The good news is that Josh continues to create impressive graphics for this game. A few days ago I finally completed my official list of what each monster in the game will "become" graphically, which is now in Josh's hands. For example, all the soldiers that chased you around are now moblins that rome the land, reminiscent of Zelda 1. Almost every monster gets a new role, based on its actions and animations. Just like ZeldaC, there are many creative ways to invent "new" monsters. Josh regularly sends new creations, along with his own ideas, which are often the same caliber as my own. It's been very assuring to see progress made on Zelda3C even when I can't work on it myself!

My next goal, as it was the last time I posted, is to create the tiles which will hold the new pine tree graphics. The leafy trees are finished (see below if you haven't) but the pine trees exist only in the ROM's stored graphics. I have a full-page printout of the finished pine trees, as seen in Photoshop, displayed right over my desk to remind me of their importance. :) Once they're done, I can fill Harmony Forest with both trees at once.

Thank you for never giving up on me!

The graphics for everything I've been creating lately are completed! Every tile of every house and every tree. As far as arranging new tiles into blocks and placing them in the overworld, I only have the "leafy tree", so far. The pine tree won't take very long, as it's just one structure that gets repeated and only overlaps with other pine trees. The log cabins and stone merchant houses will take longer, as I'm custom-creating them for each instance where they appear. Still, compared to all the work I poured into Calatia Castle, this will be an easy project. None of this is spoilers, so I will reveal screenshots as I progress.

Here are the new "leafy" trees. The "burning houses" are just placeholders for the upcoming "real" houses!

Link just torched that house! No, hahah, that's just what the house looks like when its graphics are replaced by the new pine tree graphics. Don't try to study it, you'll never imagine the pine tree's appearance this way. The house graphics are overwritten because, previously, houses could appear anywhere in the game. Now pine trees will appear everywhere (green ones, not red ones) and houses will only be possible in town settings. Next time you see this screenshot, there will be an actual house here.

Here are the leafy trees grouped together in clusters. See why I refer to them as "leafy"?

More layering of trees. Note that I removed the well's hanging basket. Link was appearing in front of the basket as he jumped in the well; it looked strange and I needed the tiles elsewhere, so I took it down.

The "mini trees" of Zelda 3 have been replaced by large mushrooms. Maybe Calatia borders not just Hyrule, but Mario's Mushroom Kingdom as well..? (I had to make that joke before someone else did.)

Now, nobody write me about how strange the "burning houses" look. More to come!! In the meantime, I have the joy of stating that Zelda3C is being worked on even when I'm busy doing other things. My friend Josh has been emailing me lots of new monster graphics, and they're even better than what I would've come up with on my own. Some of them are so good that I'm afraid posting them might tempt some rival Zelda 3 hacker somewhere into stealing them. Still, I have to list some of them here for you to ponder...

Armos - Sleeps until you approach, and then attacks you; looks like a SNES version of the Zelda 1 monster.
Bots - A certain monster now looks like a SNES version of the Zelda 2 blue slimes.
Zols - A certain monster now looks like a SNES version of the Zelda 1 slimes.
Deelers - A certain monster now looks like a SNES version of the Zelda 2 forest spiders.
Iron Knuckles - The stalfos knight which collapses when you hit it is now a collapsing Iron Knuckle (aka Darknut).
Moblins - The soldiers of Zelda 3 are now classic moblins. (Zelda 1, Zelda 2's manual art, the cartoon series.)
Peahats - A certain monster *might* become a SNES version of a peahat. (Those flying flowers of Zelda 1.)
Stalfos - The skeletal monsters that dodge your sword and throw bones look much more intimidating.
Wizzrobes - The cloaked, robed wizard style of Zelda 1 & Zelda 2 has returned in Zelda3C.

These are the monsters which actually have new graphics, though we have a list of many other monsters and what their new forms will be. Josh has been working on other graphics as well, such as character sprites, shields, and of course, the leafy tree you've just seen. It's great to have a talented artist sending you something new almost every day! :)

Ever since I finished working on Calatia Castle, I've been focused on common areas and town areas. Because of the way Zelda 3 stores graphics, I found myself working on trees and houses at the same time. The standard house in Zelda 3 can appear anywhere in the overworld, even if you're not in town. Because I want normal trees and pine trees to appear everywhere, pine trees have taken the standard house's place. Now houses can only appear in town settings, but it's an acceptable limitation since I've increased the number of areas which support town graphics. To get special properties for rooftops that allow you to jump down and/or use the hookshot, however, certain pieces had to be stored along with the trees. These tiles aren't used for anything else in the game, so I have the freedom to set their properties without causing side effects in other areas.

This project has taken a month of my time because I've worked on four structures simultaneously:

The first structure is what I call the "leafy" tree, which is the same size as Zelda 3 trees but has lots and lots of well-defined leaves. If the tree's trunk were removed, in fact, it would look like a very large bush. I can reuse all the tree blocks of the original game for this, but they must be modified because certain tiles are repeated in clever, hard-to-notice ways so that the graphics would be able to compress.

The second structure is the pine tree, which matches the height but only half the width of the leafy tree. Like the leafy tree, it can be layered across other trees of its own type to create "forest walls", but unlike the leafy tree, you can walk behind most of it. The pine tree emphasizes the mountainous, cold climate of Calatia, and it looks very real, with very few branches flipping across the axis. The graphics, as mentioned before, are taken from Mystic Ark, and I'm still debating whether the tree looks too messy or if the randomness only adds to the realism. I'll let you decide when I finally post screenshots.

The third structure is the log cabin. Its slanted roof faces the player, so that as Link walks north or south on it, he walks slower as if he were on stairs. There are raised portions of the roof which the hookshot can grab to pull Link to the next house. It's possible to jump down from the east, west, or south sides. The top of the roof (the arch) acts as a horizontal wall, as there's no way to represent Link walking on the side the player can't see.

The fourth and final structure is the stone house, which looks like many rocks are cemented into walls. I used 12 different tiles very carefully to make each stone have a unique shape, so it doesn't look like an obvious pattern being repeated. While the log cabin is normally used as a residence, the stone house is meant to be used by shops and public establishments. Above the door is a shop's sign, and above that is an arched rooftop which faces east and west -- a 90 degree turn from the way the cabin's rooftop faces. I went to great lengths to also allow Link to walk on store rooftops; he moves diagonal north as he ascends to the top middle of the roof. Again, there are hookshot points as well as edges to jump down from.

It would require a long, complicated explanation to address how intertwined these four structures are. They've been juggling and sharing tiles amongst themselves in different ways, as I slowly brought everything into balance so that there would be enough to represent and control everything properly. Examples include using pieces of leafy tree shadow for part of the pine tree's shadow, and borrowing tiles from one house to make the other house possible. The Vaati is in the details, after all... I had to be very careful because these tiles are needed for areas I haven't even started working on yet, including Harmony Forest and a dungeon which won't be visited until halfway through the game.

Now that all the new tiles are decided, and each tile matched to an existing tile in the game, the hard work is over. Where I left off last week was creating the actual graphics for each tile to use. They're turning out much better than certain castle graphics I've drawn, which incidentally, I've received many emails to remind me to improve them. I take graphics from other games whenever possible, because my own art isn't usually as good, and because it's faster. Harvest Moon, Final Fantasy 3 (aka 6), and some real-life photos of mountain lodges have been really helpful.

After I finish the graphics, I need to arrange the new tiles into actual blocks that will appear in the game (excluding those leafy trees). This means I'm tearing down the original houses and building new ones from the ground up, while also building pine trees. I considered myself finished with the town of Meridia, but now that I've actually challenged the house concept and designed better houses, a great deal of the town must be revamped. The mountain walls, paths, and rivers can stay as they are, but I hope my villagers will forgive me for changing their property lines... I just need to slide some houses around to allow more hookshot crossings.

So, all the hard planning and thinking is over; no more constantly erasing parts of drawings and filling out spreadsheets. It's just a matter of labor to enter these great new things into the game. I know what burning question is raised by this diary entry: Where are the tree & house screenshots? I could post the trees, at this point, but they would be shown in a copy of Zelda 3 (a test ROM), not Zelda3C. I would rather wait just a little bit longer and post new pictures of town, showing both trees and both houses, all at once. I have two more hours until I have to leave for work; time to draw more graphics!

There are TWO kinds of trees in Zelda3C. The first is a large, snow-covered pine tree, taller than a house and drawn to look very realistic. The graphics are taken from Mystic Ark, although I've never seen the trees used in this RPG. My copy isn't translated, so I couldn't figure out how to exit the building where you start the game! The other tree is a large, very leafy tree which replaces the Zelda 3 tree. This tree is submitted by Josh Noullet, who has also created other graphics for this game. Both the pine tree and the leafy tree can be used in joined groups (clusters), serving as walls as well as scenery. Pine trees can be the major tree type in some areas, while the leafy tree can dominate elsewhere. The important thing is that both trees can appear at the same time, mixed together, anywhere in Calatia.

I kept putting off this diary entry because I wanted to provide screenshots of these new trees. But even now, the trees aren't yet perfect. The colors are finally great, though I spent a long time playing with palettes. The tiles used to overlap trees across mountain edges aren't finished yet, but they won't take long to create. My problem is that both trees look TOO good. Their graphics don't compress well enough to fit into the game. I resolved the pine tree graphics by choosing certain tiles to mirror on the tree's other half, thereby leaving unused tiles blank. The leafy tree, however, still takes up too much space. Hopefully I can simplify some of its leaf patterns and still have a good looking tree...

My next goal is to finalize the usage of all the common tiles. Some of them are reserved for trees, others will remain for houses, and more may stay blank to allow graphics compression. It's a depressing waste of tiles to leave them blank, especially since I can change their types (wall, path, etc.) freely. Once this is sorted out, I will construct new houses, improve the town, and plant pine trees in place of certain current trees. For example, the farm will be surrounded in thick pine trees, yet it will include leafy stand-alone trees to dash into for oranges. When all this work is finished, I'll reveal how it all turns out.

Part of the reason I haven't been very active lately is that indoor creation has been put on hold again. A while ago, a friend created a great ASM hack which handles an indoor story situation. But, the code is incomplete, as it prevents Link from ever getting back outside. He says he'll finish the code soon, but until he does, I'm hesitant to work on this part of the indoors. I will probably work on a different dungeon instead, soon, but you know how it is when you have a certain area you're focused on? Plus, I'm not sure if specific rooms will be required for this special hack, so I'm afraid to use any for other purposes, so far. I won't let this delay me for much longer, though...

The other night, again while not at home, I realized there are four different categories of Zelda3C hacking that I need help with. Some of these things aren't urgent, such as graphics editing and music transposition. Others involve changing data in locations I haven't yet found, or even writing ASM code to change specific ways the game works. Since overworld design is so dependent on whether these things are changed, I have finally created request pages elsewhere on this site. See the main page, after Screenshots, for the four links. These pages are new and somewhat incomplete, but I plan to add more requests as they come up. If you want to help with the creation of Zelda3C, please take a look!

Well, I still have some time left, so I'm going to transfer my notes out of my pocket notebook and into their specific files for the game. Time to pull out the scissors and tape and attach map segments to various dungeon files! The long quest continues...