Have a great weekend everyone! Feel free to share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions about a hypothetical Zelda Dungeon Maker!

Here's an idea for the "place your doors anywhere" thing you said: when you have a room next to it, a (ghost) door will appear in the spot adjacent to where you placed the door in the previous room.

I didn't think it was possible but you've convinced me.

Another cool thing that would be implemented in this hypothetical game is that the editor gets to choose how many hearts or items (hookshot, bow, flippers, power glove, etc.) the player has before starting. Another thing is that there could be a series of dungeons like the worlds in Mario maker, and the items you get in a dungeon carry over to the next

A game I think could be looked at is Four Swords Adventures. That game's multi-player mechanics and the way that its puzzles are crafted in a 2D space legitimately amazed me. As for styles, I would love to have bosses from the Original Zelda reimagined like Super Mario Maker did with its enemies.

First off, MAD props to the visual stuff put in this video, it's all really clean. As a thing I'd love to see added to a Zelda Dungeon maker, I'd take the way Wallmasters and boss keys were handled in Spirit Tracks. Making you carry the giant key across the dungeon, limiting your options while enemies will beeline for the key to bring it back to where you took it from is a very fun way to shake up the dungeon, and could make it two whole experiences in one.

If anyone is interested, there is a "Zelda maker" out there that has existed since the early 2000s, called Zelda Classic. It may not be the most user-friendly program to pick up, but once you learn what you can do the possibilities are nearly endless.

Here’s a thought: what if instead of making a Zelda Maker just a non-canon spin-off, you instead use it to explain *why* some of the dungeons exist in the Zelda series. You could play as Sheikah architects and mages constructing and testing dungeons designed to test future incarnations of Link. It would still probably be non-canon, but at least there would be a lore explanation for the game.

When doors are misaligned, the game could ask which room should take priority and auto-correct the door in the other room.

Fun fact: There are (sort of) two unoficial ones already. One, Zelda Classic, is a meticuloous remake the NES Zelda and Link to the Past with a level edditor that lets you make entire games more-or-less from scratch, and Solarus, which started out as a Link to the Past re-make and has since morphed into an entire ARPG game-engine. Classic in particular still has wholly new games being released for it.

The custom chamber maker of Portal 2 does exactly what you hypothesized for the "connecting puzzles" idea. However, the lines are visible to the player, too, so they'll already know "if I activate this switch, it will spawn this/open this", they just need to figure out HOW to do it.

This is actually super detailed and easy to understand! I would like many of the features you mentioned if a Zelda Maker were to be made, however I think there should still be a node based option similar to Game Builder Garage, for those that can understand it. Just make it an option in some "Advanced Settings" menu. And as for the styles they could choose, I've had many ideas in the past. The Original Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, Minish Cap/Four Swords and A Link Between Worlds. Heck, they could have do Link's Awakening Remake. Are you listening Nintendo?

I could imagine coding and logic being handled in a similar way to the Little Big Planet games,where dragging and dropping connections is simple and intuitive but also offers a few additional options in a submenu. LBP2 added more complex logic tools like AND/OR gates and counters which were done with some clever use and combination of simplier objects in the first game. A system like that would allow simple actions to be made quickly and easily but still leave the door open for more complex contraptions and puzzles for those who want to delve deeper.

Wow this is one of if not the highest effort video of yours and that's saying a lot. Also i thought a dungeon maker would be quite straightforward but you bring up good points regarding the challenges.

Loved that Xenoblade 3 part. Definitely caught me off guard, but the amount of times I heard that playing through the game- 😂

its just crazy how much work you put into these videos. like the fact that you coded your own level editor, and those amazing animations at 12:04. looks like a lot of work and clean animation for just a small visual detail, like wow big respect. no clue how you do it so consistently but keep it up man

Wizard101's Castle magic and certain objects you can place in your castles have a very intuitive interface. The pet crumbs that control pet behavior when you place them in a room are a pretty good example of how to tackle a Zelda Maker type of deal.

Absolutely loved this video. Pretty much all the ideas I’ve had for a Zelda Dungeon Maker were mentioned and expanded upon. The coding stuff and how it would fundamentally work as well had me really interested.

I remember trying to make my own Zelda on RPG Maker when I younger, with some ALTTP assets that were available at the time ! I’ve been hoping for an official Zelda Maker ever since. I just remembered a mobile game called Badland that provided a good editor to make your own levels. You could set triggers, change the background and foreground, ect… Stuff I wished Mario Maker had !

Mega man maker has a REALLY good design philosophy when it comes to conjoined rooms, basically theres a button on the edge of each screen that either separates or conjoins rooms, this could also be applied to zelda maker by making the rooms not created with a map menu (which would be kinda tedious) but allowed to instantly create rooms by placing tiles next to another room Levels can just simply be switched with a small menu

It'd have to be limited to the original Zelda style and LttP. The trick would be allowing simplicity and complexity on a sliding scale.

I've noticed a lot of the time, when Nintendo puts hints into their games, a lot of people choose to ignore them and complain about being stuck, like if a room had 2 blocks, the player tends to go somewhere else, and doesn't try to see if either block can be pushed. I've noticed similar things when Zelda tubers do lets plays of Zelda games.

One suggestion for accessibility vs versatility: beginner friendly prefabs, with the option to customize things further with advanced components. It might also be fun to have the connections and logic be done with the wires you showed, and some kind of logic gates, similar to Little Big Planet's editor. They could be represented on top of the map with a toggleable layer. It would be useful to show adjacent rooms while in the editor. You could grey them out and turn the cursor into 👁️ or ✏️ when the cursor is over the room to indicate quickly switching to that room. It would also solve the problem of door placement, as you would easily be able to see where the doors are in another room, maybe even have a transparent red overlay with ⚠️🚪 on the UI layer where there are doors that don't connect. Change the cursor to 🔧 when you hover over it, and when you select opens a small menu with something like 🪄 autofix 🛠️ manual 📤 move 🗑️ delete I enjoy UI design, even if I have a hard time with the tools available in most engines.

This is hands down the coolest Zelda idea I’ve ever heard

There’s a game on steam called „super dungeon maker“ and I think it perfectly shows how a dungeon maker should work.

"More locks than there are keys to open them" is actually potentially useful for good (if unforgiving) puzzles. There should be a reminder if you try to compile a level and there are fewer keys than there are locks or vice-versa. It should also be possible to have chests that are locked by keys, to have the Boss Key/Big Key required for certain doors or chests, or to have the Magic Key from the first game hidden somewhere in a dungeon.

Man I love the amount of detail as well as the fluid animations! Yet again an amazing video!

14:39 I have a couple of ideas: (Edit: Monster Maze went on to basically describe #1, just explained better) 1. Since it would be top-down anyway, maybe users could be given a tool to "wire" interactive elements together, and the editor UI would render those "wires" as lines, maybe aligned with the grid to improve readability. Even if elements can only interact if they're on the same floor, that wouldn't be an unfair restriction IMO to keep it simple and understandable. 2. Users could assign interactive elements to separate "channels," maybe indicated by numbers or memorable symbols from the series (sort of like Mario Maker's doors with the card suits, just player-assignable). Elements on the same "channel" would be able to interact. This is closer to how I see the system working "under the hood." Either way I can completely see the interactions being pre-programmed. For the 2D Zelda games they seem pretty clearly defined: switches (of all kinds), pressure plates, and enemies are intuitively "triggers" while barred doors, traps, chests, and valuables make more sense as "reactions." All players need to do is link them together as desired. Sure this would be a bit more complicated than Mario Maker, but not too much; it's still far simpler than some other popular creative games out there (cough redstone cough) and fans are still eager to learn their systems. Besides, I think the fans calling for a Zelda Dungeon Maker would have no problem with the slight bump in complexity. It's hard to be a Zelda fan without a love of puzzle solving! Alongside that, you still have good old fashioned locks and keys for those who don't want to mess with the systems described above. Enemies could carry items like in Mario Maker, including small/boss keys able to open their respective door types. In fact I'm pretty sure Mario Maker already had locks and keys, though only of one type.

I think Link's Awakening's dungeon building system proves something like this could work, but it would definitely need a lot of tweaking to make as creative and fun as Super Mario Maker. If, for example, the game only gave you options to create within a set dungeon layout, it would completely ruin the concept. It's like if Super Mario Maker gave you levels which you could only add enemies to. If Nintendo wanted a 'Zelda Dungeon Maker' to cultivate a vast community who makes different genres of levels like they do in Super Mario Maker, then the game would probably have to be more like a sandbox.

Your video is SO freakin Beautifully done!! I’ve never played it myself but there’s a game on steam called “Super Dungeon Maker” that seems to do a pretty good job of being the same kind of thing you’re talking about here. Maybe worth looking at!

Fantastic video. I've wanted Zelda Maker for a very long time. You did a great job summing up key design challenges, possible solutions, and the mouth-watering potential of the game being done right.

Bruh. In addition to making a well covered topic, your visuals are amazing as well. Demonstrates and emphasizes the importance of visuals for the hypothetical Maker-tool.

I have been waiting for this one Monster Maze my guy. This is a genius idea. I got my popcorn ready to watch this man.🍿

I've wanted a Zelda Dungeon Maker ever since Mario Maker dropped.

You have no right being this talented, you put in so much work and love in to your videos, trully someone to look up to.

I fell in love with the effort put in this video! Thanks alot

I’d love a Zelda dungeon maker. We have seen it work with Mariomaker, I’m sure they can make it work with Zelda. As all ways, I love the video.

Back in 2010 I played around with something called "Open Zelda" - it's rather obscure but it was pretty friggin cool for setting up your own dungeons in ALTTP style. It might still be worth checking out.

Fun video Maze! I loved seeing the development of this project on your life streams

Woah! That's actaully a really good idea! Very well thought out!

5:51 ONE OF US! :D Fantastic Video, as always tbh. Love how much effort you put into the videos. I really respect that :) I'd love if Nintendo somehow finds a way to do a working Zelda Maker. I'd like to imagine that a game like that sells well too.

Since the LoZ: LA Remake dungeon maker was introduced, i literally thought Nintendo was going to straight up start working on the idea. But whether they did and gave up on it or didn't bother at all we'll never know unless we are told off it. But i always figured their train off thought was "Man, Mario Maker is getting a really good reception, the fans love it! Should we do Zelda next?" Like you mentioned, a Zelda Maker could end up being extremely complex depending on how much freedom we are given and the reception of LA's dungeon maker told Nintendo "this was too simplistic for our tastes", but Nintendo are wizards when it comes to this things and Mario Maker proves that, so i know they can give us the perfect Zelda Maker with enough time.

This display and information you have presented is amazing. Keep up the great work. 👍 Thank you for your hard work and dedication.

Automatically subscribed, your videos are pure gold, amazing! ❤

Amazing video! You're absolutely the best Zelda content creator on KZfaq. The amount of insight and effort you put into each video is unreal. While I would prefer more 2D Zelda games by Nintendo than having a Zelda Dungeon Maker, it would be a great tool and fun game to have if we are mostly only getting 3D Zelda games now.

I really like how you've layed out the idea for a Zelda Dungeon maker concept. 10:18 What about a feature that automatically snaps the exits of two rooms together in the map editor, with the option to turn snapping on or off in the UI? That would let you do custom room designs, and if you have door snapping on it would automatically make sure that the rooms would connect properly. 11:58 Whit regards to puzzle Scenarios, what about an option which gives the dungeon creator the ability to give Link access to certain key items (Boomerang, Bombs, etc), at the start. This way, they can customize how complex they want each stage of the dungeon to be. How many, and which, key items for puzzle solving will the player have at the start? How many will they find in the dungeon? These are ideas that can really affect how complex the dungeon can be. Maybe, for an easy dungeon you only need one or two items, but for a really hard dungeon the player needs to find eight or nine key items throughout, leading them to zigzag across the structure as they open up locks and keys. Make it so they can get items 'out of order' and that can turn the dungeon into a macro level puzzle box beyond just the room sized challenges. ...Yes I do watch GMTK, can you tell?

I love the visual aids that you had mocked up for this video. Really really nice touch!

This sounds so good. All of these are amazing ideas

A simple "Onion Skin" feature would help with connecting rooms. Meaning other rooms and floors are represented as a transparent overlay that can be toggled on or off. Doors can then have a rooms assigned to them. Meaning their position is less important as room boarders don't have to align, just their doors. Think of it as the two way teleportor system in Halo. This would open up potential for door based puzzles and mazes.

Awesome visual explanations! Not sure if this was already mentioned in the comments, but there is a game out there called Super Dungeon Maker that is the closest thing to your concepts.

Nicely done!

That was a thing that I had in mind for a long time. Thanks for talking about that!

Have you seen Portal 2's level editor? It works similarly to what you are suggesting.

1. While I generally don't like reliance on HD remakes/remasters I'm fine with it if it's a major upgrade to the original like Links Awakening Remake but I would appreciate a remake for the Oracle Titles. Maybe with extra selling points like the cut content from back then brought it. 2. A "Zelda Maker" does sound enticing enough but for those who don't want to wait for Nintendo to bring one, which likely won't happen anytime soon, I would recommend googling for Zelda Classic. It's a nice 8 or 16 bit, whatever you prefer engine to create Zelda quests and already has a nice community working with it. It''s not as easily learned as Mario Maker for those who are interested in but it isn't that hard to learn either. You can quickly make a basic quest after some time. There is even a tutorial on yt by TeamUDF, though it's from a older much less friendly to learn version of it. Even I learned it and put out a (bad) quest but grew too ambitious to do my second quest but I generally have trouble motivating myself to finish things, even if I love them so no worries of it because it was complicated but you DO have to put a lot of work into preparations for grander quest with more than the standard tiles. 3. If you want to sample some of the higher tier Zelda games made with Zelda Classic, you could check out the channel of ElectrometerPrime . He did a couple of them. They show what can be possible with the engine but most of the videos are a couple of years old.

comprehensive! I like it! Well done.

What an awesome video! Great animations and ideas. Thanks man!

Never thought I'd meet someone else who'd played Time Splitters 2. I remember I once created an insane challenge room where you were given a 12-gauge and some ammo and you had to kill all the hybrids that constantly spawned. I never beat it. 😬

Holy cow, TimeSplitters 2!! That game was my jam back in the day! Also loved 3 (which had the same robust map maker) Like, nobody talked about those games anymore, so I’m so freaking delighted to see it mentioned here. Great video dude.

Hey I just want to point out the amazing work you did on the mockups, they are amazing, great work. +sub

Such a great idea, cheers!

Fantastic video! Very cool! :D

I know I say this about all your videos, but holy moley the hours you put in to make these stunning videos is just insane. I really hope it pays your bills and much more. I’m so glad you exist.

wow the work that went into this video. Amazing.

Neat video, lot of mockup work went into it looks like

Awesome video bro!

This was incredibly well made. 👏

Love your work

Nice video, connecting objects together visually is a good idea. I think it would be good if each object had multiple connection points (for different events) and there were a few simple logic objects that are invisible while playing the level, which you can link things with to make more complex puzzles (button order, timers, etc.)

Very good video :-) The general ideas you suggest are pretty straightforward, but that's their strength - and your mockups are great to display it more concretely ! Regarding the door alignment issue, you just need to separate "alignment" and "connection" : let the user explicitly link the door from the one room to a door in another room, no matter whether they are adjacent and aligned or not. Then there are two different situations to consider : - if using a sprite-based zelda style, no problem. In those, you can only see the current room, so you don't care about alignment with other rooms at all. (The transition animation from one room to the next can make them look "aligned" even if they aren't really aligned on the logical map) - if using a 3d style, then you can probably just have conditional display : if the destination door is adjacent and aligned, then do a smooth scrolling over the two rooms. Else, insert a screen fade to and from black. Then you no longer restrict creativity (people can move rooms freely without caring about strict alignment) while still allowing people to make a smooth setup if they do want to.

Quest Maker on Steam drops at the end of the month. The demo is available and its a genuine ALTTP Maker with Minish Cap elements.

I would make each single room be able to clip asymetrical on a grid (meaning the grid isn't made so that the general shape of the dungeon isn't as stiff as in Links Awakening.) And on the door-problem: When you place a door, it automatically creates another door on the respective opposing position in the next room. No manual connection. Being aware of where the room is on the grid is a better solution than having to be aware of the exact position of the door in the next room. Maybe you can even connect the door to the room (or not), and depending on this moving the room would also move the door with it (or not). But yeah, extremely good video :D Alway happy to come back to your channel and finding high quality content :D

To solve the door problem Have two semi separate building modes. Room builder and Dungeon builder (if you've ever wrote music in a DAW this will sound familiar). Once you've built a room you can drop it in the dungeon builder. Door placement is decided in the dungeon builder not the room builder. That way it's easy to line them up

It's fun to think about. I think you came up with some good ideas as to how it would all work. I no longer get my hopes up for anything involving Nintendo, but it would be super cool to have something like this.

I think the easiest way to solve your door conundrum is: when you make the room next to the one you made, have the entrance be locked in that position. That way, there is still creative freedom, but none of the door hazard issues.

this sounds like a super cool idea!

Been waiting for this

Great video, I love how you find a way to illustrate all your ideas, it makes the whole thing very intuitive and easy to follow. When it comes to triggers, I like your idea but I would already be happy with something way simpler. Take Mario Maker : when you place a door, a second one appears as well. In that "Zelda Dungeon Maker" you could just put a switch, which would automatically come with a chest. Put the switch on a wall, it becomes an eye-switch. Put the chest on an open door, it becomes a closed one. Hold on any of them for more option (frozen eye-switch, switch that needs something on to stay active, etc). I don't even think having multiple switches for one door would be necessary, Mario Maker community proved that you can simulate complex puzzles with crazy off-screen contraptions, and people are willing to make them. So you could have special hidden rooms in the dungeon with no entrance or exit, that would be used only as a way for the dungeon creator to do some off-screen shenanigans, witch on-off switches and bombs. My biggest reserve would still be how imaginative the younger audience can be, and how many stupid boss-rush levels we would get...

On the topic of correcting door misalignments, maybe it could be that when you place a door connecting two rooms, they automatically go to the right spot, and if you move a door in one room, the corresponding door will move in it’s room to match it.

As someone who grew up playing Timesplitters 2, I am so glad you mentioned it in this video! The level editor, especially for it's time, is absurdly creative, all while being simplistic and intuitive, working with the limitations of it's era. It definitely is a great example of a level creation tool, and one that could inform a "Zelda Maker" in the future.

I'm so happy you mentioned TS2!

This is such a good idea. I’d love to have this as a game

man didn't think I'd see a time splitters reference lol i freaking love the first 2. fun video though man always fun to watch or listen

The ability to make unique room configurations is too good to pass up. I think the room/dungeon grid should not be restrained to standard room sizes, but down to the unit of tiles. In this way, doors may not line up, but you would be able to observe that that is the case and make smaller changes to make them line up, as the dungeon creator him/herself. The rooms would fit together like a complex collection of Tetris bricks. Also, I can't believe you referenced TimeSplitters 2's MapMaker! I was one of the weirdos who made maps while my friends wondered why. I'm thrilled it made an appearance in your video. Overall, nice work! You spelled out so many important details about how the game function and user interface should be. You made it visually clear and enticing as well. I appreciate the balance of possibility and use-ability you described. That duality of those two concepts sits at the heart of all great design, in my opinion. I was swept away and immersed for the entire runtime. I didn't even expect to be on board for a Zelda dungeon maker. Now, I'm highly intrigued.

I made a project in unity where you can connect different objects together like doors and switches and logic gates. They all share a core value allowing this to be possible. All I gotta do now is make it to where the player can change this in game.

For the misaligned doors you can have it so you can only make a new room if there's an exit to that room "Door, pit, cracked wall, etc" and then have it set where the door is to match the other room. You could only place room travel doors on the map editor and when placing an exit is could zoom in to the room and show the neighboring rooms, or in the case of pits when placing one show the rooms below it with highlights to tell you where they lead. Then have it place the door/pit simultaneously between the rooms. If it's a door/cracked wall then have door only be able to be moved forward and backwards from it's chosen spot. Letting you change how far in the door goes in but the area behind the door where the path between rooms will be unplacable on the height matching it's other half so you don't get disconnected doors. So say you place a door on the left wall two tiles from the top on the raised half, the new room would immediately have a door already place on the right wall two tiles down also on the raised half. With pit's it's easier as you would just have then fall to the same corresponding tile on the lower floor while only letting you place the travel pit on tiles that have a spot on at least one of the lower floors. Also for the key problem you could have several key types "Small Key, Big Key, Colored Keys", doing so would allow you to make certain key types have less keys than doors making the player choose doors. For example you could have a hidden room with three Blue doors, one has a heart container, one with a fairy you can bottle, and the last with let's say a sword upgrade or something similar. But in the dungeon you only have two Blue Keys making the player choose which they will pass up. By having extra key types you can still use other key types for dungeon progression without the risk of soft locking it too easily. (Makers can always be bad and purposefully make it so you can soft lock yourself. For that reason I also suggest if Nintendo made this game to include on the pause screen how many of each key there is so you can easily tell if you soft locked yourself.)

Great video! Surprised you didn't mentioned Legend Maker at the end. They are basically trying to do exactly that, creating a "Mario Maker" for Zelda.

There's actually a game called "Super Dungeon Maker" released early this year that allows you to build your own Zelda-like dungeons. Haven't play it myself. But it looks similar to what you were talking about.

Dude is playing some straight banger music in the outro!

I think this is a super super cool concept and I feel like it could absolutely be done almost exactly how you put it. I think another way to get past how you brought up how if you wanted to make an eye switch for a door and a button to activate a chest is a separate item. For example, theres a separate item that's specifically for a door or specifically for chests. Take the same item, but its labeled as being specifically for a door. It could be the same item but its programmed to to different things and its labeled as such.

This is a dream if it comes to fruition. 😍 Thanks Monster Maze, you do your videos very well!👍 Now I want to play Mario Maker but it's passed 3am.. I just hope one of Nintendo's seeings this!

An idea for the door situation would be to leave the door placement on the layout editor. As for the "connecting actions to triggers", you can take Portal 2's approach of having visual connections in the map editor (while removing the connections in-game, to make it more mysterious)

There is a game called legend maker which is pretty good as a Zelda dungeons builder, but you can also build an overworld with it, you could even make an entire adventure. Its being worked on, but there is a patron where you can get early builds. I recommend it and every month new stuff is added.

I know this was primarily focusing on Zelda map makers. But this is surprisingly detailed and thought out, I'm gonna keep this stuff in mind for my game project...

Been wanting this for years

The first time I began to use Unreal Engine 4 some years ago, one of the things I learned about was doors, and I learnt how to connect a switch to a door, when I had multiple same doors, I could either use an eye dropped to pick a door with the same code or dropdown list and choose the door from the list. I use Unreal Engine 4's Blueprints.

Great video! This is a game idea I've always wanted to see, and the animations are great! Also, as for a level creator like the game logic one you mentioned, I seriously reccomend you check out Wargroove. It's an Advanced Wars inspired game made by Chucklefish, but it has a level creator accessible from the start that is *exactly what was used to create the main story!* It allows for a lot of cool things, and you can even make a full campaign with it!

I remember there being a "Zelda 1 map creator" back in the early 2000s, somewhere online. It was basically a flash thing. That one let you edit the map completely.

I found your video at random and I have to say, your proto-version of a zelda maker looks AWESOME!!!! Something to add @10:50: Why not both? Let people choose from an "easy" mode or an "advanced" mode. Easy mode would limit what you can do but assist you in different ways (for example: You can only add a room to the dungeon, when it has already has a door connected to the room. This way you would build your dungeon room by room). The advanced mode would allow you to place doors at random and it needs to be controlled if they're connected with each other. Anyhow, awesome video. I really hoped you created a demo-version to play with (something similar to mega-man maker).

As someone who's spent over 3000 hours playing Mario Maker across Wii U and Switch, I would absolutely love to see a Zelda Maker. Awesome video, and I think your little editor you made on your own was impressive.

I'd buy this game in a heartbeat.