Summary: In this section, you'll learn what the parts of the main ZQuest Interface are. The material here will be quite basic, as this is a newcomers' first true experience with the program. Keep this in mind: anything that you do not understand here will probably be covered later, and in greater depth. Do not worry if anything confuses you.
Key points
- The basic definition of the following terms: Combo, Screen, Quest, Toolkit, Map
Let's get started. First, I'll show an image of the basic interface, which is what most of the section will cover.
For those who played the Legend of Zelda, the game that Zelda Classic and ZQuest were based on, you'll
recognize this screen as where you started the game.
The center part of the interface is the current screen you're looking at. It is composed of something called combos. Combos are the building blocks of a screen. They contain information such as the graphic, whether Link can walk on it or not, and much more. So, you could create two combos which have the same graphic, but with one being a wall and one not, to make a secret path. Starting to get an idea of the power of ZQuest?
To select different combos, you use the what I will call the combo palette at the right. Just click on the one you want to select, and start placing it on the screen!
How do you know which combo is selected? There are two places to look. The upper right hand corner shows only the currently selected combo, but you can also look at the blue box at the bottom (it says example_ in bright letters).
This blue box is extremely important. I will call it the interface toolkit, or just the toolkit for short.This toolkit has 7 pages, though several are used very rarely. Let's just look at the first page now, the one shown on the image above.
The text after File: tells what the name of the quest you are currently working on is. A quest is the ZQuest term for the complete game: music, graphics, areas, etc. Keep in mind it only shows the first 8 characters: though it says example_, the full filename is actually example_1st.qst.
The text below Combo Type: tells the type of the currently selected combo. The combo that is selected in the shot is a basic ground combo and has no special property. Thus, its combo type is -, or nothing.
The two tan boxes to the right show the currently selected combo. In actuality, these two boxes show two different things. We can't see what it is with this combo selected. If I select the small tree from the combo palette...
You notice that the left box turned pink! What does this mean? It means that the combo cannot be walked on. Let's review that: The box on the left shows pink where the combo cannot be walked on; the box on the right just shows the graphic. Both show the currently selected combo.
If you didn't understand, that's quite alright, because we will go over that in more intense detail later. Let's move on, as the rest of the gizmos in the toolkit that we can see will probably go over your head...
Let's move down to the bottom left. Here, you see two numbers preceded by M: and S:, as well as a bunch of colors! All I will explain is the meaning of the M: and the S:. The M: means the Map number. So this is Map 1? Yes, of course! The S: means Screen number. A Map is composed of 136 screens, at the maximum. In reality, the way the screens are numbered is slightly more complex then just 1-136, so we'll end the topic here and continue.
The last thing on the main interface that we will look at is the menus at the top. We have 6: File, Quest, Edit, Tools, Data, and Etc. Each one contains a lot of options that give you more control over your Quest. As we learn new things about ZQuest, we'll go over what each option does.
We'll end this section with one tip. Do you know what a MIDI file is? If not, don't worry, because you will learn soon enough. If you do, do you have any you like to listen to? You probably do, so follow these directions:
1. First, go to the Etc. menu, and click on Play MIDI.
2. A window that displays directories and files in your computer will come up. Look around for that MIDI you want to listen to. To change drives, use the box at the right. To go up a directory, use the ..\.
3. Double click on the MIDI file. Surprise surprise, you can now work in ZQuest with your favorite music playing!
Forward to Section 2: Drawing on the Screen
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