¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Dev Game Club Introduction
Hello and welcome back to Dev Game Club, weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past. discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duval, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who has just freed the innocent spirit that this dark mask had kept imprisoned within the body of evil goats.
Tim Longo
It's that's a little that's a little long.
Yeah, I was th I was waiting to see where this was going.
Yeah. Maybe I should just that this dark mask had kept him prisoned. Maybe that's the place to go.
Sequence in that in that circular waterfall, basin, whatever the heck that is. It's it's gonna be it's gonna stick with me. That is a memorable weird, memorable scene. Um, I've seen it twice. Well, you've seen it twice now too.
The giants, you know, standing off in the fog.
And just like the wail sounds they make and just like the things they say which are like you know, obviously vague and it's just This game is something I'll know.
¶ Game Crashes and Player Morale
And this game is Majora's Mask. In case in case you're joining us and and have not been following for some reason the last four episodes. This is our fifth and final episode uh I have had.
Uh so remember how my game crashed before and I had to redo a bunch of stuff? Well guess what happened again? Except this time I was like, I'm not gonna do that stuff all again. I'm done. Uh so and I will say Um, I knew that this was a potential problem because somebody had emailed I I think I was we were talking in pre-show back when we played Ocarina and said we might play Majora's Mask at some point.
somebody emailed and said, Well, you should stay away from the GameCube version which is what I have. Um And uh you know I wasn't Tim's shelling out for the Nintendo online thing, but I was like, Well, I I have a copy, so I'm not gonna not gonna Um but turns out I probably should have and not have these kinds of problems because you have not.
No, no. And in fact, you know, there's advantages, right? Playing on that. Yeah.
Of course, suspended. Yeah.
Yeah. So you know, I don't I obviously it's not playing the true way, um, but um you're closer to Um yeah. Yeah, that's a bummer. I mean that's definitely those, you know, we not not as not intent we we hadn't intended to talk about this, so it's side commentary, but you know I As developers, crashes are big, big deals. Yeah. They still happen, and I think they all happen to all of us when we play games.
And I don't want to say that we dismiss them or it's like, oh, it's a cr it's sort of like a Deus Ex Machina. It's like, well, crab, what are you going to do? It's crash. But just know that developers don't want like we try hard not to have crashes. Yeah. Because it is it is it does feel like it's out of your control as a player. Because it is, of course. But it You don't it's not a good thing.
The loss is terrible.
Yeah.
It's it's totally disruptive psychologically of like you you had a thing you were doing You did a bunch of things to get to that point where you're doing the thing that you were doing, and now all of that chain is lost. Yeah. So even getting back to where it was just is so dispiriting to I mean, I was just like, Oh, I guess I'm done with this game now was like, you know, putting this one on the shelf kind of event. Um
You know, so I mean there are probably crashers that are better some are better than others in some ways, but this is because of this game's weird saving, it's not like I could have done anything. You know, I would have had to be saving more frequently, you know, and Uh yeah, just r basically restarting the days more frequently, I should say. And I'm you know, um that's just n kinda not how you play the game, you know, it's not my experience.
This of all games to have crash problems, yeah. Which is and then the other weird thing is the
It's just
Yeah, I mean I I it definitely feels like they were pushing, you know, what they were able to do emulating on the GameCube. Yeah. The Nintendo sixty four and this was
A special edition thing, right? It wasn't
The pre order bonus for Wing uh for Wind Waker. Um
I had it too. I got rid of it, but I did have it, yeah.
I had that and um Yeah, and it's got all it's got a bunch of games on it, including Arkarina, which which was fine, you know, which is also kinda weird. It's like I played all of Arcarena for the podcast that way and it was fine. But um
Mm.
So it's just weird, you know. It is what it is.
¶ Convoluted Dungeon Design
Yeah, and then the other side of it is like we've talked about some of the usability challenges with the game. that is also not very Nintendo. Um, and again, I'm gonna get all this stuff out of the way'cause there's a lot of praise that I still have for the game. But um As a designer or as an implementer or as somebody who, you know, is for the rest of the team who's working on the actual game, the other reason crashes.
Terrible is like players don't get to see it's something that stands in the way of actually seeing the content, even if the content has usability issues. It's like, you know, they never there's that, there's that challenge, but but it's like, well, if you can't run the game effectively, then people will exit and not even for the game's fault, right? Or the the content's fault.
Right.
So
And well and and for that matter, to be honest, I mean, there's also often, you know, a a game that crashes often reflects tools that crash, you know, because the same engineers who are B back in the day anyway, the same engineers who are writing your game are writing your tools. Um you know, so there tends to be and that and that that that leads to a mur real morale challenge on any team. The programmers don't even care if I lose my work, you know, kind of uh problem. So
Yeah. And I and I wanna be clear, I'm not just trying to blame any particular department crashes or
Sure. But really they s they they start in one particular place.
Okay.
I mean, the engineers are really responsible for the lion's share. I mean, there are some things that are hard to guard against, but um
You know.
I know a couple of designers who are pretty good at
Yeah, I mean there are there are always like
Trashing for
Things like I definitely can remember on Starfighter, uh Jesse Moore was like Well, if I do this and then I do this, then the it just locks up. And I was like, Well, don't do that. And he's like, Well I but I want this to happen. I said, Well, here's how you do it. Um because the solving the problem
It was an infinite loop between two events, I think, in in Starfighter how it worked. I mean the mission logic was like an event would fire and respond to it. And he wanted these two like sympathetic things to happen. Um and I was like, Oh, don't do it. Because if you do it that way, you can just I could guard against this problem, but then you'll just find another way to do this and I can't, you know, I can't guard against every possible way you could cause this problem. I was like just
Just don't do this. So um so yeah. We yeah, we that's how we worked around that one. It was like this is fixable. But the effort is so not worth it for what you want to do. So let's just do it a different way. Um
¶ Designers Abusing Tools
That's the funny thing about designers and people who think like designers, you know, because all disciplines do to some degree, is you give us tools and because we're already thinking about ways to create challenge for a player or like I bet you I could get this tool to do this because it's like it's like a the tools are like another puzzle. Right. How do I use the puzzle?
How do I abuse how do I abuse the puzzle, yeah, to to do this thing?
Yeah. I'm gonna cheat it's like che it's like Dark Souls cheesing or something. It's like, you know what, this boss is hard, but what if I did this? Yeah. You know, um that's
Yeah, when we were doing some prototyping in Unreal, there were definitely things that I taught designers that I was like, am I gonna regret? These designers this. And in some cases, I wrote tools to detect things that I didn't want the designers to over to abuse. So that I would run periodically just to detect, are they using this a lot? Um and in some cases they were. So and I had to go and fix them.
Anyway, that's uh we're far off the uh mark talking about crashes, I guess, but that's just to uh explain why I will have a little less to contribute in terms of uh having seen a lot of the game this week. Uh just because of that. I did beat the bull bus. I did go back and that dungeon takes quite a while to get through, even
even kind of knowing most of the steps. There were a couple of things I had to sort of refigure out. Like I missed one of the keys. Um I forget there was a tiny little room hidden by these blocks that you move. Um
Mm-hmm.
So there's one of the key one of the small keys is in there. And then I was like, I don't have the boss key. I forgot that you actually have to go all the way basically to the top to get the boss key. Uh so I was a little worried about that. I was like, Well, shouldn't I have the boss key by now? I was like, Well, I guess I'll just plunge on. I do know there's this fight I've gotta do and then the boss key's in the next room. I I forgot that. So I um
There were just a number of little things like that that that slowed me down. I did it in less than a day of in game time, so it would have been possible, you know, if I had not run into some like not knowing what to do issues l last week. I probably could have completed it, but, you know, who knows? Maybe it would've crashed last week too. So, uh so who knows. Um But it wasn't it wasn't too bad going back and and doing it again. Uh it just is it was a lot longer than I expected, I guess.
¶ Dungeon Design for Replayability
It um it is a we talked about this last time, but that dungeon is a complicated enough design and um I would even maybe call it convoluted um in that Like so the w this isn't a takeaway from me, but I'm just thinking of this now. The other but it but not that not that we or I will ever make a game like this about time, though after playing this game I kind of like to think of the challenge of what that would be and then I think, oh they're But
The perfect the the perfect modern version of this. But um and I know they're not the same because this game definitely handles it much differently. But I was thinking like You Once they I bet you if they if the Majora's team had to make a sequel to Majora's, right? Direct sequel using all the same kind of concepts, they would have learned a lot themselves.
And with the dungeons and and the second dungeon's a good example or the Goron Dungeons a good example in that I don't think that dungeon's design was designed in terms of the concept of the game. Meaning if you're gonna if there's a chance that you're gonna have to redo it or or come back or meet halfway and You need dungeons that are easy to r not easy to remember, but have some sort of like
Clues about remembering, you know, things to jog your memory. Because if you were to ask me right now, what are the order of things that you need to do? There's no way in hell I could tell you. Right.
Yeah. No, it's it it is very con convoluted in that way. I mean the number one example I can I can think of is that there are multiple ways to get down to lower to the lower level, lower levels, and there are multiple ways to get up to the upper level. Yeah. And w you know, it in some cases they're like literally just staircases. So it's like there's two staircases to get down. You know, it's like, is that necessary? Like I I really feel like
Those are the sorts of things that would trip me up frequently. I was like, wait a minute, I wanna go Yeah. I wanna go and in particular when I had realized I got up basically near the top and I didn't have a key that I needed. I was like, oh no, um Mm-hmm. And and then at the same time I was like, Do I need the bridge thing to be down or the pillar, the central pillar to be up or down? Like I'm not sure where this key is. I'm basically gonna have to revisit everything.
I guess the smart thing to do is just like jump all the way down to the basement and
It's just demoralizing.
Yeah, I mean so many levels, you know. And I mean and and once it happened to me accidentally, because of the rolling mechanic is it's a little hard to control when you need to turn it. Yeah, it's uh it's it's it was very uh
This seems like an advanced Zelda game to me. Like this is for advanced Zelda players.
I mean I also think I just think the dungeon that dungeon design is just there's there's too much and the things like the map are not helpful. Yeah.
Oh no, not at all.
all. And in like like I'm not even sh there's some orange dots on the map. I'm not sure what those are about. Um maybe those are cherries. Oh, those are chess. Okay. Yeah. Well maybe that was on maybe that was meant to help me. Yeah. But I you know I it didn't, I'll just say. So
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's a it's a thing that you can get. I don't know if they're always chests, but yeah, mostly most of the time. But it is a clue that there's something there, but because it's a two dimensional Um yeah, they're very, it's very vague, vaguely usable. Yeah, I just, you know, like i I don't know obviously we don't know how many people from Ocarinas directly moved over to Majora.
And I can imagine a dungeon designer from Ocarina moving over to this. And not all not only did we have we already talked about how little time they had. Which is like also a challenge for a team. But I can also imagine like, oh, I'm really gonna ratchet this up. I know how to make dungeons from obviously there's infamo infamous dungeons.
Ocarina as well for different reasons. But you know, if the water temple designer, you know, got their hands on you know what I mean? It's like I and I'm speaking for myself where you're like Um on the first the first game I was a level designer on, I had two levels assigned. The first one was earlier in the game and and a little bit more, you know, quote unquote, I guess I'll say standard. And then the the second one I was given was the last level.
Oh yeah. And I was like, Oh yeah, this is the last level. I'm really gonna ratchet this sucker up.
You sure did.
Ha ha ha. And Sue made myself joke. Um and I just think, you know, for better or for worse. you know, you're making you're trying to make things more challenging for the player but Sometimes you're also doing it for yourself, you know, to be like what can what how clever can I be?
Yeah, who's having the fun here, Tim?
Exactly. Well, I can just see this particular the Goron dungeon felt like they kind of got away from them. You know, they just kept adding and And it's like like you said, to the point of like having equally weighted entrances or exits that do the same thing. Those are usability problems because the player doesn't understand, you know. So it and but they could have been band-aid.
Perfect example. Because there are
Yeah.
Three ways to get to that. I mean there's the two green doors, but then you can also go in from the basement. um and be a Deku kid, like some of the some of the things I think they were learning about layering onto the world they maybe went too far with. You know, in in the dungeons in particular, I think you want a clearer flow. And so like It's not helpful to have that additional way to get up there.
you know, like that shortcut doesn't help me because it's very hard to keep oriented when there are so many ways to get to the thing you you want to do. I don't because the the normal way you would play through that through the game, you would do one of And that should be the one. You know, the yeah that room doesn't need multiple entrances and ex exits. Re you know.
Right. Yeah, no, it's a good example. I bet you the irony of that Deku uh
Scrap.
Um the irony of that one is that probably was
To something else, yeah.
Right, can we get a shortcut some here? You know, and they didn't have a because it wasn't designed, you know, um They didn't have the time to kind of make it the elegant version. They're like, Well it just The the pro and the con of the mask is that you can put a Deku plant
Right.
Anywhere and it you have this great systemic, you know, mechanic option mechanical option. mechanical, I guess, option, which is cool because you know it's telegraphs itself, you know what, you know. writes itself at that point. But I it felt kind of tacked on to me, yeah. That it was there in that room.
I think there's one at the top too. Um Which I presume is there that I think before the before the boss room I think there's I think there's one there and I presumably that is so that you can Jump back if you decided you wanted to do other things in the dungeon, like you missed something. Like if you didn't have the boss key rather than falling.
Maybe.
You could.
Not sure I know where that one is. There is a hidden.
Over the ramp. Um The ramp to the boss boss room, as I flew over, there I saw a Deku thing.
Okay, yeah,'cause there is a a a an invisible wall in the main chamber that has a chest in it that I assume is a fairy.
Oh boy.
So that might be it. But um I mean the thing about this one.
¶ Too Many Tools, Poor Interface
And there's a lot of layers too of the like the lens of truth,'cause there was a thing you told me about. I was like, No, I can't believe I didn't There's almost too many tools for the
Yeah.
You know, for the for the interface, right? I mean it's'cause you can only have three tools bound at once. I was like, Well, I always have the Goron mask bound'cause I'm gonna switch between that and link a lot'cause I need to use the arrows a lot. Um Then I have the arrows, and then the one I guess I could drop would be I normally have the Ocarina on. Um, but that's just like
'Cause I need that wherever I go, you know, and um I could probably yeah not use that in the dungeon. I just kind of have it always bound to left because I'm like the Ocarina is just the thing I need, you know, and when I'm playing this game. So I just kind of leave it. Um but I guess I could take that one off, you know. It's just is there's just so many options. And you do need the bombs too as well in this dungeon, you know.
No. You just have to swap all the time.
I mean, I was swapping a lot as it was. I still was like, Oh, this is too much. So
Yeah, I mean they you know they
So I didn't think to swap the lens of truth in because it was yet another
Yeah.
So I you know, it's it's sort of like you compare this to something like um I don't know, Met Metroid Prime, which granted is a GameCube uh game. Um and I just you know the the vision mode
felt so elegant. And it's like, well it's just bound on bound here and you sh you know, you just use'em. Um, you know, and that it it feels like When you're getting the point where you don't have enough buttons for all the things, like and you need to need to use more a larger set, you know, than in a dungeon, for example, then like you you want to have a standard set that m maps onto the controls, I guess, that you can do everything.
You know, for a dungeon. It's like so once I've bound it once, I'm done. Yeah. I can I can use it multiple times, you know. That's
That's a great point. That's another example of what I mean by design the dental. for the for the state of the game that they're in. But I think again, the structure of this game has made that challenging for themselves. Yeah. So I mean I again, it'll come up in takeaways, I applaud them for going after it. It's just uh they just didn't quite um They didn't know what they had, you know? And and again, like I would love either to
I would love to see this game after another year of dev.
Oh, great point. Yeah, totally. Totally. More playtesting. Um, more responses. Uh yeah, it would have been I know it's already considered to be a you know, a kind of a cult masterpiece, but um I think it would have been
Even for some something special. Yeah.
Yeah. Um yeah, but that's yeah, that's an the designing for yeah, what state'cause it it only gets worse from here once you get more m more things.
Yeah, more tools, yeah.
Oh I man, I could do all these I I do I have to now check the language
My my thinking was literally at a at a certain point with the the fai some of the fairies I couldn't reach, I was like, Oh, Tim mentioned the hook shot. I was like, Do I need the hookshot for these? You know, like
Yeah. Yeah.
I started like there was one chest I didn't know how to get and I was like, Well maybe you can get it down with a hook shot. I forgot like I forgot about the lens of truth entirely at times. Like even though I used it to get into the dungeon. It's also like the sparse use that makes some of these things a little a little hard to just like maintain everything that you can do. Yeah. Um, you know, in your brain. So I think.
¶ Time Constraints and Game Development
I mean I I yeah, it's just a really interesting development story now, now that we played it and we know what very little we know. It it is such a good example about how time constraints can change. Yeah. Because because you can change what the outcome is. Again, still a brilliant game, and I I'm still in the pr positive. I'm still in the pros on it generally. But to have Ocarina and this back to back, you have such a great like case study of the two. One that was
in you know, fully developed, I guess I'll say, and given the time it needed. Yeah. And then one that was not. And what and and, you know, probably not identical teams, but, you know, the same company with the same
They're probably very similar teams though. I mean I
Maybe similar to
It would be very hard to get this done. Rock arena in fourteen months without a lot of teams.
Not the people that knew yeah. Yeah. So they probably had their prototype team for Wind Waker broke off, but most of the the you know, the development team was Yeah, so I mean clearly there are experts in there they knew what they were doing,'cause I don't know how you would make this game if you didn't know what you were doing because it's so complex.
Yeah.
But it was very it did it you know, we talked a lot about layers during this this series and it just felt like Because you know, we've talked about this in our day jobs. It's like once a team knows a thing. They will kind of like You really have to give yourself discipline and constraints or you just keep going.
Right.
'Cause you're like, Well, we can do anything now, you know. So we are. We're gonna do anything.
Yeah.
Like, well, you need to say no to things as well, even though you have complete power over the engine or the game or whatever it is if you You still need to have You still need you still need to have discipline for the player's sake. It can't just be more and more and layers and
layers and this game is definitely layers and layers, which I think is why people like it. I will say that so I am I'll tell my story in a bit, but because I have so many tools now, it is very interesting to be out in the open world.
¶ Overwhelming Open World Tools
What you know, whatever you want to call it out out in out in the world.
Not in the dungeons.
Yeah, with so many tools, you know, and it's like'cause I have the hook shot, I have the ice arrow, you know, and and I don't have the last couple things'cause I haven't done the last dungeon, but Um, and I have a couple more masks and it's like It's overwhelming and intimidating to think, oh my gosh, what should I use the lens? Yeah. I have started to kind of like, oh, I bet there there's a lens thing there. So I turn it on and there's nothing there. And I'm like, ah
Yeah.
They have...
That's that's definitely a thing is i especially with some of the
Um
Some of the things that you're gonna get yielded to you are gonna be things that you're gonna lose at the end of the day as well. So it's like what's why would you spend the effort then? You know, right? I mean if you're gonna get I mean, some rupees I guess you can put in the bag. Amusingly like
One of the things I did when I went back to town before I crashed was like deposit all my rupees in the bank. Um, and he was like, Oh here, you've deposited so much, let me give you some more rupees. I'm like Okay. And I deposited those in the back. And I'm like, is he gonna give me more? Is it more? You know, I was very
What kind of bank is that? Very in interest?
Well I I think I had hit two hundred again.
And
The thing they do in Zelda if you've already done a thing and you do it again is they're like, Here's five rupees So I deposited enough to push me over two hundred again and it gave me He gave me five rupees and then I deposited those too. I was like, Okay, well here, put them in my account. Uh it's very funny.
Hm, that's funny, yeah.
Yeah, I mean if I were gonna go out and do something in the world and I was gonna get a red rupee I'd be like, Whoop dee doo you know, it's like there's a lot of stuff here that doesn't entirely gel with the concept, you know, um the overall concept, you know. Right. Because because you're gonna lose so much.
¶ Mastering the Three-Day Loop
Yeah, right. There's that. There's the there's the saving up. But I think the interesting thing for me that I've I'm that I'll talk about in a second. I don't I don't I don't wanna say I've gotten over the hump, but you know, there's always we talk we've talked about a lot in the history of the podcast. There's that hump you get over where you're like, Oh, okay, I'm kinda in I'm in I'm in the group. what's going on and and I know how to feel about
And I'm I don't think I'm over that yet, but I'm I'm kind of inching toward it. I can see the top of the hump. Um and to your point on like a random chest of um when you start a day, a random chest with red rubies or rupees. Um... So to give you a specific example, like yes, from a long term savings perspective, it's like whoop de doo. But um, say I don't know, say you didn't have anything in the bank or I don't I'm not even sure.
So if you put money in the bank and you start the day over, the money's there.
Money's there.
Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that's one of the
Otherwise you'd have to really invest to uh get two hundred'cause it's you can only carry ninety nine.
Yeah, yeah.
With a little wallet. So
Right. Yeah. So and I and I haven't been using the bank much, but um to get to the ranch, right, there's that rock blocking the way. And if you want to get to the rock Through if you want to get to the ranch on the first or second day, you need a powder. And so when you start a new day, even if you have the Goron mask, you have to buy a powder cake for fifty rupees. And if I didn't I didn't have money enough in the bank or whatever.
Or I didn't even think to do that. But I went to go find some of the red chests that are right outside the town that I knew about. That dog. Um and so I could go buy the powder cake, you know what I mean? Yeah and so it's it's that sort of like grinding mentality of like, oh okay, I know where to go get fifty rupees. By doing these things, it's that like
It's that um perfect day mentality, right? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna start the new day. I'm gonna go collect these five chests. I'm gonna have what I need. I'm gonna go get this. I'm gonna go get that. So I again I haven't gotten that perfect day down by any means. I feel like I'm really just scratching the surface. Um but I can kind of see, right? When you have the sort of like tried and true.
generally in a typical playthrough of of the game, you don't care about that stuff, but there's times when you're doing it trying to do a specific thing, which I was trying to do, that alien quest.
Right.
Right.
I know.
30 in the morning. And the interesting thing is, you can't do that unless you've done the Goron dungeon because you need the powder. So that quest is not doable and
Oh how do you why is the powder cake not available to you before that?
'Cause you need to be a Goron.
Oh only a Goran can carry it.
Only a Goron can carry it and use it and the guy who's pickaxing that rock doesn't finish until the third.
Yeah, he's like, yeah, that's too late.
For the alien event. So like that's like a great example of how much they thought through the order of operations for stuff, you know. And Now that my notebook is, I would say two thirds full, you know, and I just you just see all of the different threads and you're like,
No wonder it took Phil Connors ten years to break the loop.
¶ Persistent Notebook and Schedules
Exactly. Yeah. So tell us more about the notebook. I mean I didn't spend any more time with it. Ironically Uh the first time I crashed I lost a bunch of notebook entries that I because I went and looked today and it was like I could have sworn I had a lot more entries and I was like, Oh I did. It's because'cause I was
searching for the bottle the first time uh in town and went in every building uh and talked to a lot of people and finally, you know, so I ended up with all these entries that were useless. The mail man I mean, useless to me. for finding the bottle, I should say. Um And uh yeah, and then of course I crashed after that, so I lost all of those things. There's so many things you lose when you crash when in this game. Uh it's annoying.
Yeah. Well and games of that time, right? Like we talk so much about the save system. In fact, on stream last week, or maybe the week before, I forget. Um Uh folks were on and Calamity specifically was on and we were kinda talking about safety. And in real in re relation Um but it's yeah, it's like the save. I don't know. We just these days we take saves for granted, you know? I think I think Calamity or somebody asked the question of like
you know what what's the perfect what's the perfect save system or you know that's my reductive version. You know, there's quick saves and there's manual saves and there's autosaves and you know and I gave personally I gave a recent the best of all worlds, you know, and I I felt pre completely protected as a player. And you really need to because it's such a big game. Right. But yeah, in this in this era, a crash, you know
Yeah, yeah.
So much more catastrophic. Yeah. So um Yeah, so the notebook so one thing that I didn't realize about the notebook that I'm happy about is that once you get an entry and you start the day over, that entry is still there. Mm-hmm. Which I didn't know. I think my assumption, because I hadn't fooled with it very much at all, um was that you had to redo, you know, re go get those quests. So that was a good that was a nice surprise. So that stuff's logged in there. Um and in fact
Yeah, how did that was that retroactive? Yeah, so I did a thing and then once I got the notebook after I did a thing, I think that the the dude was already in the notebook and it was completed.
Oh I think it will fill in things that you've done.
I've already done. Yeah,'cause I it was related to getting a mask and so it wasn't working Yeah, so the so they knew. Yeah. So that was also nice. So long story short, there were some conveniences there. I didn't realize. The other thing that's sort of notebook adjacent that I didn't
look, I didn't pay attention to because when I would start a day and slow down time, I would just leave town. And you probably noticed this, but I didn't realize when you slow down time, the people slowed down as well.
Oh yeah.
Like they move in slow motion. And I was like, Are you kidding me? I want to slow time down so I can do things. You know what I mean? It was like the
Schedules, right?
Makes sense. No, no, it makes sense logically from a but but you know, my motivation for slowing down time was to give me more time to do things, but yet it doesn't actually for the people at least it doesn't do that because they're still gonna do things when I'm gonna do that. So
Yeah. I mean I think I think probably on your final like perfect run day it there's probably enough stuff. that having them slowed down is still beneficial, but Uh oh maybe, maybe'cause you you will have like twenty entries at that point. So I think you actually I mean, I think at that point too, you're like really thinking about like what order do you want to do them in. Um as well. So it's yeah, I think it's
No, and I'm I like I said, I'm definitely just only scratching the surface. I can see the matrix happening, I think. You know, it's like I'm in the I'm at the point where I see the lines of the matrix, but I don't see the faces in the You know, to make a super nerdy, silly
Yeah, that's pretty nerdy.
I don't see the city through you know, through the majority.
Through the data streams.
Yeah, but um but I the potential's there for sure. So, you know, some example I did the organ grinder thing, which was kind of a bit of a happenstance, but that leads to another Um one and I've collected a bunch and I have clue I think I have really good clues and ideas about what to do for some of them.
¶ Deep and Memorable NPCs
I really love something that I didn't feel the same love for in Ocarina for some reason is I don't think Um, people probably get mad at me for saying this, but I don't remember the NPCs in town, or there's a couple towns, I guess. Um Being like they were memorable atomically in and of themselves, but like
put set in their town and in the sort of context of the game, I didn't really like nothing really stuck out to me. You know, there was the farm with the cuckoos and stuff like those are just kind of memorable NPCs. The clock, I think there's A dude in the clock tower. Or the not the the Yeah. But the thing about the notebook and the scheduling and all of the different side quests in this one is I really
know the NPCs more than I have ever known one them in a Zelda game. I care about them more. I'm intrigued by them more because they're like, so these dancers need a new dancer.
Right.
Where am I gonna get that? You know, it's like and because clearly that's what I have to do, but I have no idea where to get it. But now I care about them. You know, I care about these two sisters because they they want a dance routine and they're like they're their lines, they're v you know they're
Yeah, they're fretting about it, you know, they're really nervous about it. Yeah, yeah.
Uh you meet the old the older woman in um in the hotel who is the grandmother of the inn owner and she's a storyteller and she's tells you some stories. Right. And I'm like, but she's on she's in the notebook. Yes. So now I'm like Is she in the notebook, you know? And so it's just so cool to have this layer of intrigue and Context and I'm invested, you know. And because you see them multiple, you know, you see them every day, and they're doing the same things every day, and now the notice.
you know, tells you what important times of each day they're doing something. And then once you get the quest you know kind of what you're supposed to do. Um or the you know, the sort of exclamation point. I don't know if everybody gets one of the things. the ones I finished, you know, they tell you like you should go do this thing.
Right.
Yeah. And so I don't know, I just it's a really interesting Zeldaism that. I just really don't I can't even think other than I guess I will say Breath of the Wild did a great job. There are a lot of memorable ones. They have their own quests.
Yeah, I and I think that that's also a a factor of them having more um dialogue in Like a lot of the NPCs in the in Ocarina are very very flat. You know, they're just like I'm in the town square today. I'm thinking of getting a croissant, you know, or whatever. Like they just have this one thing they say, you know, and there's not there's not kind of a lot of depth there. Um
Yeah. And it doesn't they they don't feel like they have they actually have things that they want, you know. Um, so they aren't really characters, they're just flavor. Right.
They're just yeah, they're they're just devices, right?
Setting this game in a way.
Key that isn't a key in some cases.
Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. And I think with more time and more
Um
um, you know, more time with them, you know, and and more sort of voice lines that they have. Um Definitely I'm thinking like the prince, of course, the prince of the Zora in uh you know, in uh Breath of the Wild, like I mean he was you were on and on and on with that guy. Um
Yeah. Well and that yeah, and they're and they have the sense of place in Breath of the Wild is really Yeah. Since you know, the each of the towns and the and the s and the zones and stuff. But I you know, I just It's the notebook is interesting because it you know, who knows which came first, chicken or the egg kind of stuff. But Say they had this concept that okay, they knew there was gonna be a time restarting thing. There's a day a three day thing, time restarting, you can do it in
You're gonna replay this stuff. Okay, so the NPCs are there. We're gonna have them have their side quest. How are we gonna do that? Okay, we need a quest log. Quest logs at the time were not too common, um, and they definitely were not for Nintendo and for
Yeah.
On a cartridge. So they're like, Okay, we're gonna do this notebook thing. But it's like once you have those things in place, you wanna pay off on them, right? So it's like o once you have the dancer. you're gonna make um you're gonna make it matter. You know, you're gonna put more time, investment in it. Because like in Ocarina there wasn't a need because it was about the high adventure of saving the world.
and there was a lot of other things to do. But here they have so you know they're trying to reuse they're trying to milk everything they can out of these three days. And they're trying to make one town really deep. And and they did. I mean, I I just I'm just so invested in, you know, the festival and you know, and just like everyone, and it is the repetition that causes it. Because not only are they in my notebook and I'm kind of filling it in just like any old good old quest log, but
I'm talking to them at various times when I restart. And it's like I feel you know, I feel for the situation. And to be to be honest. Even though I have criticisms for the town in Outer Wilds, because I don't think you use that that town enough in that game, it should have played a more important role. other than just in the beginning. But the explorers you meet out on the other planets
Right.
the same thing. It's like you you start knowing who they are, the storytelling is interwoven. I'm gonna I'm gonna get teary eyed right now while I'm explaining this, but what ends up happening at the end of the game with those characters is like next level.
And it was because of your relationship, seeing them on those, you know, some of them being dead, some of them being lost, whatever happens, you know. Um, and they're and you know, and they're the ones in that game, they're the ones that helped. Um save yourself.
Uh.
Right, because of because of their exploring and their um s their their discoveries.
Right.
So
You're standing on the backs of your of your friends there, you know, and
Yeah, and and at the end of the game they'd lean into that.
¶ Puzzling Out Wedding Mask Quest
That's cool.
Yeah, it's really well done. Um and I yeah, I I was Yeah, I broke down on
I love when I love that stuff and that happens in games. You know, when a bunch of NPCs you met along the way. I I can't remember there was a I'd have to go back and look at kind of games I played a few years ago, but there was one game where everybody came to help.
you at the end of the game that you had met along the way and helped. You know, and it was like in some battle and I was just like I mean it's like the moment in what was it? I guess Spider Man two where he's on the train like and he's broken down and they're like holding him. Um the L train, you know. Um just of like that moment of like they see me, you know. Um they see they see how hard I'm working, you know, to to help them. I I do love that stuff. That sounds really hard too.
And I know uh d just through through the osmosis around this game, I and I don't know the details still'cause I haven't solved it, but I know that the the wedding mask stuff with the the little boy whose mask you have and, you know, the mom who asked you to find him. When I realized that he comes out of He comes around the corner to mail something uh in the first few seconds of the first day. If you stand where you start and just wait, he he immediately shows.
Huh. And he he mail he has a mask on, but you know you can see his you can see his hair under the mask, so you know it's him. He mails something and then he runs away. And he goes to the little door in the laundry area and if you ring the bell, he comes out. But I haven't been able to figure out how to talk to him, even with his own mask. So I'm I'm I'm wearing the wrong mask for him.
Probably.
Yeah.
I have a suggestion of something else you could do there, but you know, I don't know if we want it.
Well, maybe, yeah.
Well he sends he's sending mail.
Uh maybe send him mail.
Well, maybe follow the mailman.
Oh yes, that's good. That's good. Yeah, follow the
The mailman is only available in the post office at certain times.
Right.
Well right.
So he must go pick up the mail
He picks up the mail. Yeah.
Yeah.
Because he exercis he's like exercising in his bed or something.
Runs everywhere.
He's trying to strengthen his legs, I think. Um
Yeah.
So I bet there's a way you can get to his get to the letter the kid has.
Yeah, yeah. Or or or like you said, maybe Follow him to see where he takes it after Yeah. Um, yeah, wow. If that works, good that's a great no, I'm I'm actually glad that you said that on air because if that actually is the solution. That is the but I but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the solution because um because that's what I would expect from this game. You know, it's that kind of like you know, um, clockwork kind of feel to it that um
Yeah, I mean, it has appreciate. It has to have that too it has to have that sort of um reproducibility, right? I mean, this can't be NPCs that are just kind of on behaviors that are random. They have to have schedules and specific things and
And motivations, right? Like reasons that they're doing the things they're doing. And that's why I kinda's intrigued.
But you can puzzle these things out too. Right.
Right, right, exactly. And I'm not and I'm that's why I'm not surprised that the wedding mask uh Sequence or quest favorite because He does show up right away, and there is a mystery there, and he's elusive. And if it does end up being something like you're saying, and then you find the bride or the fiancé, and she has a different math. Or whatever that is, the you know, whatever his partner, whoever his partner is, the that
you really are gonna feel for the couple. There's probably some backstory to it as well, you know, and there's a reason that they're hiding. I don't know. Who knows what it ends up being. And unfortunately we we won't know before we end the series. Um but you know, hopefully I'll find out someday. But it's you just it just mean it just matters more, you know.
than a traditional Zelda game, which I really am appreciative of. And and to be honest, I'm surprised by. I just did not I would not have expected this this particular layer of this game to really be a thing, you know. They like you said, they're they're generally NPCs are two dimensional. devices for Link to go do Right.
And often once they've fulfilled that. that use they kind of go away, right? They they might dis they might stand around in some cases, so they're there and you can talk to them just for consistency's sake of like, oh, he was here a moment ago. But often they also just disappear. And that's true across multiple genres. There's plenty of JRPG stuff where it's like somebody comes in, their cardboard cut out, they do the thing that they need to do and then they exit the stage. You know, and
There's room for that too at times. But I think especially with this game where you are revisiting the place again and again and again, that would really cast a Paul, I think. Um you might not notice it if all the other layers were really good, but um but I think that it really does kind of push this a little further in my estimation. And I did spend more time on that the first time I I tried playing the game. Um
So I I definitely'cause I was really invested in like the oh, this is new. I also thought more of that stuff would persist, I think. So it was like
And then I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to do it all again. Um, you know, so at a certain point I'm like, Oh, okay, well, I'll try to find them all and then I'll start figuring them out, you know. And so it's like, you know, th kind of depends on how you tackle things like that. But But yeah, I it is a r I agree, it's a really interesting lens um that you're looking at the game through.
¶ Romani Ranch Alien Defense
Yeah, it's interesting. Now that I thought now I'm thinking about it, I wonder what happens if you go back to do the alien one. I wonder if she gives you another one of the Which would be nice. Let's just say you get I'll just say you get a bar.
Yeah.
You get milk from her and it has a bottom line.
Has you get the bottle? You get the milk but the bottles is a front.
I f I failed that at one point. I'll tell that story really quick, um'cause I know we need to get to takeaways. But um I did do that one. Um I followed it through, got the powder keg and made sure I Mm. Um and if you fail it, um if you let one of the aliens because she calls them ghosts, but they're they're definitely aliens because they come, there's like a ship hovering. There's an there's sort of like a
Um implies that there's a there's a light in the sky that is definitely like a ship. Okay. And they come from that. Could be Could be ghost ship, but it's it's not. It's an alien ship. Uh they're funny looking ghosts, but um but the thing is is when if you fail, if one of them gets to the barn, then they cut to a sequ uh cinematic sequence. where the roof it's really well done actually. The roof blows off. And the ones who've made it inside rise up and they start taking all the cows.
f with the hovering through light, you know, like aliens like the like the conspiracy theories say. But then Rom um Romani take gets taken too'cause she's in the barn trying to help the save the
Så han kan inte göra det igen den dag.
They take her away, she's abducted.
Oh, wow.
Aliens. And I don't know if you play that whole sequence out. I don't know what happens. Maybe the mom is like, Where's my daughter? I don't know. It's although I guess now that I think about it, the f all the previous days that I didn't do it. She would
That happened.
Yeah. So that's why okay, so that's why she wasn't there.
That's why she's not there the third day, is'cause she already That's dark.
That is dark. Yeah. But but then you if you do it and save'em, she gives you a bottle of milk, of course, which is the same thing as milk was done in the past. But of course, once it's empty, you can use that bottle. So that's one of your bottles. It wasn't a mask. I was hoping it would be an alien mask so I could go. But I assume the cows you find around the world are related to this somehow. So you must be. Yeah. I'll try that.
Pretty good.
But some of the cows are like in in a hole. It's like so the cows are there forever? Like that's pretty
¶ Pied Piper Mask and Chicks
Yeah. I was hoping you could save'em, but So the last story I'll tell which is
They're gonna climb out after they fill it with poop.
Uh it's related to the notebook, related to um and related to some of the side quest stuff. So The organ grinder at night for some reason is out in the laundry area and if you go to him there at night he um confesses something about a song I don't remember. Like he he let somebody d I think it's the sisters, he let them. So he confesses and he says, thanks for or no, it was related to some animal thing. I don't remember the details. In this case, it wasn't as memorable.
But through the confession he gives you this animal mask that was a leader of his band, I think, and it was a mask that the leader used to kind of Rally the troops. Okay. So it's a it's a Pied Piper thing, right? It's like you put the mask on and you and you and you march, and any animal, well, almost any animal, it looks like some things don't follow you, but um any animal nearby, like the little Yorkies or whatever, they'll march behind you like pipe pipe.
And you can do it pretty much all the time. So I don't know what you use it for. Oh, for everything, but I was like, Oh, okay, this is great. This must be what you use to for the dog race for some reason. So I went dogs and I was like, Okay, I'm I'm marching the dogs around and the dog race. And nothing was really happening.
Okay, maybe this isn't it. I mean, they were follow one was following me at a time, but it didn't really tell me how I was gonna win the race. But I have another theory about that related to the mask you told me at the end of the swamp. Um
Tell the truffle.
I'm betting I'm betting you need to put that mask on to sniff out the fastest dog. That's my theory.
Wow, that's quite a theory.
Yeah, but the reason is is because next door is the chicken farm. And there's a dude in there who's sad because he knows the world's ending because of the moon. He's like, I'm so sad. The moon's gonna kill us all. And it's the it's the zombie guy from Ocarina of Time. Remember that like white skinned zombie guy? It's hilarious. He's taking he's so sad that these
It's so funny it's him.
Yeah, it's so it's hilarious. So these there's these
He's the only one who's noticed.
Right, right. He's so depressed. There's so there's these chicks, right? Baby chicks. They're not fully grown chickens yet, they're baby yellow chicks. And he's like, These little chicks are never gonna see adulthood. They're gonna die because of the moon. He's so sad.
They so the these chicks hang out with him?
Yeah, they're all he's he's the chicken farmer.
Magnet.
Yeah, exact okay. No. No, that's no but No Oh no, I forgot all about that. Oh man, yeah, that's crying worthy. Anyway, they're all roaming around. The chicks are there. He's taking care of them and he's sad. So I was like, wait a second, I have the I have the animal mask. I put the animal mask, I start marking. And each of the chicks starts following me. This I'm talking like 10 chicks. So I'm going around this very big area, slowly picking up a chick, and I have this.
Ten l ten little chickens, a line of them all swirling around me in a great, like, you know, um AI pathing way. It looks really good. And it's like a magical moment because you there's the song that plays like a Pied Piper song. And they're like every time you get a chicken, there's a little higher pitch. you know, trill and I feel so good. And then when you get all 10 of them, they all start growing up.
Oh that's cool.
And so each of the chicks turns into a full chicken rooster and you bring them over all in a line to him and he's like I don't know what happened. They're all grown up. I'm so happy. And you solve that thing, and then he gives you a bunny max.
Oh wow.
It makes you faster. Oh, that's good. And apparently there's a hearing thing. There's a you can hear better with it. I don't know what that does yet. But you can run really fast with this bunny mask on. Wow. So so worth it. And so the reason my theory about the dogs is that if there's something about so if this one's about hearing. And the other one's about
If it makes you fast, can't you just be Faster than that.
Well no, you what you're doing you're you're betting on which dog is gonna
Oh okay. Yeah, I haven't gone in and done any of that, so
Oh, okay. So y there's gotta be a way to figure out who the fastest dog is, is my theory. And I'm and if there's a hearing mask I don't know. Dogs like to sniff each other. Maybe you have to sniff the dog. I don't know. That's my theory. All right. I haven't tested it out yet'cause I still haven't gone back to say the print.
That's all pretty.
Anyway, that see I wanted to tell that story because that is the creativity. Yeah, that's that's a very
Well that's a very cool thing that they all age up. That's that's pretty neat. I like that a lot.
And I wouldn't you know, uh like you can you can have any animal follow you around with that mask, but this one in particular was a probably
Right.
And it was just a and I and I just tried it on a whim. I was like, oh, can I get two? Oh, can I get three? Can I get all of them? Yeah. And then the reward was so worth it.
That's very good.
That's super cool.
¶ Zora Dungeon and Player Agency
Um are there any other topics you want to hit? I think you kind of touched on the time manipulation stuff earlier with the NPC slowing down. I didn't know if
Yeah, yeah, that was I think I no, no, I I worked it in. I
Is there anything you need to talk about with the Zora section?
Yeah, the only thing I'll say is that I think that I really I did like that the Zor Dungeons kind of all water-based and Routing water. And then you get the freeze arrow and then of course as you can imagine. Freezing the water to stand on things. frozen. So I actually really like that dungeon for the most part. It's still a little convoluted. Um
And there's a whole current thing. So similar one thing I like about all three of these dungeons so far is that there's always the central theme. Mm-hmm. And with the Goron one, even though it was convoluted, there was that central chain.
Right. Like this focus. Yeah, you kept coming back to it and and finding different ways to cross it or get around it. I mean that
Yeah.
something yeah that that in itself was kinda cool. It's just kinda
No, the execution was yeah.
The execution was a little off and getting getting up and down and around in different ways. And some of it was a little punishing.
There's a similar one in the Zora dungeon where it's this big room, this big turbine room with a big pool of water that's spinning in this in a direction. And as you can imagine, you change the direction at one point, you can stop it, stop the the turbine. Um and As you can imagine, when you're swimming in that as the Zora, you know, you can only go certain places and you can miss stuff really easily.
So, you know, it's like you gotta like swim in the direction the turbine's going and then s get into a hole. But the swimming controls are not great. And so it'll come up in my takeaways, um, as an example, but um But then I got stuck on the boss, like I'm at the fish boss, and apparently it's notorious. I I did look it up, but I am doing it right, but it's a notorious.
um notorious boss and I agree. Uh so I actually so the the quick story I wanted to tell there was, which is very unique to this game. I got stuck on the boss. And I kept I kept failing. And I'm like, ah man, I just this is this is definitely a wall moment for me. But then I thought to myself, wait a second, I can play the ocarina anytime. And I'm literally on the boss platform and I was so frustrated, I was like, I'm just gonna start.
And I'cause I'cause I have this I have the ice arrow. I have the I have the hook shot, you know, and I d I haven't finished the the the boss yet technically, and yeah, I'll have to go redo it. But um But there was a sort of freedom that I you wouldn't have in a normal Zelda.
Right.'Cause you've got the things you've got the rewards of doing a dungeon.
And I have plenty of things I can go do. Right. And when I feel up for it, I the dungeon's a little convoluted, but I'm not a
Umce.
Yeah, and so it's like the I just have not had that Where I'm like, sh wait a second, I can leave. And I went and and I went and go did a I went and did a bunch of book um notebook stuff. Well
I just wanna say, Tim, these are video games you can always leave.
No, you can't. You got well, apparently I do because I hardly ever finish games, but um ones I do.
Yeah. Well remind me uh after the show to tell so I can tell you about what's going on with Hollow Knight. Um
Oh.
Let's move on to takeaways.
Yes, let's do it.
¶ Takeaway: More Than Sum of Parts
Uh of course at the end of each series, we like to turn to uh look back on it and say, well, what would you take away from this? uh, you know, to our to our own careers or, you know, when we're thinking about games in the future, I mean just things we want to look out for and find other games that do something similar. Um So sir, as is customary, I will I will throw it to you. I I suspect we will share at least one of these.
Yeah, I bet yeah, I c I can't imagine we might we might share more than one, but or just said differently, you know, the same thing. So um in no particular order m the first one I have listed I just put down as making more than the sum of its parts. Um Kind of double meaning there. Uh and the the thing that we've talked about on this series already that I'll just reiterate with this one is In a in an in an age where To amortize your development, expansion packs were very common.
You know, they turned into DLC and now it's whatever. Now it's just complete mayhem out there, but about what it means to, you know, support a game post launch. But X X packs were big, especially on PC. And if I take something like the Blizzard approach, it was more of the same. And it was literally the sum of its parts. You know, it wasn't
I mean usually usually it was like the bullet points would be like three new weapons, two more new two new levels, you know, or whatever.
Exactly. It's the same stuff. Yes, there's more story and there's more admissions, and I'm not trying to downplay the importance of those and that they were easy to make, um, but it was more of the same. And it was, you know, I'm being super snarky, but it was the sum of its part. This game took Ocarina of Time, threw it into a blender, and then threw it at a dartboard, and then threw it into the ocean. I mean, it's like
It this game is astounding to me about what they decided. They somebody said, Can you do a follow-up using only the parched mocarina? And this is what they made? Yeah. I'm like This is incredible. Like you know, so more than the sum of its parts. Yeah, I think it it makes it obvious what I mean. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean mine is kind of similar. It's the taking a big swing with your follow-up slash reuse project. Um, which is, you know, how you put it a lot, you know, a lot of in a lot of the episodes was just like what a big swing. Um, you know, it comes with some downsides as as we've talked about, just because it it really did need a little more room to breathe, I think.
Um, but it is remarkable for for all of that. I mean, just the like the whole idea of like we're gonna go and throw you into this weird kind of horror inflected time loop. Um, yeah,'cause so many things about that are just not very Zelda like, you know, just when I think of other Zelda games, I don't think of like
you do this song and now you see all these clocks around you, you know, floating in the sky or whatever, and, you know, you lose all your stuff or, you know, whatever. I mean, it's just like the choices it makes. Even just the putting on the masks, you know, is a horror moment, you know. Eventually you're skipping that constantly because you're like, I don't want to waste the time, but um uh the player time. But it's like it is just such a it it's just I
Yeah.
I would never think to do something like this. Like if you know, it I can't imagine what other game we would think to make with Starfighter. Uh, but like at the end of Starfighter if they said, Okay, I mean basically they did this, like make make another one in less than a year.
Um we were like, okay, more of that then. Um and we added some things to it. But it's not like we were like, well, we have all these these all these pieces. What else can we make? You know, from this erector set. You know, we just were like, well, we already know how to make this, let's just make that. Um which ameliorates a lot of risk, but um you know doesn't does mean it's probably not
you know, gonna be necessarily super memorable. So, um, if it's on that kind of like X Pact um or uh DLC kind of level of material. So yeah, take the big swing.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's definitely the other s this the other side of the same coin for my first one. Yeah, shooting shooting from the moon. how they did that.
¶ Takeaway: Layering Gameplay World
before. My second one then is is really focused around the layers. You know, we we we've we've talked, you know, we've played a lot of Metroidvania games. We talk a lot about it. We talk a lot about And that's a very specific way to do that. Um and of course Nintendo's good at it. And yes, Zelda games do it as well.
And I don't know if it's just the you know, this being a slightly different team or, you know, the uh Miyamoto and friends was moving on to Wind Waker were were moving on to Wind Waker and they were bringing their tropes with them. Or what allowed them to think so differently about the layers and maybe it's just kind of one thing led to another because like to your takeaway, shoot you know, going shooting for the moon or whatever and going doing something really different.
maybe just kind of naturally created these layers. And yes, they did, like you said just now, it it does go too far for me. Um But you know, I don't know, as a as a kid in its time, maybe it's perfect'cause you just wanna sink hours, you know, you wanna sink hours into this game. So maybe it was actually correct for its context and when we play it now. But for as a takeaway, it gives me a new respect for Lair.
'Cause it's like it's not just the traditional Zelda or Metroid layer where you see a thing and then you're like you see a like a visual uh visual language for the hookshot and you're like Okay, I know what I'm gonna do with that. It's not that simple. It's like
Um, or actually, let's say originally when I found met that rock, I was like, oh, well, I can't, I don't know, I I have to wait till day three. That's my only option. Right. And then later you're like, oh wait, powder kegs are a thing. Oh wait, that rock? I can blow that rock up with a powder cake. Oh wait, two thirty is on the the you know, the morning of the second day. Right. Oh no, now I also need a Pona. You know, it's like
So there was just like it just keeps going. It's just the layering is off the charts in this game and as a takeaway gives me a new um It's humbling. It's a new, you know, a new appreciation for how hard it is to do that stuff and how well they did it, but still made it challenging. Yeah, so you still can you still can shoot for the moon with layering like this in this game, but you can still make it, you know, difficult for players.
Yeah, it's funny. I laughed when you said the layers because my my second takeaway was the layering gameplay all over the world. Um, so it's literally my second takeaway as well. Um the I I'll I will add the um the development benefit to that is that your designers can work somewhat independently, right? On their own flow charts for the things that they're gonna layer onto the world. Um and then they can kinda collude and be like, okay, but I wanna use this character
We need a I need a character here to do this. Oh, can we put the two things in one character, you know, in some cases or or not, you know? So there is there is some benefit in that these things can be independently built over the world. Um You know, and so that kind of parallelism is ki how kinda how you can work a little more quickly. Um, if everything is kind of in a big long line, then if there's a something needs to be cut somewhere
for example, that messes everybody up. Right? Because or at the very least it you know, if it's like levels and that you're expected to have, well, at the end of this level, you would have these things, then the person before you now has to find you know, before you, who has the level before that that gets cut, has to find a way to give those things now and then the next per otherwise the next person in the chain.
is, you know, not going to have the things they need for their give their level start. So those people get messed up when levels get pulled. Um if you do it in this way where it's a world and we're going to put layers of things on it, then people can work pretty independently in development to put those layers in.
And, you know, and it becomes easier to say yes to more ideas as well. You know, so it's like, you know, the truffle hunting mask is like, well, that's we can just put those wherever, you know, and Um, we can just put'em where they're fun and we can, you know, the more effort it's sort of like the uh uh what are they called in Breath of the Wild, the the little guys you find in places.
Oh, yeah, the, uh... Okay, I'm blanking on.
Yeah, whatever. So I mean it's like that where it's like it's just and there's different types of puzzles that kind of you do again and again.
So that you can recognize them, you know, and I'm sure there's some of that here as well. Like the um the plants. I mean, that's basically like a vet a Metroid thing where it's like, oh, you can see it and it's like, oh, you've got to plant a seed here. Um is is a layer on the world. So there are some of those, but But these other layers are just yeah, it's super cool and I do think it in addition to all the things you said, I think there's also development benefit that helped them
put this much content into a game in a little over a year. So
¶ Takeaway: Reach Exceeding Grasp
Uh it's a good point that once you have that flexibility and power, you can't you can say yes to more things.
Yeah.
As a sort of sub takeaway to this though, I will say like again I come back to it's great to have that uh ability and power to do so, but I do still think you need
Yeah.
Yeah. Just because it's you know, it's the old J it's the old Jurassic
Are we gonna be able to fully support this thing? Is the is the question you should be asking yourself.
Yeah, yeah. Support it in every way, including usability and playtesting, you know, so and QA. I mean your crashes maybe are an example of that.
Yeah, I think that's specific to this GameCube.
That's that's true. Yeah. Yeah. That was a a porting challenge. Um, yeah. No, that's a good one. Um Okay, so my last one is reach exceeding their grasp, which I guess is kind of what you were just saying. is just um and I actually looked that quote up finally. I use it all the time and butcher it every time. And then I was like, what is this actual quote and where did it go? And then I realized I think I've been using it.
Yeah.
I thought it was a I thought it was more of a negative connotation kind of like, oh, you've reached too far. For what your grasp can actually do. But he was actually meaning that. Maybe because it Heaven is involved in the quote as well, or something. And so it's like he was actually meaning. reaching beyond what your grasp can as an aspirational thing, right? Right.
A man's reach should exceed his grasp.
Should exceed its grasp, yeah. After all, what's heaven for or something is the end of the quote. Yeah, right. I was like, Okay, all right, I've been looking at this all wrong. Um So it doesn't really work as well.
Well I mean I I think in common usage it actually means more what you typically use.
Yeah.
That's definitely what we're talking about. It's it it's just that Most of the time our reach is exceeding our grasp is not for some high ideal or whatever, you know. Yeah, right. Uh like uh Browning is calling for. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, people have co-opted.
It's it's usually more the like I'm j I'm I what was I thinking that I could dunk. I can't dunk.
Wow, that's good good example. Um
That's literally.
I'm rich.
Exceeding your
Yeah, right, right, right. Um Yeah, so anyway, uh that that was my summary of this one. And and to be honest, like thank goodness they did, because again, we wouldn't have the game and we wouldn't have such an interesting, weird game, and we wouldn't have all these yeses in one play. But I do think and we've had takeaways similar to this probably in many of the games. Um
You know, it's better that they did it. It's better that they they tried and that they got to the whatever eighty percent, ninety percent of what they wanted, you know, however percentage you wanna say, they got it in and done. Um and then that last 10% though is the hardest one, the hardest percent. And um and that's where sort of the usability breaks down and I think some of the frustrations come from and where, you know, it is a flawed gem.
Um, but it is still a gem. I mean, and so I'm I really still applaud that it exists. I applaud that they did what they did in such a short time. I just don't think many teams could. Um Dute could have achieved this. Um with all of the constraints they had and
I'm just thankful that they did reach, you know. And yeah, they fell f they fell down on some things that, you know, we look back now and can and very flippantly say, Oh yeah, that's bad. Oh, that fish boss, like what were they thinking? It's like, well step in their shoes. And it's like, um at the at the end of the day though, I will say that the fish boss is a cool concept. Like I think the idea of the boss is cool.
is cool. It's just that, you know, it's just an execution challenge. So Um same thing with the dungeons we've talked about.
Yeah, there's there's good stuff there. Yeah, for sure. It's just yep, it's a little little overburdened at times. Um I just have a one niggle, but it like every time I played it, I felt it, and that was the audio mix.
¶ Takeaway: Audio Mix Challenges
Yeah.
Just and and like like I've said previously, I'm not gonna belabor it, it's it's really a function of you had these pieces that were authored in a different audio environment. And they don't mix well. They were they could be separated. You know, like a Deku, for example, spitting at you would like only happen
in a room with really nothing else like that making that kind of sound, you know, and so it would stand out. But when it's also with torches and other Dekus moving around and like all the other things, plus you're a Deku spinning your own things, like it just gets super noisy um and har and hard to distinguish and pull information from. And you know, it's an audio visual me medium, as we sometimes say. Uh and woof, uh the audio on this has been has been rough. It's something I noticed.
Literally every time.
Um and that's not even counting the baby. So um the baby actually cuts through everything. It's perfectly fine uh as far as
Yeah.
Goals perfectly. It achieved its goals perfectly. Um, but the a lot of the rest of the mix is is really rough. Um and again, it's because of how they How they are reusing parts. Those parts came with audio, and the parts did not fit together well in their new configuration as far as the audio went. Um, and so it's just A cautionary tale, I guess. Um I'm not usually super sensitive to it, but this game it just
I had to turn my TV way down and then I was basically getting very little audio information. It's like, well, have to have to do that.
¶ Remake Speculation and Outro
Uh all right. Well that is our takeaways. Do you have any honorary mentions or do you uh is that are you good?
No, I have a dream now though.
Oh, let's hear it.
So I posted in the Discord the that article about Some rumors about them doing a remake. what team might be working on it. What it's part of the one of the key teams that worked on Breath of the Wild. So it would be great. I mean I think it that And I I s I haven't read the full article, um the translation yet, but it's uh I'm assuming they're talking
A full remake? No.
Um
But what if, here's a dream that will never happen. What if in that game they also put majority as a
quest or something.
I don't know how they do it
What if they re they remake Ocarina and then they give another team just fourteen months to remake Majoras? of the new locker.
Oh wow, that is some meta.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, it'd probably be less time, you know. The if they're gonna remake Ocarina, it'll probably take less time than the original Ocarina. Um, maybe not. I don't know.
They want to simulate the same constraints as
Right.
No, you have to do it.
The metric is that you you know, this ha it had to be done this way. So Well we'll we'll find out. Uh you can uh if you learn anything you can shoot us an email at devgameclub. at gmail.com. Uh we also love to get your reviews. Uh Apple Podcast, yadda, yada, yada, whatever you use, et cetera. Send us email. Um we're on the web at devgameclub.com and my hook co-host twitch is at twitch.tv slash
Tim Longo Jr. with a J R at the end.
Did your did your fortress die last week? I haven't uh haven't heard anything about it.
No, I actually I've had a couple I've had a couple of other dwarf fortress streamers who are experts come on the last couple of seconds.
Okay.
Really helped out. Yeah.
I bet.
I you know I I don't think we're dead yet. It's still going.
Good for you. Good for you.
it off we might pull I don't know what it is but we might just live to survive a
Might continue. Might continue your dwarven geo something conclave. Um You can read about those exploits and have conversation with other listeners on our fan run Discord. There's a link for that in the show notes. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the cast, Aaron Evers, and our logo, merch store, that Discord are all by Mark Garcia. Have fun chasing a mechanical bull this week, and good night.
Good night.