Zelda and Druaga - two great tastes that every room holds a secret

[Tomm Guycot]

Someone made a Druaga fangame with Zelda assets. Or maybe vice-versa.

I'm stumped help me solve this thing.

 

[Falselogic]

I think my favorite thing about this is that if you try to peek at the source the dev calls you out:

 

[Isrieri]

I found a few things before I got stuck.

1. Boomerang - Kill some slimes in the first room
2. Heart Piece - Kill some black slimes in the second room.
3. Candle - I think you have to kill the three colored knights in order: Red, Green, Blue
4. Heart Piece - Burn a mummy with the candle and kill a skeleton.
5. The Book - There's a dark room with invisible ghosts right of the 4-way room. Let them kill you (maybe you need to grab the key first).
6. Blue Tunic - There's a room to the left of the wizards with an old man. From the ghost room, walk L,U,L,D,L

I don't think you're meant to get that blue tunic this early cuz I ran out of keys to get it.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

Yeah I'm having trouble in the rooms I would call...
* Blue Switch
* Bushes
* Gray Panels
* Empty Room
* Wand

The creator hinted that getting the wand is time based. I ran directly to that room from a load and coudn't get it so I'm worried it requires a fresh restart? Which would suck. I've tried everywhere I can think elsewhere but I'm stumped.

 

[Isrieri]

I gave it another shot tonight and now I'm stuck at the same rooms you are. I figured out every other secret on the floor:

Copper Pickaxe - Left from Black & Green Slimes

You can push one of the walls out of the way.​

Blue Pickaxe - North of Candle Room

Use up your copper pickaxe.​

Red Ring - Whisps & Ghosts

The bubbles travel along preset paths - there are three walls they pass through. Break those with the pickaxe.​

Bow - Left of 4 Trees

Need the Red Ring to pass through the bubbles. Break the wall behind the red statue and push it.​

Potion - Shadow Room

There's a room filled with shadowy enemies; using the candle makes them and the room's walls vanish.​

Defeat them all without using the Candle (the bow really helps).​

Magic Key - Ghoma's Room

Kill Ghoma with the bow.​

Heart Piece - First Room

Shoot the rightmost center statue with the bow.​

That room with the 4 trees I'm positive you gotta burn all 4 bushes. But the candle only has three charges. Probably need the wand + book I'm guessing? The empty room I'm pretty sure is the boss. I think it'll appear once you collect something else on the floor.

The grey panels, my first instinct was that you need to put something there, but there's absolutely nothing to put aside from Link, who can't occupy the space above it. I thought maybe I had to make the room symmetrical or maybe there was a secret button somewhere but no dice on any account. I should mention I didn't think to use the potion anywhere. I figured it was one use and was meant for the boss. It would be pretty silly to make you use it on something else. My best hunch is it must have something to do with the pickaxe, or you need to use the wand on them both.

The wand room being related to time completely baffled me. I tried walking clockwise around the room, I tried holding still and waiting for three minutes, and I also tried beelining for the room like you did. But then I thought, maybe it's related to the blue switch - pressing it probably makes a timed bridge over the lava.

Therefore, I think there's something pretty obvious we're meant to do with that blue button. It's a big ol' button, obviously you gotta press it, but I tried everything I could think of: I even used the boomerang to get one of the wizards onto it, in case it was pressure sensitive. I tried breaking some walls around it and even tried poking at some walls in that room, but unless the button is a giant red herring, it is *very clearly* the thing. I don't know if we need a hammer or something but that doesn't seem likely cuz the inventory is getting pretty full. Short of a secret room through a secret wall I've got no idea.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

Good then we're in the exact same place hahaa. Oh nooooo

The potion refills your health, and you an get another one by visiting the room where you got it. I've also tried using it where you called out and it only ever refills my health.

Totally stumped.

 

[Mogri]

The lava room is not time-based. I don't know how you're supposed to know this is possible, but you can drag Link with the mouse in that room only.

Once I discovered that, I quickly got the blue button room, too.

 

[Mogri]

The bushes: this was clever.

Hint 1: What happens to the candle after three uses?
Hint 2: What happens to the candle after *four* uses?
Hint 3: What do you do with a real candle when that happens?

 

[Paul le Fou]

I keep reading this as "Zelda and Drugs" and go "But what if......"

 

[Mogri]

The empty room is awful. It took me ages to figure out even after looking through the code, because the solution is so unintuitive that it makes the lava room seem obvious.

Here's the best series of hints I can offer:
1. The room isn't empty: YOU'RE in it.
2. What if you could bring something else into the room?
3. But you're the only thing you can bring into the room.
4. How can you enter the room while you're already in the room?
5. They turned off the music in this room. Isn't that weird?
6. Or maybe it's a convenience feature.
7. For some reason, there's a line in the game's code that says, "You can't play this game in more than two tabs at the same time."

 

[Tomm Guycot]

Sigh

Thanks for the cryptic hints Mogri.

So it seems everything we did before getting stumped was incredible and fun, and the remainder of rooms were "there is a mechanic that is only true in this room".

Except maybe the bushes. But even after figuring it out from your clues, when I tried to DO IT I failed three times before it worked so...

 

[Falselogic]

This seems to be consistent with everything I know about the Tower of Druaga.

 

[Isrieri]

The empty room is awful.

Okay that one makes me angry. Because I almost intuited it.
Once you revealed the other hints I was like "oh okay we're gonna play it like that" and opening a new tab was the first thing I thought to do.

But then there was no immediate change, so I dismissed it. If the game wants you to something *that* esoteric there should be some kind of noticeable difference so you know you're on the right track. That's a puzzle that should be at the very end of a game, after you've thrown out more softballs that clue players to realize this kind of tomfoolery is on the table.

I guess it's on brand, but it still sucks.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Maybe the drugs would help after all?

 

[Falselogic]

I would say this thread, and other places on-line that are cataloguing the ins and outs of this game, are a closer recreation of the original Duraga (and Zelda) experience than anything else I've seen in years.

 

[Tomm Guycot]

I guess I don't know enough about Druaga

 

[Falselogic]

There's an old Twitter thread about it, and old Reddit thread, and AV Club talked a bit about it as well in this 2024 article.

 

[Kalir]

Well I'm playing this now too.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

considering the gap between the two releases, there's a chance Zelda might genuinely be inspired by Druaga in the same way Super Mario Bros influenced Pac-Land.

Geek Culture: There have been many Pac-Man sequels and spin-off games in the market. Have you played them all? What do you think of them?

Toru Iwatani: I worked on the sequel “Pac-Land” and “Pac-Mania” and my favorite is “Pac-Land,” which is the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background. Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto, who developed “Super Mario Bros.” told me that the game was influenced by Namco’s “PAC-LAND”.