6 replies to this topic

[nicklegends]

I feel that a secret isn't really "secret" if it's expected. When I see a cracked wall, Zelda games have conditioned me to bomb it and expect a reward inside. If I enter a dungeon and see pegs sticking from the floor, I expect to find a hammer within that dungeon; thus, the dungeon's purpose is no longer secret.

Secrets are far more gratifying when they don't rely on overused game mechanics. When one removes the player's ability to anticipate, the world feels larger and wonderful, in the literal sense of the term. Before I got hold of the Spinner in Twilight Princess, for example, I had no idea that I'd encounter anything like it. As soon as I learned what it did, I suddenly realized all the places in the dungeon and the overworld where I could use it. That was a really thrilling feeling.

Can you imagine if a quest had a well detailed overworld and you learned late in the game that the innocuous blue flowers you saw around the landscape would actually transport you to a parallel dimension if you used your flute on them? Wouldn't that make the world feel larger? Wouldn't that encourage you to scour the world for more secrets? I won't be using this exact gimmick in my game, but I want to harbor the same sense of discovery and excitement I got when playing games as a kid—that is, before I learned all the common tactics that make games predictable when I play them today.

My goal for this quest is to surprise the player with how many pathways he or she overlooked without realizing it. Now, there won't be many items in the quest, and what items are there will have been seen before. Thus, the magic will be related to how the items are used... Stay tuned.

Also, I'll be changing the name of the quest before too long.

[Air Luigi]

Congratulations for discovering the true meaning of Zelda. Now, I can't wait to see your stuff with ZC. It sounds really cool.

[Avaro]

Great thinking! And yes, I agree with everything you said. I like it if quests, or games in general have this sense of exploration and discovery.

[Jared]

This is fantastic, Ed. A great way of looking at how secrets work.

[Shane]

This sounds quite ambitious but amazing nonetheless. Items like the Spinner were always those kinds of items where you had fun and experimented with it, and see what it could interact with. It added more logical thinking and puzzle solving without feeling too forced in. If you can bring this into Zelda Classic, that'd be marvelous. I think people need to realize the difference between a secret (rails for the spinner) and a obstacle ( a cracked wall). Though, should we expect obstacles? Or will there be purely the desire to discover rather than overcome?

[strike]

Secrets are really important to me in games. You are sooooo right about them and their implementation.

I'm really looking forward to playing this.

-Strike

[nicklegends]

Thanks for all the support!

@Shane: Ambitious? Maybe. I don't want to get too carried away. I see it as putting just a little more thought into each screen. I have more ideas than I have spaces to put them, so some might have to wait until a subsequent project. I'm trying to keep the scale of this one as small as possible so that I can actually finish SOMETHING where I've failed the last ten years. But rest assured, I'll do as much as I can with an 8×6 overworld.

It's hard for me to answer your second question. I think just about everything separating Link from Zelda could count as an obstacle, including every locked dungeon door and every pit to jump over, etc. I guess if we talk about optional obstacles, there may be a few... I'm not really sure yet.