Category Archives: Individual Games

The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 5 – Indoor Play

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We’ve already seen numerous ways in which The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild distinguishes itself from its illustrious predecessors, but one of the more controversial changes for some was how it handled “dungeons”.

Rather than unfolding through a progression of discrete, large, self-contained dungeons that become more challenging as the game progresses, Breath of the Wild instead provides you with 120 shrines to discover and solve, with each taking just a few minutes at most to get through.

It’s a markedly different approach to classic Zelda — but it fits perfectly with the game’s non-linear, exploration-centric structure. Let’s take a closer look.

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The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 4 – Peace and Quiet

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I’m not an especially active or outdoorsy type… but I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere of being out in nature. You know, so long as it isn’t trying to bite, sting, cut, burn, poison crush or otherwise bring me to harm in one way or another.

Some of my fondest memories are from childhood, when I had the good fortune to be able to go camping with both my class at school and my Cub Scout pack. My most longstanding, happiest recollections of those trips do not involve the many activities we participated in — but rather simple things, such as gradually drifting off to sleep to the soothing sound of rain on canvas (occasionally punctuated by class clown Christopher Smith farting) or feeling a quiet sense of awe at the almost complete silence around us, save for the leaves on the forest’s trees rustling in the wind.

Breath of the Wild is making me extremely nostalgic for all this sort of thing. And, best of all, I don’t have to go out in the blazing hot British summer sunshine and/or torrential British rain to enjoy it.

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The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 3 – I Wonder What’s Over There

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“I wonder what’s over there” has been an aspect of game design that creators of open world games have been grappling with for some time now.

Ideally, when playing an open world game, the player should be able to find a definitive answer to “I wonder what’s over there” simply by… well, going there. “You see those mountains in the distance? You can actually go there” and all that.

Not every open world game gets this quite right, but Breath of the Wild presents an excellent example of how to do it very well indeed.

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The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 2 – Toys of the Trade

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One key way in which Breath of the Wild differs from its predecessors in the Legend of Zelda series is in how it handles protagonist Link’s core abilities.

In past Zelda games, Link would typically (though not always) gradually acquire a selection of useful items over the course of his adventure, and in most cases these would correspond to the challenges in the dungeon or situation in which he found them.

In Breath of the Wild, meanwhile, you get given all of your abilities almost from the very beginning of your adventure, and then it’s up to you to spend the rest of the game figuring out all the different ways in which you can use them.

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The Zelda Diaries

The Zelda Diaries: Part 1 – A New Beginning

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I’ve had The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sitting on my backlog for a long time now, and I’ve been trying to work out the best way to cover it, because I knew that I definitely wanted to cover it in one form or another.

Was a Cover Game feature right for it? Perhaps, but with one or two exceptions, I tend to prefer to reserve the Cover Game slot for games that don’t get much attention from the mainstream press. And Breath of the Wild has certainly had plenty of mainstream attention.

The other consideration was that Breath of the Wild is a massive game, so doing something a bit more… “long term” was perhaps in order. With that in mind, then, I welcome you to the first installment of The Zelda Diaries, chronicling my journey through this ruined Hyrule, and the thoughts that occurred to me along the way.

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Features, Visual Novel Maker

Visual Novel Maker: How to Look Fontastic

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Last time in our exploration of Degica’s Visual Novel Maker, we looked at how you can create your own custom characters to form the cast for your next masterpiece.
Today we’re going to look at something a little more mundane but just as important to the overall experience of your game: the user interface. Specifically, we’re going to take a look at some ways in which you can customise the way it looks and feels.

This is one of those steps you can quite easily skip when putting something together in a package like Visual Novel Maker, but using something other than the default UI not only helps your game look more polished, it gives you a greater feeling of ownership over the whole experience — so do consider taking a few of these steps on your next project!

Note: This post has been updated with some helpful advice from Archeia, a member of the VNMaker team. Please give it another read even if you’ve already looked it over!

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Features, Visual Novel Maker

Visual Novel Maker: The Breath of Life

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Last time, we looked at how to get up and running with Visual Novel Maker as soon as possible using its built-in assets and template project.

Today we’re going to take a look at how you can use your own assets to create something unique to you! Because built-in assets are all well and good — and Visual Novel Maker certainly has some lovely default artwork and character designs — but if you’re serious about getting creative, you’ll want to take control of as much about your work as possible.

That means, among other things, creating your own characters with which to tell your story. So let’s take a look at that today!

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Features, Visual Novel Maker

Visual Novel Maker: First Steps

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Now that we’ve had a whistle-stop tour of Visual Novel Maker’s main features, it’s time to delve into how it all works.

Today we’ll be taking a look at how you can get started with the application using its built-in resources. In subsequent articles we’ll look at importing custom resources and creating new characters, but for today we’ll primarily be focusing on the core functions of the program, getting a playable game up and running as soon as possible.

Let’s dive right in, then!

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Features, Visual Novel Maker

Visual Novel Maker: First Look

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Over the course of several upcoming articles, we’re going to be taking an in-depth look at Degica’s Visual Novel Maker, a new addition to the lineup of game creation software available for home computers.

At the time of writing, the software isn’t yet on sale and I’ve only just started spending some time with it, but I wanted to take the opportunity to give a high-level overview of what the software is, what it’s capable of and what to expect from it. In the subsequent articles, we’ll take a more in-depth look at its various aspects and how to accomplish things with it.

For now, enjoy the tour, and get thinking of some ideas for your next bestseller!

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