Development:The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Dungeons & Interiors

This is a sub-page of Development:The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Attention: The dates below when prefaced by "Ver." reflect the version of S-CG-CAD, an in-house image creation program used by Nintendo, that the .cgx, .col, and/or .scr files were last modified or opened by. They are used to create a rough organizational structure for this page and should not be interpreted as asset creation dates. Date information sourced from actual file last modified dates or other methods like correlation with code that was commented out are labeled as "Circa." For more information on file types and date information in the development content, see the metadata page.

Introduction

Important notes about graphics tilesets are below.

• In some graphics tilesets (known as CGX files), one may find tiles that fit multiple areas or that appear out of place for the area the rest of the tiles belong to. Part of what may be happening in those cases is that the developers copied an existing CGX file to use as a template -- to draw over for a different area's graphics -- to make sure walls, doors, stairs and other formations were in the same place across multiple graphical tilesets.
• Some rather chaotic tilesets may only have been used for prototyping to see how environment files (SCR files) we no longer have access to would look like.
• Others have sketches in the margins that do not seem to be intended as final graphics at all, but merely a sketch of a graphical idea that might later be integrated into a tileset.
• In other cases, a single sprite of Link is in the corner of many CGX files, this may be to help the developers account for scale.

Dungeons

The Ship

Ver. 1990-04

Osr-fune.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

This very early asset in the prototype data is something you would not expect to be in A Link to the Past as it is different in theme than any area found in the final game. To put it simply, it is a ship. In addition, the word fune from the file name means ship in Japanese, so the file name confirms what it appears to be visually as well.

The right side of the image appears to contain some test builds of two versions of a dungeon room that do not appear to be related to the ship on the left, although it is possible that if the room was polished up a bit and if it had a proper palette, it could have been part of a path through a dungeon that would eventually lead to the ship.

This is not the intended palette data for the environment seen here because the palette that is named in such a way that it matches up with the tile and environment data appears to be unfinished. The unfinished palette contains many blocks of solid pink which appear to be a placeholder for future palette changes. The palette that is used here is substituted in its place to give a feel for what the ship might have looked like if the palette had been finished.

(Source: Delda (reconstruction of ship data))

Unknown

Ver. 1990-04

1.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

2.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

6.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

13.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

21.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

Beneath Hyrule Castle

Ver. 1990-04

CGX File

osr-tika.cgx.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

A sewer and Hyrule Castle underground graphic set. The sideways-aligned chests, monstrous statue sketch, goblet sketch, and the unicorn head statue are all notable as previously-unseen assets. The unicorn head statue calls to mind Ocarina of Time, which also has its own similar scrapped content with the unicorn fountain. There is some experimentation with both empty and partially-full drainage pipes which never made it into the final game as well.

Sewer Passages

OSR-TST2 - Sewer Rooms 1 [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

An early sewer area, showing many different types of drains, waterfalls, and passages. Appears to have been used as a base for some alterations in NEWS_04\.\home\arimoto\osr-tst2\tika.scr and the screen is a copy of NEWS_04\.\home\arimoto\osr-tst2\tika.scr.bak. That, and its metastamp date, indicate a relatively early asset.

OSR-TST2 - Sewer Rooms 2 [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

These rooms, which don't display entirely correctly with any extant .CGX file, seem to fit with the rooms above.

Flooded Room

OSR-TST - Flooded room [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]	OSR-TST - Dry room [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

One of the aforementioned watery rooms that may be testing the ability - or at least graphical look - of flooding and emptying water from a room, like what occurs in the swamp palace. Questionably, there's a portion of the wall in the upper-left of the flooded version of the room that looks like there is the top of some kind of sluice, door, or gate through which the water can drain that disappears completely in the dry version of the room.

Foyer

OSR-TST - A foyer with an upper level [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

A foyer room for what, given the folder it is in (OSR-TST), may have been a kind of dungeon test area. There are few clues to the correct palette other than the fact that other rooms in the same folder contain water which only certain palettes, including the one used here, will display correctly as blue. Unfortunately, the graphics file used may not be complete as one can note some "face tiles" as indicators that certain floor tiles are not finished or are not drawing from the proper graphics. Other graphics files, however, tend to have even larger parts of the room as error garbage, leading to this being potentially the closest to what the developers intended as we can get.

Ver. 1990-12

CGX File

osr-osr-1.CGX.BAK [NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

Features of Hyrule Castle and sewer graphics can be seen, as well as early designs for the small chest, spiked floor, and locked doors.

Passage to Dungeon

anaohi.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]	Final

Castle Dungeon

roya.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

A developer experiment with the tiles forming the castle's underground prison. Another environment (SCR) file found in the Delda folder rather than with the OSR-TST castle files.

Hyrule Castle

Ver. 1990-04

CGX

1.cgx.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

Throne Room

OSR-TST - Early Throne Room [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

A very early version of Hyrule Castle's throne room from roughly the era when the developers were using a version of S-CG-CAD from 04-04-1990. Potentially part of a test area given it resides in the folder named OSR-TST. Most of the graphics are stored in arimoto\zelda\w\1.cgx.bak, which is from roughly the same era of development according to the metastamp and contains many early Hyrule Castle assets. The stairs to the throne platform may not be correct, as we see stairs in the graphics file that look more likely to be correct, but the screen file does not align with them in this case.

Hall

12.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

Living Quarters

OSR-TST - A curtained corridor [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]	OSR-TST - Two furnished internal rooms [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

Two indoor hallway areas. Given the tileset that is compatible with them, they appear to be in Hyrule Castle. The second area is especially notable for being highly furnished compared to Hyrule Castle in the final game.

Parlor

OSR-TST - Meeting Room [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

A well-furnished interior castle room with tables for meeting or dining. Note the experimentation with interesting light effects reflecting on the floor from the windows to the left of the room. Unlike many of the other environments in the developer workspace material, this one comes together perfectly when one uses the correct banks from the correct graphics files.

Kitchen

OSR-TST - Large Castle Kitchen-like Room [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]	Castle Kitchen Reconstruction Attempt

To the left, another room likely from the early castle that appears like it may have been a kitchen. Unfortunately, a graphics file that matches every tile and aligns with them exactly has not been found, and so many of the tile formations are drawing from incorrect graphics. Tables, ovens, crates, and stoves, which still exist in other areas of the graphics file used, seem to be likely items populating the room.

A disclaimer for the image to the right: this reconstruction was created as an attempt to give viewers a look at the screen on the left as it might have looked if the correctly ordered .cgx file still existed for it using existing tiles reordered in their cgx. Some educated guesses were employed using existing tiles in arimoto\zelda\w\1.cgx.bak and arimoto\zelda\w\1.col which are the two files used to display the scr file on the left. Thus it cannot be guaranteed to be fully accurate.

Bedroom & Dining Hall

Osr-Heya.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.12 900404]

A somewhat rough series of rooms with tables, a bedroom in the upper-left corner and a room of statues in the upper-right corner. These rooms generally use castle tiles, but have a few areas where the rooms are either incomplete or the correct graphics file is no longer extant to provide the correct formations and thus only placeholder tiles display. It's worth noting that this environment file, although it uses castle graphics, is found in the Delda folder rather than with the OSR-TST castle files. It's thus able to be associated with them only through its look, and may or may not be part of the same intended castle grouping.

SPL Rooms

The rooms below are in a folder called "spl", which refers to the .SPL file format used with SCad.

kabe-1	kabe-2	kabe-3
kabe-4	osr-1	osr-2
osr-3	osr-4

These rooms found in the SPL folder do not appear like environments intended to be used in the final game. Rather, they seem to be environments that test the look and feel of different assets - including diagonal walls, pits, multiple levels, moving walls, doors, pillars, statues, stairs, and furniture - in a built form. The names of four of the files contain the word "kabe", which in Japanese means "wall", pointing out exactly what is being showcased in those rooms.

All have the metastamp S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424, pointing to them as early assets.

Eastern Palace

Ver. 1990-04

hsinden.SCR.BAK [NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]	hsinden.SCR.BAK with osr-osr.COL [NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

hsinden.SCR.BAK appears to be a grouping of tiles into recognizable structures not in the form of an area that can be explored, but rather for the designers to easily copy these structures elsewhere without rebuilding them from scratch.

Ver. 1990-12

s-1.obj [12-10-1990]	rift.obj.bak [12-06-1990]

Here are two objects found in the graphics data with animations associated with them. On the left is a switch that can be pressed into the wall rather than being pulled outward from it. On the right is a lift that seems to be able to fall out from under the individual riding it. It bears some resemblance to the platforms Link can create with the Cane of Somaria and ride on.

(Source: Delda (animated object graphics))

Ver. 1991-09

sinden.CGX.BAK [09/25/1991 6:19PM PST]	c.CGX.BAK [10/22/1991 5:58 PM PST]

An early version of the Eastern Palace graphics. Notable are the early designs for the engraved snakes, and what appears to be lava resembling that of the final game's Turtle Rock dungeon. Some of these assets appear in another file, 'c.CGX.BAK' (note its file date may be residual from a tool or backup).

Agahnim's Tower

Ver. 1990-12

Agahnim's Tower Summit Rooms [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

A complex set of rooms that it was a somewhat lengthy process to find the settings for. There are a few obvious indications that this was a sort of developer test-draw screen file for what they wanted to make the Agahnim rooms look like. There are three different variations of the sacrificial room and one of the balcony room. Each room possesses some tiling issues and asymmetries, indicating it was never truly finished.

The largest uncertainties that represent graphics which could be incorrect here include:

• The red carpet with the gold circle - this spot is the only thing loaded from one specific graphics bank and could be swapped out for something else, but no other CGX files tried yielded anything without obviously incorrect graphics for this spot, the closest being half a throne with the other half being error graphics and the other being half the dead king with a tiling error above him. Neither of these seemed to be likely as the developer intent given the level of graphical error present and the fact that Agahnim needs to stand exactly there to perform the sacrifice ritual as he can in the other two variations of the room.
• The balcony graphics - these look the most unfinished, and the discoloration on the floor suggests a possible intent to use some form of shadowing on the floor as the room in the final game does, but the CGX files closely associated with the location did not yield anything graphically correct. It's possible this concept was left in a half-formed state here and finished on a later screen file, as there are others with this balcony elsewhere.

Ver. 1991-09

Sisai-1.scr [09-03-1991]

A later Agahnim's Tower environment file modeling the balcony closer to how it appeared in the final game (minus the door's absence), and modeling the entrance with samples of different floor types. It seems likely to be present to give an idea of how these rooms should look, giving leeway for the details to later discretion.

Pyramid of Power

Ver. 1991-09

piramit.SCR [09/01/1991 7:46 AM]	piramit.SCR.BAK [09/01/1991 7:14 AM]	piramit.CGX.BAK [09/03/1991 6:27 AM]

Early versions of the Ganon battle and Triforce rooms, located in \other\NEWS\テープリストア\NEWS_04\home\arimoto\zelda\d\. While the Triforce room has gibberish tiles, the CGX does have curtain graphics available. Considering the CGX file is dated later than the SCR files, the graphics may have been rearranged after the rooms were created, causing the garbage tiles.

If one were to replace the garbage tiles with the curtain tiles, we would get this result:

int-piramit.SCR [09/01/1991 11:48 PM] and int-piramit.SCR.BAK [09/01/1991 11:47 PM]

A second set of identical rooms can be found in \other\NEWS\テープリストア\NEWS_04\home\arimoto\zelda\khn\.

Pedestal Room

Ver. 1991-07

Po.scr [07-24-1991] with po.col.bak [07-04-1991] and po.cgx.bak [07-04-1991]	Po.scr [07-24-1991] with 2.col and po1.cgx.bak [08-18-1991]	Po1.cgx.bak [08-18-1991] with po1.col.bak [08-16-1991]

Po.scr's bottom-right quadrant is an almost futuristic-looking room with what could be perhaps a portal, pedestal, or platform. It has no clear entrance or exit otherwise and is quite enigmatic. This is likely the earlier iteration of this room, given its compatibility with older palettes and graphics from 07-04-1991.

In the second image in the row we look at the bottom-left quadrant with a random palette and the relatively newer iteration of the graphics file named po1.cgx.bak to expose some of the details in the bottom-left quadrant not visible with the older po.cgx.bak file.

In the third image in the row, if we look at the raw graphics data from po1.cgx.bak with po1.col.bak as the palette, we see the pedestal/platform in its presumably correct color palette in the upper-left. While when combined with the front-on perspective it may look vaguely similar to the final game's Triforce pedestal, the blue crystal formation also in the same graphics file seems to indicate that this room could have been planned for when Link encounters the maidens in their crystals rather than as another possible early iteration on the Triforce room. That said, as with many things in the data of the early stages of development of the game, neither of these possibilities are certain.

One other factor which hints that the data is plausibly related to the maidens trapped within the polygonal crystals was discovered and translated by GlitterBerri from the source data in multiple files, including 日本_Ver3\asm\z00_data0.asm, which contains commented out hex data related to "Polygon dai" - translated "Polygon platform". This data was commented out in July 1991. The name and the rough date that it was commented out meshes well with a description of the room and the graphic data's modified dates if the room was originally intended to be used for the scenes with the crystal maidens. If the room on the bottom-left and the room on the bottom-right of Po.scr were both intended to be used for different things rather than being iterations, it's possible - given that the Triforce is also a polygon in A Link to the Past - that the rooms had to do with the Triforce and crystals respectively. To strengthen the ties to the crystals and Triforce further, GlitterBerri discovered within comments crystals are referred to as both "poligon" and "polygon" internally, the Triforce is occasionally referred to as a polygon in comments as well, and the crystal maiden entity is called "POLIW" ("polygon woman").

Po.scr.bak [07-04-1991] with a.col, po1.cgx.bak [8-18-1991], and po.cgx.bak [07-04-1991]

Po.scr.bak (a different, older file from Po.scr) contains a strange pattern drawn from tiles within po.cgx and po1.cgx in the bottom-left, which appears to be preliminary and unfinished. The walls of the rooms exist only in po.cgx, while the pattern has gaps if only using po.cgx but shows the full pattern with po1.cgx. Both must be used in SCAD using the Screen Char function to view the image like this. The palette is for clarity and is likely not the palette that would have been used had this design been finished.

We can also note that the bottom-left room has 8 circles in this preliminary drawing, which does not seem too important in light of the final game. However this potentially aligns with non-final dialogue by Zelda that reveals at one time in development there were planned to be 8 sages in the prologue and 8 crystal maidens in the game, including Zelda herself. If this room is linked with the crystal maidens, it makes far more sense why the design includes 8 spaces.

Mixed Graphical Assets

osr-hsinden.CGX.BAK [NAK1989 S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]

An early CGX file which contains numerous early assets, including what appears to be an early sluice gate and its corresponding push switches. The CGX appears to contain banks of graphics for several different locations, some for Eastern Palace but also including tiles fitting for Hyrule Castle. Some of these are even referenced in hsinden.SCR.BAK. This is a case of a CGX file where the tiles fit multiple areas.

Interiors

Sanctuary

Ver. 1991-05

osr-kyokai-1.CGX.BAK [05/22/1991 10:28 PM]	Table from tileset	Table with button 1	Table with button 2

What appears to be an early Sanctuary tileset featuring some early glass window designs, a large religious podium, some tables, and other early assets. The podium can be assembled in multiple ways with three different upside-down Triforce tiles, two of which look like after a button has been pulled out or before a button has been pressed. The other with the button depressed into the podium.

These CGX assets are some of the best (but not perfect) fit found so far for osr-kyokai.SCR shown below:

osr-kyokai.SCR [05/22/1991 10:28 PM]	osr-kyokai.SCR with tika2.cgx.bak at 8bpp	osr-kyokai.SCR.BAK [05/22/1991 10:28 PM]
osr-kyokai.SCR.BAK with osr-osr.CGX.BAK	Final

The earlier prototype Sanctuary rooms exemplify some of the data's typical behaviors of being seemingly fragmentary, with no available combination of files being fully satisfactory.

The fact that there are many possible reconstructions for indoor assets when the tiles which fit are not entirely obvious is an unfortunate byproduct of the graphics system A Link to the Past uses to great effect to help save space and mirror Dark World and Light World environments, where swapping a graphics file can replace entire tile formations with others.

Unfortunately, as can be seen with the Sanctuary, many of the cgx graphics files left often only mostly align with the scr environment files left over. Some may have been in the midst of modification by the developers to move them towards working with a later version of the environment that was not preserved, others may be left over earlier versions that don't precisely fit either. Graphical errors are common when searching through the data combinations unless one finds rare exact matches.

osr-kyokai.scr Reconstruction Attempt

Above is an attempt to reorder the cgx files used to display osr-kyokai.scr in a way that attempts to resemble what it looked like one time in development. However, due to some graphics tile repositioning being required, it is not guaranteed to be correct, and some clear tiling errors exist (some likely left uncorrected by the developers in the version preserved).

Only roughly 15 tile locations were substituted in the two of the cgx files used (arimoto\zelda\y-1f1.cgx.bak and arimoto\zelda\d\tika2cgxbak), with tiles substituted over from a third cgx arimoto\delda\osr-osr.cgx.bak of around a similar era. Another cgx (arimoto/delda/osr-kyokai-1.cgx.bak) was not rearranged but used to make the brick-work align better. The scr environment file itself was not altered.

Ver. 1991-07

int-kyokai.SCR.BAK [07/04/1991 11:01 PM]

Various Sanctuary assets arranged on a single screen.

Ver. 1991-08

kyokai1.SCR.BAK [08/26/1991 9:35 PM]

An early version of the Sanctuary. Note that the solid white square is actually the same moveable setpiece as in the final game, only its palette is entirely white when viewed with 4-kyokai.COL.

kyokai.SCR.BAK [08/26/1991 6:03 AM]	kyokai.CGX.BAK [09/02/1991 11:42 PM]

A version of Sanctuary that is closer to final, with a unique entrance design that is present but unused in the final game. Other entrance designs can also be found in this CGX, in addition to several other early tiles such as the fairy statue.

Generic Houses

Ver. 1990-04

osr-minka-2.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.13 900424]

A rather early environment for a house or houses - "minka" meaning as such in Japanese - with a tileset combination which largely fits to give an idea of the room structure but whose exact correct tileset may no longer be extant. The normal house tiles work for objects in the room, while a separate tileset is needed in SCAD for the walls and floors to not display error data.

Ver. 1990-12

osr-minka.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]	osr-minka.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

A few rough house rooms in two SCR files which appear to be iterations of each other that were potentially testing the tileset's look and feel. The upper-left room of osr-minka.scr, which is the most complete in that file, also makes use of an alternate locked door tile.

Smithy and Fortune Teller

Ver. 1990-12

kagiya.scr.bak with uminka-k.cgx.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]	kagiya.scr.bak with 11.cgx [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

Two variations of kagiya.scr.bak, with very slightly different graphics sets.

The upper left room is obviously not what makes these rooms unknown as it is a variation on the Fortune Teller room but it is curious that it has a Big Key lock on the door, meaning that this may be a room that is part of a kind of graphical experiment by the developers rather than something intended for the final game. It is possible however that the Big Key door is an artifact of a slightly incorrect graphics file being used here, but if so the actual intended graphics file may no longer be extant.

The bottom right room looks closer to a test room with graphics formations used in a less than natural manner for a real dungeon. In fact, the bottom two rooms appear to be copied frequently in the prototype data and used as rooms that will give a general feel for what a tileset will look like in use. Slightly different copies of those two rooms also appear in the file arimoto\zelda\khn\a.scr which also contains other test rooms for showing off the look of varied tilesets.

The upper right room is a larger mystery as no graphics files seem to work to display it accurately, although it would not be surprising if it was a shop or blacksmith room given the tileset graphics that work best with this environment file tend to contain both Fortune Teller and Blacksmith graphics.

Shooting Gallery

Ver. 1990-12

atemon.scr.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226]

The upper right room is the most complete here, and appears to look similar to one of the mini-games -- archery game, although it is unusual that it works with such a rough looking tileset. Some of the later versions of the uminka tileset do not work as well, at least with this environment file. They may have been altered for later iterations.

Haunted House

Ver. 1990-06

polter.cgx [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]

An early graphics file whose name is suggestive of "poltergeist". That fact and the graphics themselves indicate the developers were at one point planning on having more than just dungeon floor tiles be thrown at the player by unseen forces. Many of the assets are items recognizable from the final game that are found in the houses of residents, like tables and benches, but with additional frames of animation indicating they would be thrown at the player and break. There are also some other dangerous items like axes and knives. The matching palette with its name gives the impression the lights would be out during these events, creating an eerie atmosphere.

Osr-obake.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.23 901226] with osr-minka.cgx.bak and osr-obake.col [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]

An unusually tinted room color for what in the upper left appears to be a somewhat normal room. (It's possible only the top-left room was intended to be used as this is sometimes the case in the Delda folder's A Link to the Past data.)

However, if one looks at the file name, "obake" in Japanese is often translated to something similar to "ghost" or "spiritual being", and it is thus possible this room set is tied in with the poltergeist assets that are found at arimoto\tanabe\polter.cgx. Lending credence to this hypothesis, the assets in that file match up with the specific furniture in this room - the portrait, bed, windows, table, and chairs all match. Either way, the room file name alone suggests it was associated with a paranormal event. This would not be out of the ordinary, as A Link to the Past has enemies like Poes and Hyus in the final game.

Regarding its dating, the date of the S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611 metastamp of the osr-obake.col file may be closer to the genesis of this room's concept, as the environment file seems to have continued to be modified through to the 901226 build of S-CG-CAD.

Cave

Ver. 1990-06

iw-iw-2.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]	iw-iw.cgx.bak [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]

An unusual cave area with a fireplace and some miscellaneous items scattered about. Its graphics file appears to contain tiles from multiple older tilesets, such as the bookshelf, the curtains, brick walls, and a dungeon entrance graphic. It is difficult to tell if this is legitimately intended or if another graphics file was reused and redrawn to create this one, leaving some remnants of that other tileset behind.

iw-iw.scr [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]	iw-iw.scr with osr-osr-1.cgx.bak to show dropdown ladder [S-CG-CADVer1.21 900611]

Another associated cave area with many unfinished elements. If a different tileset is used, such as the early osr Hyrule Castle tileset, the placeholder squares which just contain a dot in the upper-left room will instead be ladders similar to those found in the Swamp Palace that allow Link to climb up from a water submerged area. This indicates that if this tileset had been finished, these are quite possibly what would have been the tiles that would have been placed there.

Needless to say, however, given the filenames, the second image is for demonstration of the tiles in that position in typical tilesets of the era, and not an indication of what the room was likely intended to look like. The first image is a more likely representation given that the filenames match.

Unused Palettes

Prototype graphics and palette files corresponding to each Dark World dungeon are in sequential order at \arimoto\zelda\d\, with file names prefixed by "d" for dungeon and the number corresponding to that dungeon:

d1	Palace of Darkness
d2	Swamp Palace
d3	Skull Woods
d4	Thieves' Town
d5	Ice Palace
d6	Misery Mire
d7	Turtle Rock
d8	Ganon's Tower
d9	Unknown

d9.cgx.bak seems to be from an unused dungeon graphics file, or a dungeon graphics file that was meant to be used in the Pyramid of Power but was not in the end. It has no palette with a filename corresponding to its name "d9".

There are also additional, unused palettes for the Ice Palace, Misery Mire, and four unused palettes for Ganon's Tower in this location.

Below, using an environment file meant to show off dungeon formations at arimoto\zelda\khn\a.scr, we can see examples of the alternate palettes. One of Ganon's Tower's unused palettes - one closest to the final palette - is used here for Dungeon 9 graphics for visibility purposes.

Unused Ice Palace Palette	Unused Misery Mire Palette	Unknown Dungeon 9 Tiles with Unused Ganon's Tower Palette 1
Floors are a lighter shade of blue than in the final game in this prototypical Ice Palace palette named d5-1.col.bak. Other than that, it bears a close resemblance to the Ice Palace in the final game.	This palette, named as d6-1.col.bak, indicating it was originally intended for Misery Mire, is extremely different from the many hues of green the final Misery Mire uses and bears some resemblance to a Ganon's Tower palette with different floor colors.	This palette d8-1.col.bak is also similar to the final Ganon's Tower palette, but the real item of note here is the unused wall style of the Dungeon 9 graphic set. The graphics file also seems to be less finished than the others in this location - it's not as compatible with the a.scr environment file (or other environment files) and contains more missing and/or out of position elements.

Below are the other three unused Ganon's Tower palettes, which differ more markedly from the final one. Instead of the previous environment file, these are used with three variations of the Ganon's Tower entrance found in the same location of the palette files and graphics files (arimoto\zelda\d\) - these may have been here for testing purposes so the palette creator could get a feel for what a key room in Ganon's Tower would look like with the palettes, as not every screen in every dungeon is represented in the developer workspaces by any means.

Unused Ganon's Tower Palette 2 with d8-1.scr.bak	Unused Ganon's Tower Palette 3 with d8-h.scr.bak	Unused Ganon's Tower Palette 4 with d8-h.scr

(Source: Celice (discovery of unused palettes))

Underworld

1991-08 Room Data

August 1991 Prototype Dungeon Underworld

Found within the file SFC\ソースデータ\ゼルダの伝説神々のトライフォース\日本_Ver3\asm\zel.rmdt.asm1, this image showcases an unfinished, prototype layout of the dungeon "underworld" of A Link to the Past. The dungeons in the game operate within the same plane, and occupy spaces aligned on that plane side-by-side with other dungeons in the form seen here. This is a copy of an older, unfinished version of that data transposed in a graphical form. It was found within the source data with a notated date of 1991.08.21. Several dungeons, such as the Ice Palace and Ganon's Tower, have their boundaries mapped out here but are incomplete, or in the case of Ganon's Tower have not yet begun being assembled yet. Some dungeons present in the file, like Agahnim's Tower, bear little resemblance to their final game counterparts; however, others are very close to the configuration they take on in the final game.

(Source: Delda (extraction and collation of data))