Actually, each area or whatever could have an item, a divination tablet or something, which provides the check-list. Each area would have one, so the player would always know if there is something left hiding in an area or not.

A checklist of "there are X things in the area" is double-edged though. While it's useful to know how close the area is to complete, it's also a big spoiler of how much content is in an unexplored area. I'd also get annoyed if I'd found seven out of eight items in an area and would spend hours trying to find the eighth. An in-game walkthrough would be too much information for me as it would spoil the fun of getting the item, although a very vague in-game hint system (that maybe shows you roughly where something is but not exactly how to get it) would be welcome.

Part of the fun of Zelda is the exploration, so I would not limit that. I liked finding all the extra hidden heart pieces and the small extra puzzles that litter the world. For me, it's ideal if there are tons of those items scattered about everywhere, with subtle increasing difficulty to find them. Make it like a good easter egg hunt (as in a literal easter egg hunt [wink]).

However if you want to make a game that's Zelda inspired but is your own, you'll need something to differentiate yourself. Tweak the gameplay in some new direction. It doesn't really matter what that new direction is, as long as it's something that interests you, but your game will play better if it has its own voice rather than as a direct right-down-to-the-core Zelda clone.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid ...it's also a big spoiler of how much content is in an unexplored area. I'd also get annoyed if I'd found seven out of eight items in an area and would spend hours trying to find the eighth. ...I liked finding all the extra hidden heart pieces

But since you know how many hearts you can get in your heart meter, doesn't that spoil finding the extra heart pieces as you know how many there are to get? :) Wouldn't it annoy you if you had one last heart piece to find yet, since there is no indicator for each area on how much treasure you found, you'll have to search every nook and cranny of the entire world to find that last little piece?

One simple fix to this is to make sure the heart meter doesn't suggest there are more pieces to find (like the blank space in the HUD on the first NES game [can't remember what the SNES one did]).

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However if you want to make a game that's Zelda inspired but is your own, you'll need something to differentiate yourself. Tweak the gameplay in some new direction. It doesn't really matter what that new direction is, as long as it's something that interests you, but your game will play better if it has its own voice rather than as a direct right-down-to-the-core Zelda clone.

I think this is key. It has to be unique in some way, some sort of twist on the original idea, but it can't deviate so far that the game becomes a hodgepodge of elements. For example, I was an avid fan of the original WarCraft series, until I played WarCraft III. Three tried to take the RTS goodness of the first two games and merge it with the RPG elements of things like character stats and leveling ala Diablo. It didn't work for me, primarily because there was too much switching between macro managing an army/economy, and micromanaging certain key characters that per pertinent to passing each quest.

Don't fall into the trap of trying to put every possible idea or gameplay element you can think of, or others have suggested, into your game. Likely, you'll never finish it. And if you do, you'll probably find the end result lackluster and unfocused.

Perhaps, try picking one(or two) particular elements you like *least* about Zelda or the action adventure genre and try to improve that. For example, maybe swords, shields, boomerangs, and arrows aren't your thing. Try replacing combat with say a magic system or maybe guns, or whips, or nunchucks? Maybe you feel that character movement is a bit limited. What if your player could jump, duck, swim, strafe left/right, do back flips, kick, etc? How would that affect combat, or advance room puzzles or reach treasures, etc?

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Original post by sunandshadow Quote: Original post by GarmGarf Quote: Original post by sunandshadow no stupid heart pieces hidden where you would never find them without a walkthrough. I found all heart pieces in the re-release of A Link to the Past on the Game Boy Advance (I completed it 100% I think) with no walkthroughs. :D But this probably only happened because I was lucky that I didn't miss a rare cave or something as I passed by. To sort out the semi-critical hard-to-find item problem, maybe some sort of diviner could be implemented into the game who points out individual places on the player's world map where these semi-critical things lie if the player pays enough credits (each payment only reveals the location of one, and the prices are too high to be used in early to mid game). Instead of payment for hints I would prefer a more linear world instead of one with big areas to roam around, and for each area a checklist that tells you % of the area discovered and % of treasure obtained, like in Vagrant Story. (In that game going back to earlier areas was easy once you had the teleportation spell, somewhat like warping in Twilight Princess.

Actually, this sort of already existed in The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past. I believe you could pay a gypsy or some old witch several rupees and she would give you a hint to the location of the next attainable heart piece. So if you acquired most of the heart pieces and only had one or a few remaining you could pay this npc to narrow in on the last missing piece(s). I think she was located by Lake Hyrule. It's been years since I've playd so I can't remember exactly.

Some good suggestions...

The game I'm planning to make definitely has different gameplay elements. I plan to focus more on making the action part more exciting and on a larger scale. Imagine if link had a larger sword and was doing sweeping damage attacks that knocked back 10 enemies in one blow, and you could do combo attacks utilizing different sword swinging moves and such.

Also I plan to have the player play as the "bad guy" instead of the "good guy" so you're sort of playing the role of a guy who basically fights his way through the "good" castle and takes it over and you can have minions who do your bidding and you can loot shops and attack townspeople, and basically be the anti-hero in a zelda-like sort of world.

There would still be puzzles and quests and such but they wouldn't be oriented towards saving princesses or the land or anything like that. =)