A Zelda of our very own

Reading the most recent issue of EMG, which featured the newest Zelda release, it mentioned in the sidebar the web site www.zeldaclassic.com that supposedly let you make your own Zelda games. I had my doubts at first read, but after a visit and few downloads I realized it was a legitimately good program for creating Zelda games using the classic characters, features, and controls.

A while ago I found a NES programming language that was the real nuts-and-bolts of the games that required compiling, sprite-making, and everything. Way too complicated for what you get in the end, so I gave that dream up. With this program, called Zelda Classic (ZC), you pretty much have a drag-n-drop interface to make maps, add enemies, and hide special items…the works. A minimum overhead with maximum potential - not a bad deal at all.

It does have a slight learning curve, but after a little tutorial and about three hours, you’ll have a good grasp. While I sat trying to figure things out, my mind raced as to what I could do with my own Zelda game. I made a mini-quest to learn the ropes of ZC and then took to the notepad drawing and thinking out what I wanted.

While in mid-sketch, I realized that half of the Toast readers are from this Generation and this would be right up our alley. And when you combine many NES-heads together you’re bound to get a near-ultimate game that will please everyone.

So here’s my call out…anyone interested in being on a development team for our own Legend of Zelda game?

The ZC program has limited sharing abilities and isn’t truly designed for team development, but the hardest part of making any game (I would think) is simply getting the parts, maps, creating stories, and defining traits of the game down. So at first, this team would just waste time thinking up ideas, sharing, and brainstorming.

After we get good ideas down in some sort of coherent order, we then figure out how to split up programming. If you want to learn ZC to build the quests, that’s great, if you don’t feel like it, I can surely pick up any programming slack - although it isn’t that hard to learn. Either way, if we have a solid plan laid out the programming is not complicated.

This isn’t a deadline type of project, it is strictly as we each have time and might actually end up being the ultimate Zelda game that never gets made, but at least the idea was cool. But if/when the game gets done, we’ll pimp it here on the Toast and also on the official ZC site(s) so the world can download, play, and reply. Heck, I’d have no shame sending it to EGM to play for shits-n-giggles.

Anyway, I just have all these ideas floating around and with such an easy mode to make our own version of a favorite NES game, it seems too good to pass up and not at least see what happens when we try.

If you’re interested, drop a line to morningtoast@gmail.com (I promise I’ll check it this time), and then head over to www.zeldaclassic.com and download the Windows version 2.10 of the program. The tutorial on the ZC web site is helpful, but not the easiest to follow. I am planning on making my own short tutorial soon, so that might help too.

Who knows, it might catch own.