Any questions? :)

[jimby]

Yeah, loading times were a real pain. I suppose that's the reason the overworld had no music and each dungeon room had its own (often too long for the player to hear before moving on to the next one...).

Yep, precisely. All the music was composed by our talented in-house composer, Mark, who, believe it or not, also played Gaspra in the cut scenes.

Speaking of which... do the houses seen in this game exist somewhere? Or were they scale models?

All of the houses were constructed as scale models by our model-maker, Jason. The same goes for the interior sets in the cut scenes. The interior of Gaspra's observatory was actually about 18 inches across. There were some photoshop enhancements, but the props, characters, models, etc. were definitely "old school" simply because we didn't have time or budget to do it any other way and still get the quality we wanted.

Anyway, I heard once from somebody running a CD-i site that a sequel of this game was in the works, that footage of it was shown at a convention but that as with Mario's Wacky Worlds, the game had to be cancelled whenthe rights expired.
Is any of that true?

I don't believe that's true. After Viridis, I worked at Philips as a game PM, and I think I would have remembered a sequel, but I could be wrong. Sometimes a developer will pitch a game with some sample code or some video cut scenes, and even though the game proposal may be rejected for a variety of reasons, the myth develops that the game was "in the works," and when it never appears it's because it was "cancelled before completion." Waaaaay before completion

Also I realize you were in charge of the graphic, but in case you'd happen to know, I'd like to ask some questions about the story. Like why have Zelda rescue Link again?

I think there was a bit of borrowing from the other Zelda games.

(BTW, I was responsible for producing all audio, video, and photography. The graphic artists were responsible for the onscreen graphics.)

Lastly was this game intended as a sequel to some specific previous title? I ask because the other two CD-i Zeldas seemed based off the cartoon, because of their characters (like the king) and therefore the NES games the cartoons were based on (Impa, for one, is not in the SNES Zelda), so I consider them as intended sequels for the NES games.
With Zelda's Adventure however, I was never able to tell if you guys intended it as following the previous two CD-i titles (which would answer the question of what ultimately happens to Ganon after being sealed in the book) or as a sequel to A Link to the Past (since Zelda wears the exact same dress as in that game's artworks, but Ganon was supposed to be dead after ALttP)... or as a standalone game without ties to any other Zelda in particular, which I suppose may be very likely.

ZA was never meant to be a sequel to the other CD-i titles; in fact, what Philips did was farm out the Zelda projects to three different developers and got three different games. We may have seen a little of the other CD-i Zelda games during development, but it didn't influence ZA at all. You have to remember that ZA was released last because the title spent a couple of years in test at Philips! So much so that after we finished production of ZA and turned the first test build into Philips, I went to work on another outside project for a year, then came back to Philips for another year and half, and the damn thing was still in test. It spent something like two years in test, which was longer than the game took to develop.

There are many reasons for the long test period, some of which are long and boring, but certainly the game didn't need to spend that long in test.

I had my own run-ins with the test department with some of the later projects I managed, so I was not particularly surprised.

Sorry if the post got long winded. If it's too bothersome to answer all the questions I'll be happy with just the one about rumors of a sequel. Thanks

No problem! Anytime.

[Duke Serkol]

All the music was composed by our talented in-house composer, Mark, who, believe it or not, also played Gaspra in the cut scenes.

I had noticed that in the credits. Though I'd replace "All the music" with "What little music", given that most dungeons had atmosphere setting sounds, something Nintendo seems to have implemented in their 3D dungeons (they also ripped you off with the Crystal Hearts in TP)
I did love the music for the Destiny and Strength dungeons, the latter of which is possibly the most original dungeon in Zelda history (I mean, what other dungeon has people living their daily lives in it? That's so cool! )

All of the houses were constructed as scale models by our model-maker, Jason. The same goes for the interior sets in the cut scenes.

I wonder how much those would sell for on eBay... was there supposed to be a castle south of the Windmill?
By the way, I like how sometimes the only way to tell if you can walk over some terrain (like say, going from beach to swamp) is to try and go over it. Makes it feel like there's plenty of secret passages. I also liked using the compass -also- for teleport. Gives them a use outside of dungeons too.

the props, characters, models, etc. were definitely "old school" simply because we didn't have time or budget to do it any other way and still get the quality we wanted.

Well, it is a good thing that the CD-i games re-used some of the monsters from the original games. In some cases they actually do this more faithfully than later Ninty titles (who got this habit of changing monsters completely to the point of getting them mixed up).
The Moblins especially. They look just like the ones in the NES manual (would love to have that one's model). And the Zoras too!

Sometimes a developer will pitch a game with some sample code or some video cut scenes, and even though the game proposal may be rejected for a variety of reasons, the myth develops that the game was "in the works,"

So you would rule out that such a video could have been shown at a convention? Okay, I did suspect that the guy was full of it

ZA was never meant to be a sequel to the other CD-i titles; in fact, what Philips did was farm out the Zelda projects to three different developers and got three different games. You have to remember that ZA was released last because the title spent a couple of years in test at Philips!

Ah, so that's why you also used the idea of Zelda rescuing Link, because you didn't know the other guys were doing that too, right? Funny too that after two years of testing they didn't realize you can get stuck by saving in the last dungeon...
Anyway, I could have sworn the other two games were made by a single team, but I guess I may be wrong (they -must- have shared code though, since you can swap discs and play with Link in Zelda and Zelda in Link)

So uhm... who's to be held responsible for backwards cameloT? And can you tell me what was supposed to be the deal with the talking mushroom?
Oh, speaking of talk, I found a funny glitch in this game: if I open the menu immediately before a character starts to talk (and then close it) the game will load the wrong dialogue...and most of the times it was one I never heard before! Just how much unused dialogue is there in this game??

Thanks again

[jimby]

I had noticed that in the credits. Though I'd replace "All the music" with "What little music", given that most dungeons had atmosphere setting sounds, something Nintendo seems to have implemented in their 3D dungeons (they also ripped you off with the Crystal Hearts in TP)
)

There was actually a lot more music written than what made it in the game, which is what I'm remembering.

I wonder how much those would sell for on eBay... was there supposed to be a castle south of the Windmill?

I can't remember!

By the way, I like how sometimes the only way to tell if you can walk over some terrain (like say, going from beach to swamp) is to try and go over it. Makes it feel like there's plenty of secret passages. I also liked using the compass -also- for teleport. Gives them a use outside of dungeons too.

That was one of the problems in the game; you could get stuck in areas where the masking on the terrain was not perfect.

Sometimes a developer will pitch a game with some sample code or some video cut scenes, and even though the game proposal may be rejected for a variety of reasons, the myth develops that the game was "in the works,"

So you would rule out that such a video could have been shown at a convention? Okay, I did suspect that the guy was full of it

I wouldn't completely rule it out, but I've seen lots of "wishful developers" talk up game ideas or pitches that don't have publisher backing. It's possible your friend saw something like that. Who knows?

Ah, so that's why you also used the idea of Zelda rescuing Link, because you didn't know the other guys were doing that too, right? Funny too that after two years of testing they didn't realize you can get stuck by saving in the last dungeon...

One of the big problems of spending so long in test is that your chances of fixing certain bugs actually diminishes. This is because your primary programming resources get deployed to other projects, or worse, leave for other jobs. If you lose your lead programmer because you spent too long in test, it might be impossible to fix certain bugs without ripping all the code apart and sending the whole project back for extensive regression testing. This is one reason why I favor short but thorough testing strategies. Sadly, this was not done for ZA. I suspect by the time ZA was finishing up in test, Randy (lead programmer) had long ago left for greener pastures at Novalogic.

Anyway, I could have sworn the other two games were made by a single team, but I guess I may be wrong (they -must- have shared code though, since you can swap discs and play with Link in Zelda and Zelda in Link)

They might have. I thought there were three developers, but it was a long time ago.

So uhm... who's to be held responsible for backwards cameloT?

Uh you will have to talk to the "writers" about that one.

And can you tell me what was supposed to be the deal with the talking mushroom?

Actually I barely remember this. I could pop the game in my old CD-i player to check it out, but then I would have to remove the factory shrink wrap from the disc I honestly haven't looked at the game since 1994.

I am really not good at remembering the little game details like this; what I remember much more clearly is all the production and the people who worked on it, etc. It was around 14 years ago, after all

Oh, speaking of talk, I found a funny glitch in this game: if I open the menu immediately before a character starts to talk (and then close it) the game will load the wrong dialogue...and most of the times it was one I never heard before! Just how much unused dialogue is there in this game??

I know that a lot of the characters have multiple alternate strings of dialog that get loaded under different circumstances (also one of those things guaranteed to be a pain in the ass to test properly). It does vary by character.

[Duke Serkol]

There was actually a lot more music written than what made it in the game, which is what I'm remembering.

Really? I wonder if some of that is still in the disc, waiting to be dug out...

That was one of the problems in the game; you could get stuck in areas where the masking on the terrain was not perfect.

Well, like I said I enjoyed that. It felt like testing the terrain with your own feet. See if you could walk on it or it was too slippery or some other thing.

Anyway, I also wanted to say, I like your take on Ganon (another thing that Ninty might have ripped off this game for OoT ).
I just wish it was mandatory to kill him with an arrow (it's what I've always done anyway )

They might have. I thought there were three developers, but it was a long time ago.

Maybe the third worked on Hotel Mario?

Uh you will have to talk to the "writers" about that one.

Speaking of which, I always thought it was incredibly funny how Gaspra finds an urgent message about Link having been captured sitting among the dust on his desk (reacting to this with shocked grief even)!
I also wonder why Shurmak, whose voice is heard at key points in the game, lives in an oddly furnished gorge... but I think I won't ask about that

Actually I barely remember this. I could pop the game in my old CD-i player to check it out, but then I would have to remove the factory shrink wrap from the disc I honestly haven't looked at the game since 1994.

Oh no, it's not so important and that would be costly (that shrink alone would probably raise the eBay value of the disc by a hundrd dollars! )
The guide describes him as useless. I guess he gives advice but English is not my native language and I always had troubles understanding the dialogues of this game (were ALL the voice actors faking accents??)

I know that a lot of the characters have multiple alternate strings of dialog that get loaded under different circumstances (also one of those things guaranteed to be a pain in the ass to test properly). It does vary by character.

Yeah but it seems like there's a whole lot of them that are never actually used in the game...

On that note, here's a beta (I think) screenshot:

Can you tell me what the items that did not make it in the final version would do?

In particular that stone slab listed among weapons has me curious, then there's the scimitar (like the sword but traveling in a circular pattern?) and those three weapons strangley placed among treasures (the gold necklace that normally shoots red pellets, the Jade Ring to kill the minion in the Earth Shrine and... what's that? A Tourquise Amulet? the Final game only had a Jade one!)