Okay, more good news, how about that?

First off: I beat Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess! I cruised over to a friend's today just so he could help me conquer the final two dungeons and bosses, and t'was a splendid night. Sure, maybe a lot of you have beaten it… but it means a LOT when I beat a game. Games can rarely hold my attention for an hour, if I'm not making them. The last game I beat was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and before that Cave Story. All those games captured my heart in some way or another, so that's why I stuck through to the end. To end that, I can truly say that I don't want to see another Zelda game for at least another 4 years. The dumb sword and the whole princess deal, no matter how much you twist it, just gets tiresome after awhile. I was thinking that we could have LOZ: High School. Evil Ganondorf, age 18 (a senior bully) smashed the Triforce into a zillion pieces all over, and you have to get the Master Broom to sweep all 500 of them up. You could climb the jungle gym, go on the roof, and even brave the janitor's closet. It'd be hit, I'm sure of it.

My girlfriend just got back from a Jazz tour she just finished, and she bought me a gift. She gave me a book of selected poems by John Donne. Either she's finally accepted that I'm a real geek, or she's trying to drop by a subtle hint. Just kidding, it just turns out that Donne is my favorite poet of all time, and she decided to pick it up when she saw it in Chapters. He has some real wicked verses, and the manner in which he can communicate such obscene and/or paradoxical ideas is really cool. That's all I'll say about that though, because you guys all just wanna see the interesting stuff, right?

ISOMETRIC PLATFORMING

Hookshot Across Gaps

I'd implemented jumping, and as you progress you can get higher jumping ability… but it just didn't make me feel inside the environment, as pixely as it is. Thus, I implemented something I've liked ever since Lufia and A Link to the Past; the hookshot. As you can see from that shot up there, it can shoot across (5 grid panels to be exact) a gap and latch on to a ringed post. At this point, the chain pulls the guy to where it latched, and once you arrive, it lets go. I love the possibilities this opens up for me. Of course hookshots have been accomplished before… but tell me an isometric game that had a hookshot before, huh? I could be the very first, which is a neat feeling; also, upon receiving this baby, a player will have to look over what they've passed, because the hookshot can also latch to trees, poles, and other 'latchable' objects; on top of that, they'll also have to navigate themselves to a level equal to the object they want to hookshot to, exploiting their isometric platforming ability even more.

Rocky Tiles

Also in the shot above, you'll notice some new terrain… yup! It took awhile to nap the shape and dips to the outer walls, allowing it to drop down to allow the player practical vision when he is near the bottom-right most parts of the room. They walls kinda come to an abrupt stop when they open up for the door, but I'll soon add a drop-down so they meet the ground, because I think it looks like crap too.

And that's not all!

GUI Display & Inventory

This took long, but it worked out nice. First off, you'll notice a few gaps in it. The gap at the bottom-left is for the name and description of the selected item. I haven't added that yet, so that's why it looks so strange. This whole thing works nice. First off, the treasure and equipment just display what items you've found and how much money you've picked up. The inventory on the left shows you what you have in your item bag, which can house 9 items. When you click an item, if it is a consumable item, you will get to choose which character to use it on, or to discard it (a trash can appears at the top-left when doing this). Just to make life a little easier for some, I also made it so that when you select to use a healing item, the character-curser will automatically start on the character with the lowest HP (same for MP with magic items). Obviously, 9 items doesn't seem like much… but it is at first, and when it becomes too few as you progress through the game, I'm sure something will pop up… Anyhow, unlike most of my GUI displays this one isn't quite as animated. The only thing that really animates (other than the blur-in of the whole thing when opened) is the items. When you select them, they 'bounce' back and forth, it's kinda neat.

Monsters and Bosses

No, if you were going to ask, I don't sleep very much. Yes, I've ALSO pixelled all the boss fights in the game, which at this point is at least 12! It took awhile, but it sure is cool to see them all finished. So you can expect lots of boss-ness, which (if you know me well) I LOVE to see in games. I've only done 1 enemy so far, but there'll be more (not a MYRIAD, but more) to come. Until then, time to work on the next toooooool.

I'll close with a bit of altered Donne…

Dull sublunary gamers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it.

Bai-bai everyone,

ChevyRay