Gameplay sequencing

This is more of a discussion point than a "project", but I guess this is still the most appropriate subforum.

As most of us know, the gameplay in Zelda 3 is split in a couple of different stages:
• 1. Intro sequence
– 1.1. Sneak into the guardhouse [prior to all respawn points]
– 1.2. Seek out Zelda [respawn point: courtyard passage]
– 1.3. Escape from the dungeon [respawn point: Zelda's cell]
– 1.4. Find your way thru the sewers [respawn point: throne room]
• 2. Light World [respawn points: your house, Sanctuary, Death Mountain, current dungeon]
– 2.1. Gather information in the village
– 2.2. Go see Sahasrahla
– 2.3. Seek the Pendants and Master Sword
– 2.4. Go fight Agahnim
• 3. Dark World [respawn point: Pyramid]
– 3.1. Find crystal #1
– 3.2. Find crystals #2-7
– 3.3. Go fight Ganon

Most hacks seem to generally accept this outline. And presumably any substantial edits to it (just for example, ramping up the number of pendants, adding new stages entirely, or new obligatory fetch quests) would be difficult to pull off. But anything can be worked around to some extent… So I'd like to note that it would be interesting to see more done with this respect in future hacks. Hacking is not just level design.

Some hack ideas I'm mulling on would involve e.g. extending stage 1 considerably, with the premise that you are not immediately out to rescue Zelda from anywhere — you start the game with plans of going on some adventures with her. Only after a while would the whole maiden kidnapping plot come up at all. Just an idea by this point, though.

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Another thing that seems to repeat frequently is the general decor of the action:
• stage 1 involves breaking into a castle (and not e.g. a cave full of rock monsters) while dummy soldiers block your way in most of the overworld
• followed by an escape thru a sewer section, ending in a church (and not e.g. thru a secret underground palace, ending in the castle)
• stage 2 involves old abandoned palaces, found after visiting places such as the desert, the mountains, and the woods (and not e.g. a manor right in the middle of the town)
• if there are "elemental" dungeons — e.g. ice, rock or water — they go in stage 3

Completely new types of dungeons would take lots and lots of graphics and related twiddling, of course, but the game already has bits and pieces for at least slightly different types of plots from the original.

Of course, for all I know, my pessimistic analysis will be shown completely baseless by all the fantastic hacks currently in the works

what i usually do with hyrule magic is re-arrange some of the items in the dungeons or change some of the layouts (i.e. titans mitt in the dark palace, power glove in the ice rod cave to allow access to death mountain much earlier, while the ice rod is in desert palace in the main entrance so it is not too difficult to miss as it is effective against lanmolas, blue mail in thieves town for earlier armor upgrade, cane of byrna in ice palace, magic hammer in the shrine of darkness before the hedge maze of the west of dark palace, and the magic cape requiring the use for the cane of somaria as i found it redundant to get the cane of byrna with the magi cape).

To change the global gameplay is somewhat not recommended to do, since it requires lots of ASM and other adoptations. For instance lots and lots of work is required to only collect 7 crystals (in a normal way).

It is basically not possible (without extensive change) to start the game normally from bed and then start looking for 7 crystals) and no rain, since the global programming recognizes 3 states: beginning, pendant collecting, crystal collecting. Skipping any part would start the game with the sword or shield already (ASM by Euclid), otherwise they are impossible to get from a chest (without further ASM) and talking to uncle would bring up false SRM save if you are defeated.

So it is basically ASM uppon ASM. The most radical change I've seen is in the Conker game, but as you can see, Conker never starts in bed and completing a dungeon does not have a standard out-tro, but you rather get the crystal in a chest and then drop down to the entrance. So you start the game, and then start collecting 12 crystals.

So it can be done, but you loose the original feel of starting the game normally (in bed) and completing the dungeon normally (with that sword spin and automatic exit out of the dungeon). These are all the byproducts of wanting 12 crystals, instead of 7.