The Legend of Zelda and The Tower of Druaga may not be the first two games that come to mind when thinking about a crossover, but one fan-made project has decided that the two 1980s classics belong together. The result is The Tower of Zeldaga, a free browser game from independent developer Osmose that combines the familiar world and mechanics of Nintendo’s original Zelda with the notoriously secretive design of Namco’s arcade classic.
Rather than simply recreating Zelda with a different coat of paint, The Tower of Zeldaga is built around the idea that every room contains a secret puzzle. Players take control of Link as he climbs the titular tower to rescue Prince Ganondorf from the Demon Queen Zeldaga, with the solutions to those rooms becoming increasingly difficult to figure out as the adventure progresses.
That emphasis on discovery is where the influence of The Tower of Druaga becomes particularly apparent. Released in arcades in 1984, Namco’s game became infamous for hiding the methods needed to obtain its various treasures and progress through the tower. The Tower of Zeldaga takes that philosophy and applies it to the original Zelda formula, meaning defeating every enemy in a room is not necessarily enough to figure out what the game actually wants you to do.
The result is a game that looks and plays like an NES-era Zelda adventure while encouraging players to experiment with familiar enemies, weapons and items in unfamiliar ways. Some secrets can be discovered by paying close attention to a room, while others deliberately push players toward the kind of trial and error that defined discovering obscure secrets in early games.
The project also has an interesting connection to the social experience surrounding The Tower of Druaga. Osmose originally planned to include guestbooks for individual rooms and group features that would allow players to share discoveries with one another, echoing the way arcade players could leave information behind for others trying to solve the game’s mysteries. Those features were ultimately abandoned because hosting arbitrary user-generated content created additional technical and moderation problems.
The Tower of Zeldaga is also unusually easy to try. The fan game is free and runs directly in a web browser, including on mobile devices, with support for compatible controllers. There is no need to install an emulator or obtain the original Zelda game to play it.
While The Tower of Zeldaga is obviously an unofficial fan project rather than a new Nintendo Zelda release, its premise makes for an interesting experiment in retro game design. Instead of simply imitating The Legend of Zelda, it takes one of the stranger influences and design philosophies surrounding early action-adventure games and makes that the foundation of a new challenge.
The Tower of Zeldaga is available now for free in browsers.