Legend Maker Aims to Allow Gamers to Create Their Own Adventures With Links to the Past

Honestly would love to see Nintendo do this with Zelda instead, but...I'm ok with this.

If this is a legitimate game, the developers should try to get it released on a Nintendo system

3-2-1 Nintendo Ninja's attack. Cease and desist order incoming.

I think my kids would enjoy this, they've been making a JRPG game on PC for about a year now. (I don't think they are in any rush to finish it, they just like the sprites and sounds.) Of course a Zelda Maker on NX would be nice too.

I am a bit confused though. They are making a game in Gamemaker that makes games? Isn't that redundant?

Don't we already have Zelda Classic?

I love all sort of easy to use game/level makers (RPG Maker being the best), they're just fun to mess around even if nothing productive ever really comes out of it.

Around the time when I was in elementary school I put a lot of time into doing all sort of stuff with the Zelda Classic program, wish I still had the stuff I made with it, it would probably be worth a facepalm and a laugh at the very least.

I think I will back this.

Actually they should talk to Nintendo about getting it on the Wii U. lol

I would say this could act as a beacon for Nintendo to do the same with Zelda, but... honestly, it's taken years of rom hacks AND a struggling console to give us Mario Maker; we won't see the metaphorical "car keys" for Zelda anytime soon.

Before anyone complains it's not coming to the Wii U, I had the same complaint and I spoke tot he Devs about it, they're using GameMaker Professional which doesn't have the capabilities to port to the Wii U but will port to the NX if they have the funds and it's compatible with the system.

There's also this game making program called SRPG Studio, which is obviously borrowing heavily from Fire Emblem, sadly currently only available in japanese. That is what I would really like to get my dirty hands on.

http://feuniverse.us/t/japanese-srpg-studio/826

Looks decent actually. I wonder if Nintendo would someday let us make something like that for Zelda.

I hope this makes it and that it actually gets finished. I'm actually tempted to back something for once, and I'm against backing kickstarters with all my being.

@rjejr
GameMaker: Studio is a software used to... make games. It's the engine behind hits like Undertale, Hotline Miami, Risk of Rain, Spelunky, and Nidhogg.

@GamerXiphos
As someone who is using GameMaker: Studio to develop games and is also a Nintendo HTML5 indie dev*, I'll concur that it's next to impossible to port a GM:S game to Wii U.

*GM:S can export an HTML5 file, which can theoretically run on Wii U.

Yay! A Zelda fan game that can't run on a Nintendo system! >

@nacho_chicken I've used GamerMaker as well while I was in university, recently been messing around with it again, along with Construct 2 and I got a free copy of RPG Maker, so giving that a go. Got unity installed but haven't done much with it.

Zelda maker would be nice. What would be even better is Metroid Maker with NES, SNES, GB, and GBA templates.

A Zelda Maker would be cool. There could be the original NES Zelda, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Minish Cap and A Link between Worlds as game themes. I could literally write an entire essay here.

The most important aspect of this actually being something worthwhile is whether or not the editor has a robust system for creating a wide variety of unique and custom power ups.

The powerups are the absolute core of the games design, and everything in the game is driven by them, from pacing, to progression design, to world design.

Without that kind of a system, this will be little more than a distraction.

I'm glad they removed all the Zelda assets they were using in the earlier builds, it would have got this taken down by Nintendo if they didn't.

Nintendo Life ought to contact British-based YoYo Games and find out what is the issue behind GameMaker: Studio's lack of support for the Wii U platform. This problem is hindering Hyper Light Drifter's chances of coming to the platform, not giving Undertale a chance to grace the platform, and now this!

Wow, that looks completely original and unlike anything that my eyes have ever seen before in a video game ever. Amazing!

@HopeNForever
There's a lot of secrecy involved in deals like that. It would be impossible to fully explain the reasons why a Wii U export hasn't happened yet without breaking some NDAs.
Fun fact: In GM:S, constants already exist to designate 3DS (os_3ds) and Wii U (os_wiiu) operating systems. Since it can compile to C++, a 3DS export is theoretically possible.

To be fair, Undertale couldn't be published in its current form on anything that isn't a PC. Rules for publishing on consoles are very strict. Shutting down a game by force so the player has to restart it is generally a big no-no. Sony makes you use their saving systems, so any fourth-wall breaking on that front wouldn't be as powerful.

Zelda Maker just sounds awesome. I can't stop smiling.

Well not backing it but if it makes it I may get it.

As fun as this looks, it's still a bit lame. Using a drag N drop development tool, then copying another companies designs, then copying what the community all suggested Nintendo would do after Mario Maker , and then asking for a years pay.. not cool in my book. Show a little creativity if you want my money. This looks like a project most developers do for free as a learning experience.

And I would certainly expect a cease and desist. Sure they changed character and npc sprites, but the puzzles and stuff are 1 to 1 direct copies from A Link to the Past. Nintendo has a strong case. If Nintendo is working on a Zelda Maker, expect this to disappear fast.

I have talk to Dream Mix on Zeldainformer's article about Legend Maker and they did say that if there are enough demand for Legend Maker on the Wii U or at least the NX they will consider porting the game.

I have backed Legend Maker with 30$, but am not sure if Legend Maker will be able to reach its goal in time or not. Reason being is that I am not sure who really want the big rewards as they people like me who just want the game ;^^.

Still hopefully Legend Maker will be able to reach its base sketch goal at least :+).

Not much into making levels, but I'd play someones created adventure or just one made by the makers.

@jbopatrick There is nothing wrong with using Game Maker what so ever. Yes, it is true that it used as a somewhat beginner game design tool it is still a viable engine for something this game is trying to do. I mean Game Maker was the engine behind Undertale, which is by the way a incredibly critically acclaimed and consider by some people one of their favorite games of all time.

It is pretty obvious that the designers are getting inspirations from Zelda, but that is only because Nintendo decided to take down the original project (The original project was a Zelda fangame that was obviously inspired by Super Mario Maker with the ability to create your own Zelda dungeons and worlds). If the project wasn't taken down, it wouldn't have to make character designs strongly inspired by Zelda.

Adding on to my whole Nintendo take down point, it would only make sense to charge money for something like Legend Maker. People have been asking for a "Zelda Maker" since Super Mario Maker released. Legend Maker, being something similar to that, is something people would pay money for considering the extreme demand for a "Zelda Maker".

There is no reason for Nintendo to give a C&D. Everything in Legend Maker is original and doesn't take anything from Nintendo besides the style of gameplay of a top down Zelda. Theoretically, if Nintendo were to give a C&D it would only generate an incredible amount of bad rep for Nintendo and that is something Nintendo doesn't really need at this point considering people are already mad at them for basically killing the Wii U, dropping the ball on E3 2016, and there many examples of censorship. All that negative rep only from the beginning of the year is extremely damaging to Nintendo's image and taking this down would only make it worse.

Not trying to come off as a shill, I'm just saying.

Guess the reference:" Is that....legal? I will make it legal!"

The most original thing in that video were the mines, and even then I'm not sure...

It looks alright, but doesn't have the Nintendo magic in it. The beauty of Super Mario Maker was that it was so simple and intuitive that anyone could pick up. Designing a Zelda dungeon will usually be much more complex than a Mario level.

We've seen that people already can't make Mario levels. So, something as complex as a Zelda dungeon? I'm staying well away from that.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Nintendo owns only TLOZ's world(characters,locations,objects,the story,ecc.) not the gameplay style(it woudn't exist whitout them,though).

It's funny how much people can rip off games made by Nintendo, call them their own ideas and then never even bother releasing them on Nintendo hardware. And still get away with it almost every time.

@jbopatrick
Lol, calling GameMaker "a drag N drop development tool". It uses a fairly complex proprietary coding language based off of C. 90% of the stuff they show in the trailer is straight-up impossible without using any code.

This looks very cool, and it's clearly been VERY influenced by ALTTP*, but I'd like to see it come to the consoles too. It seems a waste for it to only be on PC.

*My guess is they literally copied the assets from ALTTP and then just modified each of the sprites directly a little bit to differentiate them from the originals. But, as long as they've changed everything to be their own art creations, even as much as they remind us of the originals, Nintendo has no genuine legal claim. I'm assuming all the code is theirs too, or at least freely available as part of someone else's code tutorial or whatever, which they've allowed for commercial use.

PS. And just to bring up an old point here that's kinda relevant: Nintendo never actually filed or won any copyright infringement case against the makers of The Great Giana Sisters, which I expect is a source of many people believing it's easy for companies like Nintendo to claim some other game maker is infringing their copyright and stop the game in its tracks. But the fact is, Nintendo almost certainly would have lost that case if it had actually gone to court. Nintendo just banked on it's sheer presence and the threat of legal action to stop those developers, and it worked. But there really is no genuine copyright infringement if you aren't actually using anything from the original creation other than the general concept of a platform game, or an RPG, or whatever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Giana_Sisters#Alleged_lawsuit

Most of the other times you've heard of Nintendo stopping someone making a game or whatever, usually with the threat of legal action and talk of copyright infringement, it's either because those people had been using original Nintendo assets on commercial projects, or Nintendo was basically just abusing its power.

@nacho_chicken Yeah, Game Maker is drag & drop if you're making primary-school-level games, but, if you want to make anything that's a proper commercial-level game, you really do have to start getting into the GML scripting language.

@HopeNForever I concur. I use Game Maker Studio to develop games and I've often wondered why it doesn't support traditional consoles. With the way it's constantly "evolving", I'm sure it will support output to traditional consoles at some point in the future.

Edit: I just realised you can release your Game Maker games on most of the home consoles, just not Nintendo's:

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

Well, I backed it.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Nintendo cannot touch them here.

@ikki5 You're probably right. Every item is just about different enough to get away with it even though everyone knows what it is. The warp square looks the same to me, must check it on Google.

Edit: Yep they're nearly identical.

Awkward situation because I would even kickstart this except I'm worried about a Cease and Desist letter which would make all my money disappear. In this case I'd be buying when it comes out.

Lol. It's blatantly obvious they ripped most of it from the GameBoy Zelda games, and then made their own (very small) alterations. Why can't they just make it entirely and distinctly their own? Why always copy others? :/

Oh that's right, it's of course easier to take something existing and well-thought-out, instead of making it yourself from scratch.

@Expa0 To The Moon was made with RPG Maker, so I wouldn't say nothing comes of it...

Ah, yes, it's only a matter of time until someone remakes the Swastika dungeon from the first Zelda, complete with Nazi motifs... (Actually, it was a manji, not a swastika, but how many people know that?)

@Kirk Yeah, after Nintendo (mostly just Minoru Arakawa, Howard Lincoln, and their hired attorney Jack Kirby) took on Universal and won the Donkey Kong/King Kong case, it didn't take long for them to use that momentum and start mimicking the ferocity of the giant entertainment corporations.

This is neat and I totally support them pursuing this. Although based on their stretch goals. I'm not sure if they understand the scope of the project.

@PlywoodStick
I meant in my case, of course other people who actually have the determination needed can make great things out of it.

@nacho_chicken Well I get that, but why not just purchase Gamemaker and make a lot of games, why purchase Legend Maker, a game that was made inside of Gamemaker, and only be bale to make Zelda type games?

Turns out my kids are using RPG Maker VX Ace so I'm downloading the alpha of this so they can try it out.

@rjejr Game Maker is a game creation tool, not basically a glorified level editor. Games with level/world editors, like Super Mario Maker or RPG Maker are something anyone can use to build functional platformer and RPG levels/areas, but Game Maker is on a whole other level (once you go beyond the most simple drag & drop stuff). Your kids would take months, possibly years, to learn all the art, design, code, and whatever else required to create even "simple" 2D games like any of the Super Mario Bros. games or A Link to the Past in Game Maker (to any level of actual quality and fun; although they might have fun trying). Basically, they're not even close to being on the same level in terms of complexity or potential.

PS. Basic Game Maker Studio if free, so you could actually download it and let your kids try it right now if you want:

http://www.yoyogames.com/get

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

@ALinkttPresent This would be AMAZING on the 3DS!

@Kirk Thanks for the links, don't think they used that one yet. And the explanation about Game Maker and Legend Maker, think I get it now. My kids took an MS course last summer, worked with the now defunct Project Spark and Kudo, and they mess around with almost anything they come across w/ varying degrees of interactivity - Creativere, Roblox, Gary's Mod - I'm not sure what else, I trust them, they're good kids.

I heard about this at the end of an M. Productions video, and I'm half-thinking that's where Nintendo Life found out about this. I hope Legend Maker does make it to Wii U if the devs are listening!

I wish Nintendo could somehow get Game Maker running on their platforms. The cancellation of Hyper Light Drifter is the most disappointing news I've heard regarding Wii U and that's saying a lot.

@SanderEvers,

Conglaturations! A winner is you!