there was a time when games would have pointless areas, minigames, npcs who do nothing but comment pleasantly on somesuch, secret rewards without hint or indication, nooks and crannies for the imagination to fill. you were expected to spend weeks, months with one or two carts or cds, and to pore over every bit in search of not entertainment but wonderment. you were expected to revisit, explore, and make a kind of memory palace, using your mind as a wedge to carve out a little home for yourself in a virtual world you've mapped out to completion.

if you want some insight youtube essayists won't share, it's this: majora's mask is really the twilight and funeral pyre of this kind of game design. it was supposed to capture that idea of exploration and spread it out over three short days with a bundle of story threads to follow up on and perfect, to transform the idea of a collectible bauble you find on top of a tall inaccessible cliff into that of a special, fleeting moment shared among treasured friends, a few snatches of conversation nestled in a spare hour between appointments. to induct children accustomed only to play into the management of one's affairs and the ways of life.

but it only served to prove that most players were already well on their way to becoming caged servants, frightened of their own shadow once the stasis of childlike space is thrown into the flux and flow of age and time. because time, for them, schooled not in the leisurely passage of the afternoon but in the rigors and demands of the morning schedule, is an oppressor.