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Boss Keys - Zelda dungeon video analysis

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I recall Twilight Princess has a similar dungeon philosophy but does have a few that make it more interesting, like Snowpeak Ruins and Temple of Time which are really nicely designed dungeons. But from this point on the level design becomes a whole lot linear and less open ended.

 

I still like the Sky Keep as a dungeon concept, given the amount of block pushing puzzles in Zelda games, having a dungeon be a block pushing puzzle was a genius idea and although there is a way of beating the game a recommended way that involves all the rooms, it's entirely possible to skip the Earth Temple room (did it on my playthrough).

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It's odd how he talks about some things as though they're objectively better than other ways of doing things. The Wind Waker video is probably the best example of this: the "shortcuts".

 

He's given a few examples on dungeons where getting back is part of the puzzle, and those are great, but a lot of the time, it's just walking back. Personally, I'd say that the shortcut (especially via a new room with a puzzle in it) is much more fun than the regular backtracking.

 

The same goes for single-room and multi-room puzzles. Both are good, and both can be very enjoyable. Multi-room ones can be more complex, but they can also be downright annoying.

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Fair point, but I was thinking specifically of those instances where they're on a river and you're on a higher ledge. In 3D, that would be hard to pull off.

See, this post got me thinking, how high are you? I'm guessing we were thinking the same, you were about 6-ish feet above with an extra 'lip' of earth around the rim so you couldn't jump off, which would make it difficult for Zora's to reach you...

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It's odd how he talks about some things as though they're objectively better than other ways of doing things. The Wind Waker video is probably the best example of this: the "shortcuts".

 

He's given a few examples on dungeons where getting back is part of the puzzle, and those are great, but a lot of the time, it's just walking back. Personally, I'd say that the shortcut (especially via a new room with a puzzle in it) is much more fun than the regular backtracking.

 

The same goes for single-room and multi-room puzzles. Both are good, and both can be very enjoyable. Multi-room ones can be more complex, but they can also be downright annoying.

 

I think he's defining good as complex and working backwards from there. Being led from start to end, either because its linear or because you never have to think "now where do I go [back to]?", is less complex and thus not as objectively good from a dungeon design POV.

 

However he does counter it in the WW video by saying the game is still fun, it's just these videos are about dungeon design.

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See, this post got me thinking, how high are you?

 

Right now, not at all, as it's the middle of the day.

 

About 3-4 meters per floor. That's the height of a regular building floor, and since LttP is designed around floors, even when outside, that's my estimate as to how tall a "videogame-floor" would be. I can still low-ball it to 2 meters (or 7 feet), but not lower.

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I'm really enjoying these videos! So much so that I was pretty bummed that the series is still on going and not finished yet.

I love it when people look at the Zelda games through time.

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Now that I actually sat and watched the WW video, I have to say... the analysis is on point.

 

I love WW, it's my favourite Zelda game, but its dungeons are very simple and straightforward, definitely not its forte. You can potentially reach the end of every dungeon (except the Wind Temple's) by simply solving puzzles, room by room. He nails it when he says the optional treasures are the only thing that require taking notes.

 

And mind you, I don't necessarily think a linear dungeon is bad (the Tower of the Gods and TP's Temple of Time good examples of linearity done right), but those direct shortcuts were definitely not needed in the Forbidden Woods example he mentioned, nor with the Earth Temple's main room.

 

It's weird, considering Wind Waker is the Zelda that acts all open-ended in its overworld, what with letting you figure out for yourself how to get into the temples, letting you find the triforce pieces in your own time, etc. It's the ideal game for taking notes... but with the dungeons, it's the opposite.

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Excellent stuff as always. Nice to see him tweak his dungeon diagrams and I like the distinction between Find the Path and Follow the Path. Wind Waker quite clearly favouring the latter.

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Fantastic, he's officially made the distinction between the two design philosophies, and he's given them names. It's fascinating to gradually see him develop a theory in game design with each video.

 

I'm not too keen on the "Follow the Path" name, though. "Find the Path" is good, it immediately tells you both the goal and appeal of that type of design. "Follow the Path" is pretty dry by comparison, as the appeal behind that design choice includes the ability to make well-designed puzzles for each individual room, and that's how the player will experience it. One could call it a "goal-oriented" dungeon, or even "Solve the Path".

 

Nevertheless, I can now use this language to express what I had in mind in the previous post: Wind Waker's entire design philosophy relies on "Finding the Path", yet oddly enough, most of its dungeons prefer to "Follow/Solve the Path".

 

Also, I might be just rambling at this point, but the video got me thinking about "Solve the Path" dungeons: Shadow Temple (OoT), Tower of the Gods (WW) the Ancient Cistern (SS) are good examples of such dungeons using puzzles of varying difficulty to control pacing as the designers saw fit. The Shadow Temple gets creepier as you descend into it (and its invisibility puzzles get trickier with that descent), the puzzles in Tower of the Gods get more complex as you ascend (with visible progress being made, from the water at the bottom floor to the sky-high balcony at the end), and the Ancient Cistern uses specific aesthetic changes found in a specific order to retell the story of Buddha and the Spider. The Palace of Winds (MC) is another good example, dividing the dungeon into two linear "gauntlets" and making the second half obviously harder.

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Nice video - good to see/have a longer one too. Not surprised that his diagrams/categorising of the dungeons has evolved; I did previously think it was somewhat limited. Shame to see he's looking to wrap up as I think it's been an excellent series and there's many aspects of Zelda's design through the times that I'd love to hear his thoughts on. Having said that I'm probably equally excited to see him tackle other games/series and see how those go for me especially if it's not something I've played particularly much.

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His point on spatial awareness was quite good, I thought.

It's really what can make the dungeons into a glorified 'Brain Training' exercise if you will.

I remember some dungeons in the Oracle Games really had me sweating in trying to fit all the pieces together in my head.

 

Ah, now I want to play my third favourite Zelda of all time, Minish Cap, again.

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Shame to see he's looking to wrap up as I think it's been an excellent series and there's many aspects of Zelda's design through the times that I'd love to hear his thoughts on.

 

There's still Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks and Link Between Worlds (I don't think he'll be covering the multiplayer games). And then the final video on Zelda's level design, which is his end goal. That's at least 6 videos before the series ends.

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NOT TAKE MIRROR

 

Sorry; that's all I can ever think about when I think of TP dungeons(and what a bloody excellent dungeon that was too). Can't watch right now but I think it's gonna be the first thing I do when I get home! Be very interested to hear his thoughts on TP, as I felt it had rather excellent dungeon design and items but then let down by its lack of fullness and character in the world outside of them.

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Just watched it now. Mind blown at the pattern shown at the start. I didn't realize the dungeons were so similar!

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Can't recall if he mentioned it before but for me a linear dungeon can be memorable and exceptional if it offers the illusion of choice. Reduce dungeons down into a diagram format as Brown does can be useful for comparisons between games, but it does neglect the intricacies and depth/verticality of each individual room within a dungeon. If this series has shown anything, maybe it's that our preference in game design is a fickle thing - I remember the Snowpeak Ruins as being a bit of a grind at times, and yet after I completed it I felt a strong sense of accomplishment and found myself wondering if it was one of the better dungeons in the game.

 

One thing about Twilight Princess is clear though: Palace of Twilight was shite and wholly unnecessary.

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Surprised that he didn't point out that you can never hold more than 1 key at a time in TP...

 

But yeah, he's right. Lakebed temple is the best dungeon in that game for sure.

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I too hadn't realised quite how linear the dungeons were - or at least not to a point it stuck out in my mind much. I've only ever played TP through the once(though that did make me want to play it again) but it's interesting to see how they opted to not really mix up too much with TP. I've got bigger issues with that game as a whole; but given that I generally think it has great dungeons I'm slightly worried now that I've been pleased by something so simple and repetitive!

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I too hadn't realised quite how linear the dungeons were - or at least not to a point it stuck out in my mind much. I've only ever played TP through the once(though that did make me want to play it again) but it's interesting to see how they opted to not really mix up too much with TP. I've got bigger issues with that game as a whole; but given that I generally think it has great dungeons I'm slightly worried now that I've been pleased by something so simple and repetitive!

 

Well there's much more to TP's dungeons than just their general layout (Mark even admits this during the video). In particular, they have some brilliant puzzles and while they have the same kind of disconnected room designs (where the rooms don't interconnect with each other) as in Wind Waker, they're much larger and much more complex than in that game; this kind of design works better here and if it were as interconnected as the earlier games, it would likely feel overwhelming (Mark actually alludes to this as well), especially since they're the largest and most elaborate dungeons in the series by far.

 

TP also does some cool things in regards to shaking up how dungeons work, be it the boss key pieces in Goron Mines, or the residential design of Snowpeak Ruins and its accompanying strange pacing. TP's dungeons also make great use of verticality, much moreso than in TWW.

 

While it's cool to look at the dungeon layout and how the critical path is designed, it doesn't tell you all there is to know about how the dungeons are designed.

Edited by Dcubed

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Twilight Princess is...inoffensive

 

That has to be the best description of Twilight Princess I've ever seen :heh:

 

Anyway, I find myself agreeing on several of his points. Dungeons are somewhat predictable, none of them quite living up to their potential, and the bosses are pretty unimpressive (aside from Stallord and Blizetta).

 

But it's also at these times that I wish he'd look more into a dungeon's aesthetic choices, that is, stuff that isn't necessarily part of pure level design. This is something that greatly affected the Ice Mansion, as something as simple as changing keys to food and keylocks to barred doors help add a degree of uncertainty as to how the player is supposed to progress through it, thus masking the linearity and changing the pace a little bit. I also recall that dungeon using the environment creatively for its puzzles, further encouraging the player to think differently on how to go about solving rooms. And it all makes for a memorable locale, even if it doesn't challenge your navigation skills that much.

 

Similar things could be said about City in the Sky, but that dungeon executed it much more poorly. Meanwhile, the Temple of Time is a fantastic example of a "Solve the Path" dungeon done well.

 

But still, I find myself agreeing with his general point: Twilight Princess's dungeons play it safe, and didn't do much to stand out in the series. What they did for the Ice Mansion and Temple of Time feel more like individual outliers, rather than a concrete bold direction that the game's following.

Edited by Jonnas

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More technical-minded, but someone is doing a series on the art in Wind Waker. They're breaking down elements of the art to see how it worked and to try and recreate it: https://medium.com/@gordonnl/wind-waker-graphics-analysis-a0b575a31127#.niakcud05

 

So far he's covered the ocean and flames, but will be covering other things such as facial expressions, clouds, lighting and more.

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That is a pretty good, frank analysis on the DS Zeldas. Every time someone criticises those games, it feels like they always resort to complaining about a single issue (Temple of the Ocean King, or the train overworld), and not very well, at that. Almost like when fans didn't know how to point out Super Mario Sunshine's flaws, so they resorted to saying the FLUDD was bad (exactly why the FLUDD was a bad thing was something few could actually explain). So, it's great seeing Mark actually talk about several specific parts of PH and ST that worked and didn't.

 

Once again he rags a bit on the "Solve the Path" philosophy, but I think he's closer to understanding that this philosophy allow the designers to focus more on individual puzzles (which is precisely what the DS Zeldas were gunning for, anyway).

 

These are also games that are stronger outside of the dungeons than inside, so once again, I hope he'll analyse the games as a whole someday, much like he did with the original Legend of Zelda.

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