Quest Master is the Zelda Maker that fans always asked for but was never delivered... until now. And, oh boy did Julian Creutz and Skydevilpalm ever deliver! Unlike Nintendo's half-assed template dungeon maker in the Link's Awakening remaster, or the just-shy-of-the-mark Super Dungeon Maker, this game gets it right.

Trust me when I say this: If you're a 2D Zelda fan, you are not going to want to pass up this game!

The graphics feature bright and colorful pixel art reminiscent of The Minish Cap, with a consistent design and smooth animations as the cherry on top. If you liked the art style of that GBA classic, you'll feel right at home with Quest Master.

Quest Master wears its inspiration on its sleeve, and that's all I could ever ask of it. It's sword-swinging, puzzle-solving, dungeon adventuring goodness. The movement feels good, the combat is fair, and dungeon traversal is both familiar and fun.

There's a ton of community-made levels available to enjoy, from large sprawling traditional dungeons to small mini dungeons centered around a unique gimick. The level browser highlights recent and featured levels, and each of them are tagged by the author so you know what you're going to be getting into (or avoiding).

The level editor is where Quest Master really shines. Despite only being early access game with a small subset of tiles/items available, there's an absolute ton of things you can do with them. Almost every type of tile and item you can place down in a dungeon has been meticulously designed to either serve a unique purpose, interact with other gameplay mechanics, or both. On top of that, but Quest Master manages to pull off making the "if this, then do that" part of dungeon design a core mechanic that is both simple and straightforward to use, but flexible enough to design complex contraptions and sequences.

For example, with just four of the items at my disposal, I was able to create every basic logic gate. And that's barely scratching the surface of what's possible! The interaction between game mechanics is honestly top notch, and there's a whole world of emergent gameplay ready to be taken advantage of. Quest Master manages to achieve the same level of care and attention to detail that Nintendo put into Mario Maker's entity interactions, and it makes learning the game's level design tools a rewarding experience.

But, none of that would really matter if the experience of actually creating the levels is bad. With Quest Master, it's actually good. The UI is thoughtfully designed, and it's simple enough to not be overwhelming while also having ample room (by clicking and holding an object to open its context menu) for the more advanced options available to level creators. The text is also large enough to be visible on smaller screens, and all of the tools can be quickly switched between using the keyboard.

_____ Maker games are nothing if not for the community. So, how's that looking for Quest Master? Pretty good!

The community is very active, and the game receives weekly content updates on Friday with hotfixes/bugfixes on the weekend. The developers are active in the community and regularly listen to user feedback and ideas, which is super important for this type of game. They also have a development road map posted on the store page, and there's still a ton of new content coming to keep the game fresh and engaging!

Simply put, because I'm a huge Zelda fan who really enjoys this game. It has a lot of potential, and I want to share my thoughts about this gem of a game.