Since we've talked about how fantastic The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past is doing its tutorial and how well its starting sequence worsk, and how it introduces the player fantastically into the game world without explicitly telling the player how the game should be worked, how the puzzles work, and how everything else … Continue reading The tutorial in Lemmings
Category: game design
Progressing in A Link to the Past
As part of the last playthrough of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I was reflecting on what the progression system looked like and how the hero of the story, Link, who is getting stronger and stronger, better and better and more to take on far more challenges across the story arc in the end … Continue reading Progressing in A Link to the Past
The well-made tutorial of Zelda: A Link to the past
In my playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, I realized how underappreciated the first 45 minutes of the game really are. You may call it tutorial, you may call it starting sequence that leads you into the game: it's the beginning of the story, at which Link wakes up in … Continue reading The well-made tutorial of Zelda: A Link to the past
Sim City just stands out
SimCity is a fascinating game. Fascinating what it stands for, what it delivered and what doors opened for later games to go through. Released 1989 on Amiga and Macintosh, SimCity is a city building and management simulation built by Maxis. It was ported to numerous platforms, including DOS, Windows, SNES, PC-98, FM-Towns and OS/2. The … Continue reading Sim City just stands out
In-Game Help in Zelda: A Link to the Past: Game hints in A Link to the Past
One of the things that I've recognized in my latest playthrough of Zelda: A Link to the Past is, that it also has a built-in help system. You might remember that particular design choice not as a hint system, but as the eldest from Kakariko, that you meet early in the game, and then later … Continue reading In-Game Help in Zelda: A Link to the Past: Game hints in A Link to the Past
What would (more) achievements in Zelda look like?
I have been wondering about why Nintendo haven't implemented a good achievement system to the Switch and the Switch2 consoles, similar to what their primary competitors Microsoft and Sony did for their respective consoles a long time ago. Microsoft with the Xbox 360 has been quite successful integrating that in the emerging online experience. Especially … Continue reading What would (more) achievements in Zelda look like?
Difficulty sliders don’t work
I've been looking at difficulty settings in games for quite a while now. Different games solve the problem of keeping difficulty entertaining for their players in different ways and clearly there is also a lot of nuance of what difficulty means for games of different genres and different styles and the audiences that game designers … Continue reading Difficulty sliders don’t work
Revisiting Zelda: A Link to the Past
Zelda: A link to the past is one of my favorite games of all time. I feel in love with it in 1993, when we had an SNES and I was able to borrow the game from a friend. I spent a lot of time with it, because the feeling of being on an adventure … Continue reading Revisiting Zelda: A Link to the Past
