Summary: This section features explanations on putting enemies and items into the game. Lots of additional tips and descriptions are given too, such as things to keep in mind when designing adjacent screens.
Key points
- How to place enemies
- The concept of aligning walkable tiles on the edges of two adjacent screens
- Making items appear in a cave
- Making items appear when all the enemies are killed
- The basic definition of a flag
Enemies and items... two of the most important components of a good Zelda game. And now we're going to learn how to use them. Great!
First of all, start up ZQuest and begin with a new quest. If you don't get that blue screen, follow the directions at the beginning of Section 2 until you do.
Then, flood the screen with the ground combo. Remember? Ctrl + Click does the trick!
Now, draw trees along the borders of the screen. Except for the eastern one. Here's what I did.
This is the screen where Link will start. Our plan is that when Link walks onto the screen to the right, he will find a staircase with a sword inside. But, both screens will have lots of enemies. Until Link gets to the staircase, he will have to cleverly dodge them. Simple, eh?
Let's begin by placing some enemies on this screen. Go to Data -> Enemies to do so.
Hmmm, I'd say this looks sort of empty. Well, we'll have to fix that up! Double click on the first (none) to be brought to a list of enemies that can be used in ZQuest.
It's a rather large list, isn't it? Well, getting to know all of them would take quite a while. Instead, I'll make suggestions as to what you use as you go. For example, I recommend using 3-5 red octoroks in this screen. Either speed will do.
Now, it might seem like you have to select each one individually, one at a time. But, as you probably expected, ZQuest saves the day! As soon as you set the first enemy to a red octorok (look under O), press C.
Odd, two little arrows appear next to that entry. Well, not so odd if you remember what C means. That's right, copy! Now you can just select each (none) and press V. Do this until you have about 4 octoroks in the list.
Since you were probably wondering, the arrows mean that entry is the one that will be copied.
Well, that's about all we'll do to this screen. The next screen will have a staircase leading down to a guy who will give you a sword. And that'll be it, but hey: we weren't looking to make something elaborate, were we?
To change screens, use the arrow keys. Press right to return to that blank blue screen, meaning that the screen doesn't exist yet. Time to introduce it to the world of existence!
Begin by placing trees along the edges except for the west edge.
Pop quiz! What is wrong with the following image, supposing it were the screen you would make? Think about the previous screen...
And the answer? The walls (or trees) on the west side don't correctly align with the first screen. Understand? No? Let me show you an image placing the two screens side by side.
Here, the red line shows the edge of the two screens. Suppose Link walked from the first screen to the second screen through the blue arrows. What would happen? He would get stuck on the trees. This is a key point when designing two adjacent screens (and you'll be doing that just about all the time). Make sure the walkable and unwalkable tiles match right! Otherwise the player can get stuck on a wall.
Before we proceed, let's make sure we've fixed this. Draw the following screen, making sure that you've aligned the trees properly.
Some of you may have thought of an alternate answer to that quiz question: the fact that there is no staircase like we said we would put! Let's place that now. There are two staircases in the combo palette; use the one on the top right part, then place it somewhere.
OK, now we have to set it up! First, follow the four step process from Section 3 to create the basic cave that will be under the stairs. Make sure you make an appropriate string, like "Have a sword Link!" Also, in this case, the exit point doesn't matter as much since this isn't a cave. Just place it anywhere near the staircase.
But of course, as you may have guessed, we aren't actually done with it. We still have to put an item in the cave, so we'll have to complete a few more steps. First, go to Data -> Room Type.
What these Room Types are are types of caves you can have. You could have one with a shop, one with a special item... all kinds of rooms! The one we want is special item. So select that one.
But we still haven't set the Special Item! How do we do this? Well, go to Data again, and notice that a new option has appeared! The right one shows what it was before if you hadn't noticed.
If you want to know what Catch All means in the right image, I don't have the answer...
Anyways, after going to Data -> Sp.Item, you'll be brought to a list of items that you can place in Zelda Classic. We want to give the player means of killing the enemies here. How about the most basic weaponry in Zelda: a sword? The level 1 sword in Zelda Classic is the wooden sword, which you can see right away on the list. Select it and click OK.
And that's it for that staircase. Now, how about we add some enemies to this room too? This time, we can use a cool effect that makes it look like enemies are coming from the edge of the screen. In this case, they'll look like they're coming from the other screen. So, therefore, we should probably use the same enemies we did in the first screen, right? Well, ZQuest can copy enemies to another screen too!
First, go to the first screen you created, and press the C button on the keyboard. Then, go to the second one, and go to Data -> Enemies.
By the way, have you ever considered using hotkeys? Pressing the E button is a very easy way to get to Data -> Enemies.
Now, in the dialog, you'll notice something... a Paste Enemies button! This takes the enemies of whatever screen you last copied and puts them in the current one. Just what we wanted! Click that button!
We still have to make the enemies appear from the sides though. This is pretty simple. Click on Pattern, then "enter from sides".
Well, we've finished this second screen! But, let's add one last little thing. It'll teach several important concepts too. Go back to the first screen. We're going to make it so that an item appears when all the enemies are killed.
First, we have to place the item. This involves two things to do. First, we have to make it so that ZQuest knows what item we want to put on the screen. Second, ZQuest needs to know where to put it.
First, let's tell it what we want on this screen. Go to Data -> Item to be brought to the list of items again.
Hmmm, what to choose... what to choose... I know! What about a Heart Container? Sure, it's a bit easy to get, but this isn't a complete game that's supposed to be playable to the end or something, is it? It's just two screens! Scroll down to 'H' and find Heart Container, then select it. Note what appears at the top left.
Well, as the mouse is pointing at in the right image, it seems that ZQuest wants us to tell us where to put the item! I say that like it's difficult, but of course it isn't. Press PageDown to get to the second page of the toolkit. This time, we'll be using this icon:
Like you do with the 
, just click on the icon in the toolkit and place it where you want it.
One last thing that needs to be done. Remember, we want to make the Heart Container appear only when the enemies have been killed. To do this, we need to set what is called a Screen Flag. What's a flag? It's a variable that can either be true or false. Basically, there are several parameters on a screen which you can set to true or false. We'll be setting one to true in just a moment!
First, go to Data -> Screen Flags. The second option will read "Enemies -> Item". That's supposed to mean that when the enemies are killed, the item appears. Select it and click OK.
Wow, you're done! Pretty neat, eh? But are you sure you did everything right? The next section will tell you how to test your quest, to make sure it all works the way you want it. Stay tuned!