The Legend of Zelda: Ruins.

I love the original Legend of Zelda. In fact, it’s my favorite game of all time. So much can be said about it, and so much has, so I won’t rehash the more common material here. Instead, this will be more personal. One of my favorite aspects about the original game was the cold, lonely simplicity of the labyrinths. The dungeons all had the same architectural style, but different layouts and other variations. They all looked to come not only from the same civilization, but the same builder. Or, to be more out-there, the same imagination, perhaps one shared by a society very different from ours.

This is what I loved most about the original game; the mystery. Hyrule was an empty land bereft of any current civilization. Some people lived in caves, selling stuff or charging money for useless advice. Beyond that? Wilderness and ancient ruins, often with ominous entrances that resembled monstrous heads. It made you wonder who created these places, and why. Another great thing about the game was the manual; some of the artwork was wonderful, especially the artistic interpretation of the simplistic labyrinths. I’ve long had an affinity for the art in the manual, and I had been meaning to do some homages to it for a while now. Well, I finally got around to it, and here is what I came up with;

 

Statue and dungeon gate.

Envisioning a new interior.

These will be colored in the future.