Mapping the Legend of Zelda

This father’s day my mom bought me the Legend of Zelda at a flea market. Zelda was one of my favorite games growing up, and I loved playing it again on my old NES.

Naturally I searched for maps online, and there are plenty. But I was disappointed — the first map I saw had every secret, every level, every door… OK, I know that’s what a map is for, but I immediately realized it took the fun out of the game. The process is half the fun – more than half. Add my natural fascination with maps, diagrams and information design, and you get this. I realize it grades me as a Class A nerd, but I don’t care.

No one I’ve shown it to has been particularly interested (not good criteria for a blog post, right?), but then I ask, “Did you play Zelda much?” The answer is inevitably “no”.

I’m pretty sure as a kid I had a map some friend tore out of Nintendo Power. I didn’t know what I was missing.

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  So did you read the map? Glad you liked Zelda…

  Commenter   |   06.25.09