CD-i Nintendo/Animation Magic iceberg chart explanations Mk. 2

Listed from top to bottom.

I won't explain the following entries as they're incredibly obvious:

-Not knowing about the CD-i/Animation Magic games
-Hating the games because a YouTuber told you to
-Liking the games ironically because of YTPs
-Playing the popular games (I.E. Hotel, Wand, Meen)
-Morshu
-Making a YTP based off them
-Playing the unpopular games (I.E. Adventure, Pyramid, Chill)
-Unironically liking one of the games

This also means I don't have to cover the first tier w/ blanket Zelda. Nice!
So, without further ado...

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PART 1 - THE TOP OF THE ICEBERG (LINK)

-Faces/Wand based off DiC cartoon
Animation Magic's Zelda games are partially based off the 1989 DiC cartoon, with things such as naming the King of Hyrule Harkinian and Link nagging Zelda for a kiss. I'm pretty sure the games weren't meant to be adaptations of the cartoon, however.

-Shrinking bosses
In the cutscenes, Militron and Glutko are massive, picking up Koridians with a single hand and ensnaring/eating them. Yet, when Link actually fights them, they're only a couple of feet taller than him. This is almost certainly thanks to the limitations of the CD-i.

-Zelda summons the book
When Zelda captures Ganon in The Wand of Gamelon, he is wrapped in chains and trapped in a book that looks identical to the Book of Koridai. This suggests that Wand takes place after Faces, but nothing is confirmed.

-Lord of the Clans
An unreleased Warcraft point and click game that Animation Magic worked on. It was pretty much their last major project before they went under.

-Faces/Wand shared boss ideas
Multiple boss concepts and ideas were shared between Faces and Wand, likely due to the games being made in around a year. Examples include Lupay and Omfak, Goronu and Gibdo (and also Wizzrobe), and Militron and Iron Knuckle.

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PART 2 - A DIP BELOW THE SURFACE (OPHELIA CHILL)

-Inconsistent sprite/cutscene colors
The in-game character sprites often have different colors than their cutscene counterparts. For example, King Harkinian has an iconic orange palette in the cutscenes, but in-game, he looks much more like the DiC cartoon design.

-Fake Adventure MIDI
A MIDI claiming to be music from Zelda's Adventure has been circulating the Internet for years. This is false - it's a fan-remix of the Zelda theme that was labeled as being from Adventure for unknown reasons. A song from AVGN Adventures II was based off of it.

-Super Mario's Wacky Worlds
An unreleased sequel to SMW that partially took place on Earth. It's much more in-line with the Mario series than Hotel Mario. While Nintendo reacted positively to the game, it was cancelled anyways due to the dying CD-i market.

-Zelda wears DiC outfit in two cutscenes
In the Shroud/Magic Cloak cutscenes, Zelda wears her DiC outfit instead of her regular one. This implies that at least one of the animators thought the DiC design was what they were using for the cutscenes.

-Anutu's crab
It's a Gohma! (The sprite used for the 'crab' is a bit different than the normal Gohma sprites, too.)

-Unused heart sprite
An pickup sprite for a heart exists in the data for Wand, but is never used. This was almost certainly meant for the hearts dropped by Iron Knuckle and Hektan.

-Cut Wand cutscene BGs
Also within the data of Wand are two unused backgrounds for both the intro and ending cutscenes. The intro's unused BGs are rather peculiar. I'll explain this a bit later.

-Hotel Mario cut tutorial
Unused voicelines for a cut tutorial exist in Hotel Mario's data. They're spoken by the most unenthusiastic unpaid intern in history, even though it's supposed to be Mario speaking them. The final game just tells players to read the manual- er, enclosed instruction book.

-Cutscene frame reuse
Some of the AniMagic Zelda cutscenes reuse frames. The most obvious example would be between Link's first scene in the Faces intro and the scene where Link flexes with the power glove.

-Duke Onkled's death sentence
As punishment for his treason, Duke Onkled is sentenced to scrub down all of Hyrule's floors. Seems like a pretty light punishment for what he did, until you realize that Hyrule is full of dungeons containing monsters in them. If they're included as well, then that means the King basically gave Duke Onkled a death sentence.

-Original cut of Zelda's Adventure
Zelda's Adventure has a lot of cut voicelines and items. A lot. I couldn't possibly do the game's unused content justice with the chart or this write-up, so I advise you to read its TCRF page.

-Recolored Faces BG in Wand
The unused intro cutscene BGs are recycled from TFoE, but with a new palette. One of the unused recolored FoE intro BGs would be re-recolored and used whenever Fari/Lord Kiro shows up in the ending.

-Early Roy cutscene audio
Unused audio for the cutscene after Roy's HardBrick Hotel also exists in Hotel Mario's data. The most notable thing about them is that the voice actors for Mario and Luigi are imitating their VAs from the DiC cartoons.

-Adventure Food Dude cameo
Food Dude was a unreleased, nutrition-based CD-i game made by Viridis, the same people who made Adventure. There are graphics and audio in Adventure for an easter egg that would summon the Dude himself, but the way to activate this is currently unknown (and might not even exist).

-Faces of Evil level skips
With some skill and knowledge of the game's mechanics, you can beat The Faces of Evil without ever having to complete Nortinka (and skip out on Toyku, Firestone, Lupay, etc). I'm planning to make a video on this sometime in the next century.

-Iggy's Cheese Hotel
Every Koopaling in Hotel Mario has their own hotel except Iggy, who is fought right before Bowser. The level data files indicate that there would've been an additional hotel between Ludwig and Wendy. A cheese hotel was also planned for the game, but was cut as the developers were disgusted of the concept. It's possible that Iggy would've been the owner of this cheese hotel.

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PART 3 - DEEPER INTO THE WATERS (ANTU)

-The Zelda backgrounds were censored
Some of the original background art for Faces' levels contain extra things that were either changed or removed for the final BGs. For example, a pair of ladders and a second platform were removed from the Glutko 5 eye. A few obvious edits can also be seen on the backgrounds that have unreleased original art.

-IT'S HOLLIE'S BIRTHDAY
A secret message meant to appear on the birthday of Hotel Mario's play consultant. It's supposed to display sometime between New Year's and Valentine's Day. IIRC, I tried every day between the two dates, but I never got the message. Is it hidden behind a button combo?

-Mario Takes America
Another unreleased Mario CD-i game. It would've involved Mario traveling from New York to Hollywood to star in a feature film, getting wrapped up in FMV footage capers along the way. Sort of like an inverse Steel Ball Run, if you'd pardon the Jojo reference. It was cancelled due to the CD-i's limited capabilities and Philips losing hope in the game. The producer attempted to save the game by replacing Mario with a band touring across the USA (and later on, with Sonic?!), but to no avail.

-ZA Zelda was played by the receptionist.
Zelda's actor in the Adventure cutscenes was the office receptionist of Viridis, Diane Burns. The game's composer played Gaspra. Interestingly, a different person modeled for Zelda's in-game sprites.

-Pyramid Adventures early intro
An early, uncompressed version of the intro for Pyramid Adventures exists in the game's data, along with the voice lines meant for it. This suggests that PA wasn't initially designed with the Digital Video Cart (basically, a way for the CD-i to play MPEG files) in mind.

-The Flood
A shipwreck and fish skeleton can be found on dry land in Koridai and Gamelon, respectively. Koridai is especially weird as the shipwreck is on the top of a large volcano. This points to a large flood happening sometime before the events of Faces and Wand... perhaps the one from The Wind Waker?

-Penis in Aru Ainu
In Lubonga's house in Aru Ainu, there is a surfboard (?) with a human figure on it, which has a visible penis.

-Agwanda cheese spot
In Adventure, it's possible to avoid all of Agwanda's attacks by camping in the top-left corner of the arena. This only applies to the first fight with her in the Shrine of Water: the rematch has no such cheese spot.

-Meen's early design
I.M. Meen's initial design was much more creepy and unsettling, the concept art for which I used for the next tier's image. It was replaced with the goofy design we all know and love. The art was posted on Twitter without any explanation as to where the OP got it, so its origins remain a mystery. Perhaps from the portfolio of one of the game's artists?

-Lupay's voice
Lupay has a feminine voice in the original English version of Faces, but this was changed to a masculine voice in the European dubs.

-Frozen fairies
It's possible to freeze the fairies in Faces with the Bell, which suggests that they share the same AI base with flying enemies.

-Kobitan house attic
The Kobitan lantern house in Wand has an attic area that leads back to the front door. Presumably, Zelda would climb up, spawn some enemies, and use the path to sneak behind and surprise them. Due to the game's collision limitations, Zelda cannot actually climb into the attic, and gets stuck halfway up the ladder.

-Unused Meen scrolls
Four complete yet unused scrolls can be found in the game's scroll text archive. They are, as follows: a generic Meenwall scroll, an extra page to Meen Goes to Mars, a hint to a hidden room in Level 4 that doesn't exist, and a diary page listing various things in Level 34. Not very interesting.

-GNED WAS HERE
An unused texture in I.M. Meen has this written on a wall. It would've appeared somewhere in the Sewers.

-Zelda is topless in a cutscene.
In the Gohma Pit cutscene, Zelda appears topless for a frame due to a coloring mistake.

-Adventure is the true sequel to LttP
In Zelda's Adventure, Zelda wears the maiden outfit she is seen in during A Link to the Past. This suggests that the game - if it was canon - would be a sequel to ALttP and ALBW, or the former at the very least.

-Alternate Faces place names
A concept drawing of Koridai's map has several alternate location names. Harlequin Bazaar is Clowon Casino, Crater Cove is Soutuna Village, Ganon's Lair is Sancrumi, and so on.

-Vegemeen's face
Vegemeen swaps between two faces while it is fighting the player. Normally, it has a creepy face with no eyes and a open mouth. When it uses its projectile attack, the face changes to the generic Meen face used by the other bosses. Almost certainly an incomplete attempt to tone down Vegemeen's appearance.

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PART 4 - DARK DARKER YET DARKER (EARLY MEEN)

-Adventure was Hal Smith's final role
Hal Smith was the voice of Gaspra in Zelda's Adventure, and would pass away a year before the game's release. The credits do not mention his involvement, however, and was only revealed in a later article with the composer.

-Triforce of Wisdom didn't lie
The Triforce of Wisdom promised that the King would safely return. People claim that the Triforce was lying about this, even though the King did, just under very unusual circumstances.

-Dale DiSharoon, Inc.
An early name for Animation Magic while it was developing the Zelda games (and Pyramid Adventures, too?), originating from the nickname of one of its founders. The name would still be used on the box art and discs of the initial US release, which was fixed for the game's later releases.

-Untitled Donkey Kong game
A Donkey Kong game was in development for the CD-i, but was never released. The only evidence we have of the game's existence is from the LinkedIn profile of one of its developers.

-Reesong church face
Part of a human face can be seen on the key platform in the Reesong Palace church. Perhaps it's the son of one of the Faces of Evil?

-Morshette
The hungry woman in Wand looks like a Super Crown version of Morshu. Or maybe she's his estranged daughter. Enough said.

-Missing Chill Manor cutscenes
Strings in the Chill Manor executable imply that there would've been six 'win' cutscenes and two 'loss' cutscenes. There are only one of each in the final game.

-Cut Goblin enemy
A goblin enemy is mentioned in the Meen executable, but doesn't actually appear in-game. There are some decorations in the game that might've reused the goblin's sprites, but that's about it. An enemy called the Viking Goblin would appear in Chill Manor.

-Typos in Meen's manual
The backstory in the manual for I.M. Meen is missing an Oxford comma and quotation mark. There is also an erroneous capital in one of the Hooray for Meen scrolls. Quite ironic for a game about good grammar, don't you think?

-Impa in Mutant Rampage: Bodyslam
One of the enemies in MR:B is named Impa. The two are completely unrelated apart from their name.

-Ruler Tower
Gaspra's tower in Zelda's Adventure was created by sawing a yardstick into four pieces, gluing it together, and modeling over it.

-Enforced Gannon misspelling
The August 1994 prototype of Zelda's Adventure uses the correct spelling for Ganon's name in the Scroll of Shurmak. Philips would make them change the name's spelling to "Gannon", even though the correct spelling was allowed for Animation Magic's games. I don't know either.

-The Gingko Pinnacle
The early Koridai concept art also labels multiple minor, explorable areas on the island. That is, except for the Gingko Pinnacle, the mountain that Kulvan the blacksmith is chained to. You only visit the side of the mountain, and not the actual ginkgo tree itself. Which is weird, considering all the other weird landmarks on the map that Link can visit.

-Dash Daniels is Link's reincarnation
The kid from Pyramid Adventures and CD-i Link share the same voice and VA. This fact, along with the two games having a copyright date of 1993, basically confirms that the three games were developed together.

-Multiple Links and Zelda
Link and Zelda have different appearances between cutscenes, most likely as a side-effect of Animation Magic not really caring about on-model character designs.

-AniMagic Zelda reviews were paid
When said games were released, they had a mixed to positive reception, which is surprising considering how much they get blasted by fanboy YouTubers. This clearly means that Animation Magic and/or Philips paid the reviewers to like the games, right?

-Warbane skip
You can skip the first Warbane fight in Zelda's Adventure by moving upwards in the upper-right corner of the arena. How did Viridis not catch this? (Probably mismanagement and not really giving a damn.)

-Gwonam is actually evil
Why would Gwonam tell Link that there wasn't enough time to prepare for Ganon's invasion of Koridai? You would think that, with such a difficult challenge ahead, Gwonam would give Link a few minutes to grab his stuff to ensure the quest wouldn't fail. Hell, Link didn't even have his sword with him while he was at the castle! This feels like Gwonam was trying to set up Link for failure.

-Nintendo stole CD-i concepts for OoT
A bit too complicated to explain in this post. Please read the following post for more information:
https://glutko.tumblr.com/post/620223257543606272

-Cut Chill levels
Entries for Levels 21 to 36 are in the Chill Manor executable, but the game ends at Level 20. This is just a leftover from Meen's level list that AniMagic forgot to remove for some reason.

-John Dark: Psychic Eye
An unreleased CD-i noir game partially developed by Animation Magic. The company only did the game's intro before handing the game off to CapDisc, who were unable to finish it due to the dying CD-i market. Cover art was made for the game, however.

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PART 5 - THE BOTTOM OF THE ICEBERG (HECTRO-GENOCIDE)

-Meen and Chill are Murklorians
One of the page comments in Level 16 of Chill Manor vaguely implies that Ophelia Chill came from Murklore (the place where she gets her guardians) instead of Earth. It's possible that Meen came from the planet as well, given that he's lived for a century and a half and is somehow incredibly agile. (It could be magic, too, but given how weak Meen actually is in terms of spell-casting, I doubt it.)

-Summer CES footage
According to some Brazilian gaming magazine, the AniMagic Zelda games were shown off at the 1993 Summer CES, where they surprised audiences with their animated cutscenes. There are no other mentions anywhere of this event happening, as far as I can tell. If video/photo evidence exists of this mythical event, it would be the greatest thing in the history of the CD-i Zelda games.

-Lisa Simpson in Pyramid Adventures
Two directory listings can be found in the game's data, both of which have a root folder/hard drive named Lisa Simpson. This suggests that all of AniMagic's hard drives/root folders were named after Simpsons characters.

-Real Time
An unfinished non-edutainment FPS made by AniMagic around the same time as Warcraft Adventures. It would've used the Unreal engine, which is weird as it wasn't publicly available until 1998. And that is all we know about the game!

-Shrine of Air clip
It's possible to clip through the walls in the Shrine of Air in Zelda's Adventure. In the crystal bridge room, go through the right exit while at the topmost part of it, and you'll hit the clip. This clip is absolutely useless and wastes all of your progress in the Shrine.

-Giant Gwonam
One of the CD-i's infomercials features a man playing The Faces of Evil on a huge screen. The end of the intro cutscene is shown off as well, and the camerawork makes it look like the man is being menaced by a giant Gwonam.

-Underage drinking in Meen
The internal name for the Power Potion in I.M. Meen is C2H5OH, which is the molecular structure for alcohol. And both of the playable characters in that game are kids, so...

-Spaceship Pythagoras
An early name for Math Invaders, Animation Magic's third edutainment FPS. It's mentioned in the Chill Manor sampler demo's advertisement screens.

-Jeff Yaeger
An unused voice-clip in Adventure is of a man saying this name. There is no-one with this name in the game's credits. Was he a friend of a developer?

-384x239 missing frames
The 384x239 rips of the CD-i Zelda cutscenes are missing several frames - 11, if I remember correctly. Most of these are just screens of one color, but a few were proper frames that weren't properly ripped for one reason or another. The Hamsha Water of Life cutscene comes to mind. They're also missing the bottom pixel of data, but that's rather obvious.

-Link sex theory
Another very complicated CD-i Zelda theory, although it's more of a joke than the OoT one. It tries to explain, using circumstantial evidence, how Link ended up in Lady Alma's mirror. Read it here:
https://glutko.tumblr.com/post/170425662517/

-BethSoft stole Faces' plot for Morrowind
Both games share a similar plot. A hero is sent off by his king to a distant island to fulfill a prophecy. Along the way, he must collect various powerful, magical items, so that he can defeat a powerful being who lives underneath a volcano who has been turning the island’s inhabitants into monsters.

-Gwonam cuneiform (DO NOT TRANSLATE)
Gwonam's scroll is written in what seems to be cuneiform, as well as a Jesus fish (?). The text is almost certainly untranslatable - the DO NOT TRANSLATE part is just a little joke.

-Missing Adventure music tracks
A lot of music was composed for Zelda's Adventure, but most of it was never used. Instead, the game focused on nature ambience with the occasional music track for a certain area. What did these unused tracks sound like?

-ZA background sabotage
The realistic backgrounds of Zelda's Adventure take up a huge chunk of the CD-i's RAM. This decision by Viridis would severly limit what they could do with the game, causing arguments between the team and forcing the removal of unnecessary items and voicelines. Okay, it's technically a self-sabotage, but whatever.

-The missing Gamelon landmass
The concept art for Gamelon's map has a large landmass between Aru Ainu and Gobiyan Ship that was removed for the final game. Some land in the Sakado bay was trimmed down as well. Interestingly, some lighter water can be seen at the very bottom of the final map, implying there's an extra unseen island south of Gamelon.

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PART 6 - THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN (GANNON)

-Gaspra was a real person
A production photo of Zelda's Adventure shows Jason Bakutis, the game's special effects artist, posing for a photo with Gaspra - well, the actor/musician playing him. It looks a lot more like Gaspra is taking a picture with a member of one of his favorite bands.

-What actually was for dinner
Well, what was it? All we know is that it was most likely delicious, as Link and Harkinian are hyped to eat it.

-Morshu in RPG Maker VX Ace
In VX Ace's RTP, there are sprites for a shopkeeper/traveling merchant that look like a bootleg version of Morshu.

-XYZINVINCO Effect
One of the hidden cheat names in Zelda's Adventure seems to grant the player invincibility, but the button/combination to activate it is currently unknown. One day, we'll find it. Or maybe it'll end up like the Food Dude easter egg

-Echo and the Bunnymen OST
In an interview with Bakutis, he mentions that Viridis were at one point trying to get Echo and the Bunnymen to do Adventure's soundtrack. This never amounted to anything, either due to a lack of funds or Viridis' mismanagement. Or both.

-TEST.scn game
The titular file can be found in Chill Manor, and seems to be a cutscene/background listing for an unknown, possibly made-up game. If it IS real, what game did it come from?

-Faces/Wand take place on Earth
Some of The Wand of Gamelon's backgrounds are taken from real-life paintings/statues. The October page from Très Riches Heures can be found in Lika's house. Dodomai Palace has two paintings that highly resemble the King Henry VIII portrait and The Jewish Bride by Rembrandt. A statue of Buddha can also be seen in the Shrine of Gamelon.

-Every copy of this chart is personalized
Think about it.

-Shrine of Gamelon is a sacrifical altar to Lupay
This section is going to be longer than others because I haven't posted the theory anywhere else. Sorry.

Lupay's presence in Koridai feels like she was recruited by Ganon at the last minute. The interior of her Face is almost entirely made of caverns instead of having proper chambers; not even Glutko's Face is this bad. She also lacks a Face carving on the Gingko Pinnacle. It really feels like her Face wasn't finished by the time Link arrived.

She's also described as the most dangerous of Ganon's allies, despite not doing anything that powerful. She hypnotizes and transforms Koridians like Harlequin, fires lasers from her third eye, and is immune to any attack except her own... and that's about it. Her death scene is also weird: she vanishes into thin air like she's a hallucination or something. Weird, innit?

Anyways, onto the Shrine of Gamelon. Blood can be seen splattered on the altar and walls of the Shrine of Gamelon, almost as if someone had sacrificed something to a higher being on it. Speaking of, a three-eyed deity (?) can be spotted in one of the Shrine's murals, which seems to be based off both Mahakala and Kurukulla. The being only has two arms, however.

Only one character has three eyes in the CD-i Zelda games, and it's Lupay. This is probably just a big coincidence, but a good chunk of Lupay's oddities - the unfinished face, her alleged power, the vanishing death - would make more sense if she was a recently-spawned manifestation of this deity. If that's the case, then the blood on the altar quite likely comes from sacrifices to bring her back after her 'death'. Maybe from Omfak zapping and eating random animals? Humans, even?

(I also find it funny that Ganon sent Omfak, another wolf person, to guard the Shrine. Rather savvy of him. Oh, and if you're wondering, I have absolutely no clue what Omfak is. And I doubt we'll ever know.)

-Wand and Zelda's Adventure had their titles swapped
A Dutch CD-i magazine once referred to Zelda's Adventure as Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. Oops.

-The MIDI was authentic
What if the Zelda's Adventure MIDI was one of the cut music tracks for the game, and was leaked by the composer under a throwaway account? That's a thought, innit?

-Nintendo secretly approved of Zelda's Adventure
In the 'Bunnymen' interview, Bakutis talked about how a couple of Japanese executives (almost certainly from Nintendo) came to Viridis' offices one day. They were impressed by the models he had created for Adventure.

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And that's it for the CD-i/Animation Magic iceberg chart. No, for real this time.

Don't expect me to make one of these for the upcoming unused content one.