# Environmental Cues & Echoes of Wisdom > [!INFO] Overview > **Teacher**: Kim Nutter > **Game**: Legends of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (2024) > **Publisher**: Nintendo | TYPE | PIC | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------- | | (1) **Leading Lines** (pillars), an **opening** (dungeon), plus **shape consistency** (pillars lead to a town of same material). *Inviting*, *implicit*, *culturally* recognised affordance. "Synchronicity / Common Fate" Gestalt. | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/pillars.png]] | | (2) "**Indistinct boundaries**" in [D. Vella](https://gamestudies.org/1501/articles/vella) terms (stamp-spot at the hill). Anticipatory design makes the player want an item that is out of reach. *Inviting*, *explicitly* represented but *inferred* affordance. | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/stamp.png]] | | (3) **Red herring** (trader?). *Cultural*, *explicit* and *denying* (*subversive*) affordance. the NPC looks like a trader, but she doesn't actually trade. | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/non_trader.png]] | | (4) **Closure** (end of the map). *Denying*, *implicitly* represented, *cultural* affordance. "Cultural" because game literacy suggests that's the end of the map. | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/limit.png]] | | (5) **Gate** (puzzle) and a **pinch** (the puzzle hall is revealed) -- the player push several buttons over the dungeon to activate the fountain and ascend the next floor. *Inviting*, *cultural* and *explicit* affordance. Similarity in texture, colour and aquatic theme. | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/more_whales.png]] | | (6) **Bread-crumbling** (dead warriors indicate a way to the boss). *Inviting (but sinister)*, *explicit*, *inferred*. Another thematic similarity draws a gestalt for the player (dead allies -> enemy). | ![[ATTACHMENTS/REFS/ZeldaWisdom/dead.png]] | ### Summary "**Echoes of Wisdom**" uses a cartoonish style ("Toon-Zelda") and an isometric perspective, which defines level-design decisions. The game relies less on landmarks and pinching, and more on leading lines because it's difficult to pose a big structure on a small top-down scene. For isometric perspective, there are no god rays either. Isometrism and "toon" style's simplicity limits cues toolkit to *bread-crumbling*, *leading lines*, *shape consistency*, *openings*, *gates* and *valves*. Bread-crumbling is mostly used through enemy-placement (defeat them all, and you reach your destination). As a rule, we encounter gates and valves at dungeons (the game flow easily boils to jumping from dungeon to dungeon). Shape, colour and texture consistency are omnipresent. They compliment the game's principle of aesthetics: to be a light-hearted adventure with an intuitive flow. The game's story is one gestalt of *closure*. The world's metaphysical texture is "rifted" with other-wordly gaps. Zelda fills those gaps to reunite the world.