How long HAVE I been working on Zelda3C? Looking back at my diary entries, the first post was in June 2002. That's over six years ago, and I know I got started sometime in 2001 when Hyrule Magic first came out. But there's definitely not seven years of progress -- it wouldn't take seven years to rewrite the whole game!
This hack is a hobby. I make no profit and won't gain anything when it's released. I've been interrupted for long periods by family, by moving across the country (three times), by important new games coming out, by computer meltdown, and in spite of my love for this game, by temporary burn-out. I might have never started if I'd known that, seven years later, I'd still be plugging away at it. Would you? It sounds ridiculous. And yet the things I have had time to accomplish, combined with the efforts of Reshaper256 and others, have developed a diamond in the rough.
One major reason for not posting more information, besides the notion of spoilers, is that the more you know, the less fun you will have when you play it. It's exciting to know that you can hookshot from house to house. But, knowing this, you won't be able to ask yourself, "Hmm, I wonder if I could use the hookshot here?" I've posted more screenshots than I would've liked, but not to create excitement. Early excitement is bad because it fizzles into boredom after a while. I show things in order to get feedback, primarily. I do like having a fan base, but I would keep working even if no one visited the site. This is because I know how well-received this game will be, someday.
ZeldaC ~ Outlands took one complete year to develop. More than half of it was spent learning about the ROM and writing my own editor. I imagined, once upon a time, that Zelda3C ~ Quest for Calatia would take three years. Four years, tops. But life takes precedence and I can't see the future.
There will never be a release date. Even if I did nothing else besides create this game, I couldn't possibly estimate the amount of work still remaining. Primarily, I don't know how long I need to finish creating brand new overworld structures. The overworld itself isn't hard to create, but things like original houses, towers, the castle, etc. have taken waaaay longer than I'd thought. Steep learning curve. The indoors, with its cookie-cutter design, will be fast and easy, for the most part. (I'm dreading the deep water ASM.) There will be no objects to create, only objects to arrange. But even when the major things are finished, I won't know for sure how long I'll need for polishing and bug-testing.
Once the overworld is finished, we can maybe start guessing in which year the game will be finished. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who chooses to follow along, in spite of the lack of details, when you could just forget about it until it's done. Having people rooting for me is a great thing since no one in "real life" cares about this game. I'll try to communicate more in the future, both in this forum and in the diary.