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[JoGribbs]

Posting those images just reminds me how strong the visuals were in the oracle games...

[vinheim3]

Looking at the images of the dungeons, now that I think about it, a lot of rooms were bland and didn't have much in the way of puzzles. I mean if you look at Seasons level 6, the top left of the first floor is a simple magic boomerang puzzle and the room 2 screens east of it is a simple magnetic glove puzzle, and even if you look at ages, it's pretty much the same thing. I think most of the charm and focus comes in exploration and how you travel between rooms. Some of my favourite dungeons were Jabu-Jabu's belly, Ages and Seasons level 8, and Eagle's tower and they all had some gimmick that made traversing the dungeon a lot more complicated. Which I guess could be the puzzle element.

[seagaia]

A lot of good suggestions. Jabu Jabu's belly from Ages was SINISTER (at least to a younger me, not sure now). Although very cool because of the dungeon-wide puzzle. I suppose complex dungeon design can make up for some level of simplicity in the actual rooms.

Seems best to pick a few smaller mechanics, maybe some overarching "gimmick" related to the dungeon that will have to rely on building upon previous skills - I think fewer items is better, forces you to be more clever in thinking of puzzles (so OoA will be a nice reference) - and then build from there in terms of more specific features...and of course keep the dungeon layout/flow in mind.

--

Personally I'm finding this the most exhausting part of making the game right now, with animation right behind it. Although, it is very rewarding. Also, all of this discussion is really enlightening/awesome.

[baconman]

Looking at the images of the dungeons, now that I think about it, a lot of rooms were bland and didn't have much in the way of puzzles.

Exactly my point. Zelda as a "puzzle adventure" game is kind of condescending, and not really all that interesting. It needs some of that old-fashioned, sometimes-outnumbered-8-to-1 frantic action to keep it hot.

[Paul Eres]

ya i actually don't like the tendency to puzzles for the newer/modern zelda games

the first game had "puzzles" in a sense, but they were all pretty simple: where is the wall to bomb? where is the block to push? what do i do to make this dungeon appear? how do i get across the water? what item harms that enemy? that kind of stuff, which was integrated with the world, and didn't feel contrived

newer zelda games have gone overboard, with huge complex things that look like they were designed by a mad scientist or that brain age guy. you might have to spend 5 minutes moving gears, hitting switches in order, pressing colored buttons, going through tubes, or whatever, just to get past a single room. even bosses have become similar puzzles, where you can't even hurt most of the bosses by attacking them, only by doing some weird sequence of events like getting a block to fall down and go through a conveyor belt and pick up a bomb and the bomb hits a spring and bounces off and hits the boss -- and then do that SEVEN MORE TIMES, each time it's faster than the last -- is that really fun for people?

that kinda thing is not all that fun for me, it feels like figuring out a series of steps to do and then doing them, rather than discovery and even perhaps figuring out new ways to do something that the game developer didn't anticipate. to me, if the game developer knows the only or the best way to beat a boss, or the best or only way to beat a room or a dungeon, that is not a good boss, room, or dungeon; the player should be able to figure something that works even better than what the game developer knows

[seagaia]

ya i actually don't like the tendency to puzzles for the newer/modern zelda games

the first game had "puzzles" in a sense, but they were all pretty simple: where is the wall to bomb? where is the block to push? what do i do to make this dungeon appear? how do i get across the water? what item harms that enemy? that kind of stuff, which was integrated with the world, and didn't feel contrived

newer zelda games have gone overboard, with huge complex things that look like they were designed by a mad scientist or that brain age guy. you might have to spend 5 minutes moving gears, hitting switches in order, pressing colored buttons, going through tubes, or whatever, just to get past a single room. even bosses have become similar puzzles, where you can't even hurt most of the bosses by attacking them, only by doing some weird sequence of events like getting a block to fall down and go through a conveyor belt and pick up a bomb and the bomb hits a spring and bounces off and hits the boss -- and then do that SEVEN MORE TIMES, each time it's faster than the last -- is that really fun for people?

that kinda thing is not all that fun for me, it feels like figuring out a series of steps to do and then doing them, rather than discovery and even perhaps figuring out new ways to do something that the game developer didn't anticipate. to me, if the game developer knows the only or the best way to beat a boss, or the best or only way to beat a room or a dungeon, that is not a good boss, room, or dungeon; the player should be able to figure something that works even better than what the game developer knows

Yes, big puzzles can feel contrived, it must be harder to make them feel natural as the scale goes up.

What do you guys think of "Items as keys?" In some sense, all items  ARE keys, but I think when they are blatantly shown as so it's sort of lame. Like, "here are three levels of bracelets...you can pick up heavier rocks" or something. But in some ways, it is necessary to pace progress through a semi-open world - like Metroid or whatever. I think item design is very difficult, mostly because I feel like items should have multiple uses, rather than be one-trick-ponies - i.e., spinny-wheel or the wrecking ball from TP, which were cool I guess, but at the same time not really used as much as possible...they felt very gimmick-like.

This is hard.


Some Link's awakening things I'm divided on as I play through:

1. Things like Magic Powder. I am slightly leaning towards it's a good addition, as lighting torches can be interesting (but as far as I remember, wasn't used in too meaningful of a way except "light the torches!" or "light up the room!" puzzles). What I'm more divided over is the ammo aspect - making you search for more if you run out. It does instill a sense of wanting to preserve the ammo, but at a slight cost of sanity of the player if you're deep in a dungeon and there is no extra readily available...but I guess that's the point? Tough thing.

2. Rupees. RUPEES. They seem like a strange add-on that wasn't executed very gracefully...they seem more of a mechanic to justify the existence of multiple treasure boxes. I don't know. I don't really see the cycle of running out and buying ammo of adding much meaning to the game. In some ways rupees could work, but not in this shop way. A slight plus is they give you a sense of progress as you work towards buying the shovel or bow...hm.

And some things I noticed were positive about Key Cavern from LA:

They really do well with giving you the sense of conquering the dungeon. By the time you get a few screens in, you've seen 3-4 things that you can't do yet - that you'll have to return to. And by the end, you've figured out, or you have the ability to, do all these things. It's a nice sense of completion.

[Gimym TILBERT]

http://garethrees.org/2004/12/01/ocarina-of-time/

you might look here to start

http://facerocker.com/2011/01/12/starting-the-perfect-adventure-%E2%80%93-link%E2%80%99s-awakening/

also this give some insight

from their analysis you can start to see pattern and difference more clearly across zelda games.

However I would count mario 64 as one of the best zelda (don't ask)

Modern zelda are literary this loop:
-understand spatial relationship
-find the goal through this understanding (the
-Solve how to get to the goal
-Execute the path/sequence to the goal

Basically it's 3 puzzle nested (spatial puzzle, understanding of goal/direction, execution puzzle)

Mario 64 is a more compact "zelda adventure" but basically they share the same structure, in mario goals are explicit (star) but often they are hidden under implicit goal (context puzzle) while zelda goal are more often implicit (whatever gating mechanics). But in mario not only each puzzle is 3 nested puzzle but each map have 7 nested puzzle, zelda puzzle are not that nested inside each other (at best one local puzzle and one meta puzzle for the whole level where local puzzle get reused after the player made significant progress (apparent once he have the compass), zelda is more progressive than mario with a fixed overall goal (boss of the dungeon) and locality of most puzzle, the meta puzzle being the final puzzle)

That mean that paying attention to player's flows is important, not just navigational flow but information flow as well (which zelda spread out in dungeon with map and compass mechanics beside environmental clues)


edit:
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/9236/ metroid but maight be relevant

[seagaia]

I think the Link's Awakening article is a little too starry eyed, although that intro is a really good one. I don't think you should ever be able to rely on someone being able to talk to an NPC to learn how to save the game. Not all player types want to talk to every kid. Although, placing the kids in front of the library is a better idea than throwing them off somewhere else. I still think it would have been good to have some way to save through the menu (which would *definitely* be explored) rather than mashing all of the buttons.

A lot rides on the game boy color having only 8 inputs. I'm finding it hard to go be able to both teach the controls and allow them to be custom-set, which is more or less a necessity for the kind of PC game I'm making. Obviously this has to be done immediately, which is kind of awkward, but necessary - with computers you can't rely on everyone having arrow keys or whatever...(I've been messing around with various implementations...).

AS for the "you can lift rock" tip, let's not forget that they ALWAYS pop up, even after getting the item and using it a few times. It is a bit of a tough design decision. Do we inundate the player constantly and break the game flow for a few seconds if they accidentally touch it? Or do we cover our bases and allow for the possibility that someone picks up the game a year later and has completely forgotten how to pick up stuff?

And...ammo. But again that's item design. I'm playing through Catfish's Maw and oh my god the lack of bombs is ridiculously annoying. Run out of bombs halfway through one of the minibosses? Have fun spending an hour trying to get enough randomly dropped bombs! Or completely kill the flow of the dungeon and walk back to the store!

But, those are just minor complaints in the grand scheme of how good of a game Link's Awakening is.


I'll check out the OoT/Metroid one eventually.

[Dovuro]

And...ammo. But again that's item design. I'm playing through Catfish's Maw and oh my god the lack of bombs is ridiculously annoying. Run out of bombs halfway through one of the minibosses? Have fun spending an hour trying to get enough randomly dropped bombs! Or completely kill the flow of the dungeon and walk back to the store!

I've noticed later Zelda games do a few things to try to avoid situations like that. For example, boss and miniboss rooms that require use of a certain expendendable item might include regenerating plants that drop that item when chopped down. Also, most plants will drop random expendable items, but if you're near a puzzle that requires a specific expendable item, nearby plants might drop that item exclusively. These tweaks serve the dual purpose of both keeping the player's inventory from running out of essential items, as well as giving them hints about what item is needed to proceed through the game ("Oh, all these plants gave me bombs. I must need to use bombs soon.")

[Fallsburg]

And...ammo. But again that's item design. I'm playing through Catfish's Maw and oh my god the lack of bombs is ridiculously annoying. Run out of bombs halfway through one of the minibosses? Have fun spending an hour trying to get enough randomly dropped bombs! Or completely kill the flow of the dungeon and walk back to the store!

I've noticed later Zelda games do a few things to try to avoid situations like that. For example, boss and miniboss rooms that require use of a certain expendendable item might include regenerating plants that drop that item when chopped down. Also, most plants will drop random expendable items, but if you're near a puzzle that requires a specific expendable item, nearby plants might drop that item exclusively. These tweaks serve the dual purpose of both keeping the player's inventory from running out of essential items, as well as giving them hints about what item is needed to proceed through the game ("Oh, all these plants gave me bombs. I must need to use bombs soon.")

I feel that the later Zeldas swung too far the other way though.  It's no longer "Oh, I can beat this guy faster if I have bombs" it's "Right, I have to hit dangly weak-point 3 with 4 bombs and then I can slash him in the head 5 times and then repeat this sequence 4 more times."  I don't think any expendable item should ever be necessary to complete a boss.

Also, what you described isn't a puzzle.  It's a "puzzle".  If the game states to you (implicitly or explicitly) "Here are bombs. You're going to need them *wink*" then there is nothing puzzling about it.

[Tumetsu]

I don't think any expendable item should ever be necessary to complete a boss.

I disagree. I think it can create interesting change in combat when I notice that I have to restock my supply by however I need and I'm basically vulnerable that time. It requires player to change their action in midst of fight. That's it, if player can restock ammo in battle. I agree that if expendable items are needed they should be able to restock in the battle itself.

Another possibility could be something like Demon's Souls or Dark Souls have. Player can hang on back and fire magic to boss in relative safe. However, if and when magic runs out, player needs to get into hand on hand combat.

What killed Zelda games for me was that puzzle boss formula they use all and all again. This is most evident in 3d ones. Oracles had a bit of it, but it was IMO okay and in general the combat was still combat. Best boss in Wind Waker IMO was the duel with Ganondorf at the end of the game. If I could decide, I'd get rid of most puzzle bosses and instead gear a bit toward Dark Souls or perhaps Monster Hunter, where the behavior and movements of the monster is the real puzzle; not some artificial contraption.

[C.A. Sinner]

Agreed. Demon's Souls / Dark Souls / Monster Hunter's multi solution strategic boss fights are a ton more fun than modern Zelda's formlaic puzzle bosses.

[Graham.]

God, I love those games.

The simplicity of Zelda bosses have their charm too. Not as rewarding, but they have their place.

Note: Dark Souls is for the hardcore, Zelda is reaching out to the wider market.

[seagaia]

From a design standpoint it's a helluva lot easier to make puzzle bosses than action-strategy bosses. You could make some flowchart of the boss battle flow, puzzle bosses are more or less one way, while action-strategy are a wide interconnected graph of decisions. Which makes it hard to sort of make sure there isn't some silly loophole to make the entire battle trivial.

The puzzle bosses seem like an easy way to make an initially impressive and cinematic-like boss battle.

This totally makes me rethink a boss that I created for my game, in some ways it feels like a puzzle boss, but I don't know. I'll see what people think.

---

I took a look at the dependency graph for Ocarina of time. The mapping of the water temple is quite fascinating, thanks for sharing.

[Tumetsu]

Note: Dark Souls is for the hardcore, Zelda is reaching out to the wider market.

While true I don't see why "wider market game" couldn't have boss fights more like DkS, MH etc. IMO Zelda's concept has potential for this, if only designers allowed using all or many weapons in each boss. Ideally player could switch attack weapon depending on the wave of the combat. Boss is in berserk, can't get close? No worries, I'll throw boomerang to him while avoiding the attacks. Now boss is calmer, time for traditional sword action.

Problem with Zelda bosses is for me that they degenerate in to formula:
1) Observe the environment
2) Figure puzzle
3) Execute three times.

And in most of the cases the "puzzle" isn't that clever either. The most annoying thing in this is that most of the time I feel like running some obstacle track, not having combat. With Souls games or MH I actually feel like I'm fighting for my life and whole battles are hand on hand. Many Zelda bosses which I can remember are more like hanging around waiting boss to do something while avoiding some few stray attacks. Most of the time bosses just mind their own business and are not really after me. They don't feel aggressive, and therefore the combat loses its edge.

Worst offenders on top of my head are Lava monster from Wind Waker, Fire spider and that big dark monster from Skyward sword. But on the other hand Zelda has had some awesome boss fights like Ganondorf in the WW and TP dragon boss in the City in the Sky.