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Oracle of Ages and Seasons | Boss Keys (Patreon)

Published:
2016-09-25 08:18:00
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Enjoy! Will put this out to the world later today or tomorrow.

And yeah, I will release the graphs at some point. Just gotta figure out the best place for them.

Also - 800 Patrons. Holy cow. Amazing.

Files

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Seasons' dungeon design | Boss Keys

Boss Keys is an on-going research project to analyse the level design of the dungeons in The Legend of Zelda. This time, it's the turn of Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons.

Comments

Kris De Schutter

Just subscribed this morning; this is a great way to get started. :-) Looking forward to see much more.

drixkarasu

I liked the new graphs for the dungeons, thanks for all your effort.

Kris De Schutter

I think your dungeon graphs could make for a nice Boss Keys poster.

Dan Root

It'll be fascinating to see how differently dungeons are designed in A Link Between Worlds.

Fabian

Where are those horrible Link cutscenes taken from (the ones in the middle and at the end)?

Fabian

Just watched some cutscenes from it on youtube. Had to stop after one and a half minutes - unbearable.

James

Seasons definitely has the best power-up, but it also needs to be said that Ages has the worst power-up in the entire Zelda series; the mermaid suit. There have been many lame or useless power-ups in Zelda, but this one forces you to tap the d-pad in order to move, which is just obnoxious and makes the Jabu-Jabu dungeon even more frustrating to navigate. Coincidentally, this example sums up how I feel about playing Ages in general.

Rich Stoehr

Very cool graphs, Mark. They're a useful way of getting a quick snapshot. I'm excited to see how they hold up for Wind Waker!

davemakes

Those charts are brilliant!

Liam Harvey

Deliciously nerdy video! Yum. And as for those graphs? Prime material for PornHub, surely. I was wondering Mark, how long is your script word counts, on average?

Joey

Love those graphs. The GMTK episode that these Boss Keys eps are leading to is gonna be a doozy. I can't wait for you to tackle Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.

Jędrzej Wiliński

Great stuff as always Mark. Played the Oracle of Ages recently and was shocked that it went so under the radar. Capcom did a really nice job. BTW Mark - Kotaku just posted an article about your Boss Keys series. Congrats!

Alex H Johnstone

Mmmmm love the diagrams. Really great to see them used to compare the games. Would be amazing to see a recap episode at the end where you compare the evolution of dungeons throughout the games.

Vesselin Jilov

Many YouTube commenters seem to not understand what you are doing and why. This episode was too meta and too abstract for a large audience, I guess. I want to say, as a backer, that this is some of your best work so far. I love your graphs. I did similar ones on paper (not as good as yours) when, a decade ago, I tried to analyze the design of the first Tomb Raider games, most Prince of Persia style games (Flashback, Blackthorne), The Lost Vikings, Project Eden, even the first Half-Life. Turns out that all of the complexity and diversity in their level design, 2d or 3d, can be simplified into a small number of concepts. One repeating pattern in the level design that I love is constantly seeing things you can't reach yet, or changing a room and its meaning, or even making two rooms that don't make sense separately, to make sense together. I made a series of simple symbols, like "one sided door", that is, something you can open only from inside. Anyway, I just wanted to say that your videos in general made me feel as if I'm not some insane overthinking overanalyzing freak. Seeing someone reaching similar conclusions and obsessing over similar principles feels great. It feels even better to learn how Zelda games (which I never played, Eastern Europe is not a place where consoles thrive) follow the same principles that many of my other favourite games do. Thank you!

Cleo Saulnier

I agree with Vesselin. It was so good, I signed up and am supporting this series for that reason. I've watched that episode probably over 30 times now. The complaints on youtube that you didn't talk specifically about their favourite game is kind of funny. I understand what they're saying, but it's like they missed the entire point of the concepts explained. This one episode will help more with my level designs in a game I'm trying to make than anything else I've watched or read yet.

Kevin Black

Could I ask how you're going about playing all the GBC Zeldas? That big chunky pixel look is amazing, on an original fat Nintendo DS?

Game Maker's Toolkit (GMTK)

Just using an emulator for those (and Minish Cap). 3DS and DS games will be captured from actual hardware though