The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX

[Guillaume]

Hello there!

My name is Guillaume, I'm a French developer and Computer Science student. I'd like to share some info about a fangame I contribute to.

The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus started off as a game made on RPG Maker 2000 by Christopho from 2001 to 2002. It came out on April 26th, 2002, and has been downloaded almost 400,000 times solely on theofficial site (we have mirrors on other big websites but no precise count, unfortunately). The game is set to be a direct sequel to "A Link to the Past" on the SNES, using the same graphics and game mechanisms. However, due to the nature of RPG Maker, the game, while a completely playable Action RPG with 9 dungeons, was still heavily flawed in many aspects.

A spiritual sequel, Mercuri's Chest, was then scheduled, but we only made it to a first demo in 05- the project was abandoned shortly after.

Which leads us to April 2008, during which we announced the development of The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus DX (or ZSDX to be short). The game would be a remake of the original. The engine is written mainly in C++ (I can provide technical details if you wish, please let me know) to make up for the flaws of the original game, and is placed under the GPL.

We have a first demo that just came out that you can download here:

http://zelda-solarus.com/jeu-zsdx-demo&lang=en

You can also view a trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3e7t0QvImY

Even though all our games are originally French, we have made an effort to provide ZSDX in English (I am the one in charge of the English adaptation), Spanish, German and Dutch- with possibly other languages to come.

This is just the first demo, including the game up to the end of the first dungeon. We have no definite release date planned, but things are moving on pretty fast, and we expect a full release sometime in late 2010 or early 2011.

Concerning resources, we use the original AlttP sprites and music, and some additional ones made by our own graphist and composer.

As far as using protected ressources for our game, we are fully aware that the elements we use are not in the public domain and protected by copyright laws. Our only intention is to promote the Zelda franchise by dedicating our skills to it, and we do not make any form of profit. Should Nintendo contact us with any demands we would cooperate promptly, however this has never been the case in almost 8 years.

The team is made of over 15 people, most of us having been friends for several years, spread over the code, graphic design, translations, debug and testing, etc.

I'd really appreciate it if you tested out the demo and, if you enjoy it, maybe talk a bit on your blog or website if you have one. We're amateurs, and the biggest reward we can get is people speaking of us.

If you have any questions concerning the project, I'll be here to answer. I'm aware I only have 1 post on this forum so far, but my intention is not to solely promote our project, but also be there for the players and fans.
If there's anything that needs to be added to this topic, I'll gladly do it as well

Have fun!


English website

 

[Pocket Asian]

I just downloaded it. I like the story line of it, but the introduction was a little too long. Plus Link is a little slower, but I found out that if you hold the spin attack he walks faster.

 

[Guillaume]

I just downloaded it. I like the story line of it, but the introduction was a little too long. Plus Link is a little slower, but I found out that if you hold the spin attack he walks faster.

Thanks for the feedback!
It is true that Link is a bit slower than in AlttP. This is the kind of fine tuning we'll do for the final version if it impedes too much on the gameplay. As for the "holding spin attack" thing, it's either a bug, or a design decision I'm not aware of . If it's the former, we'll take care of it

As for the intro, well your savegame will be compatible with the final version, so hopefully you won't have to go through it again!

 

[Zephik]

Downloaded the game yesterday. I've been playing for about an hour total. The intro is a bit too long, although a "skip intro" option would fix this completely. Aside from that, pretty great game thus far.

I'm stuck in the first dungeon though, the one where you get the boomerang. I've gotten as far as [pictured below] and I get that I'm supposed to throw my boomerang and then move over to the side a bit so it hits the crystal, but I'm not sure what the significance of that is and so I don't know how to progress any further. Any help?

 

[TVTMaster]

That was a tough spot, too, but I figured it out. For one thing, first make sure that you have the ORANGE tiles down, and the blues up. You see the staircase on the north wall? Head up there and immediately to the right to the area with all the worm things and anti-fairies. Slaying all the wormy guys will open gates until you reach an area with a teeny tiny hole in the ground. Go down and you'll be dumped into a fairly simple maze. Walk up the orange tiles and around to the statue, which you pull to the left. Go back around and open the chest for rupees if you want. Here's the deal: while standing on the orange tiles, flip the switch with the boomerang to blue, and walk on the raised orange blocks not off into the main area, but back down the "tail" you came from. Going back down the maze, you'll see that the four blue blocks are lowered, allowing you to stroll through to the heart container.

This game is hard.

I mean, wow. This game is impressively polished, and the puzzles always had me scratching my head- from the long jump off the diagonal cliff to the bottle from the baker, it certainly lives up to LttP in more than one way. My main gripe, however, is that it's really a bit too much like LttP- the sprites and music are practically identical, so I suggest innovating a bit in terms of graphics. Just sprucing up some of the basic tile types (so long as nothing looks too garish- light outlines are your friend, as seems to have been ignored in a few cases. There's no doubt your graphist is talented, but he might want to check out C Spriting for a bit of help with the rare eyesores (as long as he can read English).
This guy's main spriting issues are a) a lack of shadows, b) confused anatomy, and most importantly c) those weird flipper arms, which kind of seem disconnected from the body in that the rest of the sprite ignores the shadows it would cast on the rest of the body, and the actual blue flipper things being just really awkwardly defined with their texture.
So yeah- original sprites can be noticeably poor sometimes, despite the majority of the game's visuals being sublimely used (although an original sprite for the soldier enemies would be nice, assuming Ganon's not dominating the Knights of Hyrule again). The other main issue is sound-- while LttP's classic tunes are always nice, from the demo I've seen the music starts to really grate, especially in the overworld where the epic theme plays in contrast to the generally more laid-back atmosphere. Some more upbeat original music would do nicely for forest areas and the town.

One more thing I'd like to praise the game for- a healthy respect for canon. Almost every Zelda-related fan project I've ever seen has had some blatant story impossibility or upending of Hyrule's mythos. Mystery of Solarus, though, takes LttP's plot and simply continues it (with the obvious exception of "Ganondorf didn't explode, he was sealed away again", which has always been a blurred line in the series.) The whole concept has some nice throwbacks to the other Zeldas (The Triforce split into eight, the King guarding the seal), and all in all it sounds like a very compelling adventure. The map, especially, is one of my favorites: while reducing the area of Hyrule covered, it keeps general geographic locations intact while building a complex and detailed 2D world to explore.
One question about the demo: is it basically over once you've finished the boomerang minidungeon, or is there something I'm missing?

Anyway, bravo on all fronts! I'll definitely be following this project for a while!

 

[Zephik]

That was a tough spot, too, but I figured it out. For one thing, first make sure that you have the ORANGE tiles down, and the blues up. You see the staircase on the north wall? Head up there and immediately to the right to the area with all the worm things and anti-fairies. Slaying all the wormy guys will open gates until you reach an area with a teeny tiny hole in the ground. Go down and you'll be dumped into a fairly simple maze. Walk up the orange tiles and around to the statue, which you pull to the left. Go back around and open the chest for rupees if you want. Here's the deal: while standing on the orange tiles, flip the switch with the boomerang to blue, and walk on the raised orange blocks not off into the main area, but back down the "tail" you came from. Going back down the maze, you'll see that the four blue blocks are lowered, allowing you to stroll through to the heart container.

Okay, I'm at the place in the screenshot I took above. The orange blocks are down, the blue blocks are up. Where do I go from here? I cannot for the life of me figure out where to go next.

 

[TVTMaster]

See the torches to the upper left in the screenshot? There's a door there. Go through and down the stairs, to the right and over the orange tiles. See the rows of alternating tiles? Use the boomerang repeatedly on the switch to cross, then head to the left of the switch to right below the two rows of four tiles- four blue, four orange. Hit the switch from the other side of the two oranges, then line up so that while the boomerang heads to the switch, you can run up and on to the row of blues. Time it well and you'll be across, and then you'll head up and around to the anti-fairy area. From there, the last post should cover it.

 

[Zephik]

Ah! It's always something so simple that gets me every time. Thanks!

Edit: Okay. So how do you hit the globe thing while remaining on top of the orange blocks? ><

 

[TVTMaster]

Eh, it's kind of tricky- you have to throw diagonally, which takes like ten times to work. Just try to get the boomerang controls down and it'll be a cinch.

 

[Zephik]

Ahh, got it. That was a bit tricky. So where do you go after you beat this place? Everywhere is blocked off.

That might be a nice feature to have, a map marker to tell you where you need to head next. Maybe have difficulty levels where you get the map marker on easy, but on medium and hard you don't. Hmm.

 

[Guillaume]

Thanks a lot for the feedback and compliments, guys. The team is really happy and motivated about all the reactions this demo has generated

As for the demo, no, it does not stop to the mini dungeon- there is another, full dungeon to explore

 

[TVTMaster]

...holy crap.

...Wow. I finally found the main dungeon- who knew that it'd automatically open once you got close enough! Anyway, it was amazing. I especially appreciate the way there's no blackout between rooms. However, perhaps areas that you're not in at the moment or haven't visited should be hidden from view by either darkness or some kind of roofing tile, like closed rooms in the Fire Emblem games. I noticed easy solutions to a couple of little puzzles by seeing what had to be done in a room I hadn't yet entered.

Either way, the dungeon was utterly fantastic. The miniboss was pretty intimidating for its difficulty (it is the first dungeon, I suppose), and the main boss was just incredible. I do think it could have been a bit harder- perhaps giving us fewer bomb flowers and having them regenerate slower, forcing us to make sure we're paying attention to the boss's attacks. As it stands, it was pretty easy to just scamper around tossing bombs.
The boss's main issue is that you could just keep bombing it until it died. By making bombs less plentiful or forcing you to wait out or destroy the mini-moths, it would add a bit of challenge without making it unmanageable.

Also, the block puzzle with the arrows? That was pure genius, and the classic "don't get it stuck in a corner" block puzzle mechanic was used to great effect here. It was definitely frustrating, but very, very rewarding.
(also, one possible idea- perhaps you could make holding C to grab make the block slide faster- it was a bit of a tedious puzzle, and although speeding up default speed would make the delicate actions rage-worthy, allowing for different block-pushing speeds would reduce frustration.)

 

[Bluelink6]

Defiently good, but, like other people have said, the intro drags on a bit. Using the Lttp graphics is working well, and even when I was just looking at screenshots I could have been fooled that that was lttp, if I hadn't known what it was actually a screenshot of.

 

[Flagpole]

I've just downloaded the demo, so I'll tell you my opinion soon (probably).

I don't have the opportunity to play ALTTP, as none of my friends ever play Zelda, and, even if they would, none of them have a NES (from what I know), and, by reading the posts (obviously not spoiling any solution to a puzzle), I know the game is kinda similar to ALTTP, so I'm very happy to have this great opportunity.

 

[link9]

I'll download it too, sounds like its pretty good