see there are quite a few people involved. I would love to see a "the team" section on the ZMoS DX page

How much progress is there for Mercuris' Chest? Is there any website for it? How big is the team?

Thanks!
Marcus

Dear Christopho,

I would like to thank you for this great game! I'm currently starting Dungeon 6 and it truly feels like the good old SNES times I am really grateful and consider donating a bit once I've completed it. I am very much amazed by the overall quality - not only by the game but also e.g. by the walkthrough PDF which you created with so much love. This is absolutely fantastic! I would go into more detail what I like and the very few points I don't, but I understand the game is anyhow finished, right?

Would you be willing to answer a few questions about the game and the Solarus engine? Here are my questions, if I may:

• How much time would you say it would take to create a game of similar scope MoS DX in Solarus? And where is the most time spent? Planning? Creating the world or the puzzles? Or the last polishing?
• You have a lot of logical dependencies in such a game (e.g. Chest containing X can only be reached with items Y and Z and you need X to do ...). How did you plan/map/verify those dependencies?
• What did you do to plan it all? How much did you plan ahead and how much of the world did you just create "ad hoc"?
• What would you think, how much effort (money, time) would it be to replace all Nintendo graphics, sounds, music? It would be so great to not depend on Nintendo being nice and ignore the game forever.

Thanks a lot! Hope this list is not to long

Thanks,
Marcus