See, for what you are doing, keeping it on track with the other games would probably be your best option imo.

The book itself could be a "key item". Once you get it, you'll be able to translate the various hieroglyphs around the game.

actually, this could even lead into the essences/pages being useful as well, and the more pages you get, the more hieroglyphs link will be able to translate.

Yeah, but when I started I decided that the Book would be for transporting from one dimension to the other as one of it's features. Having that and the hieroglyphs would make this games special item different from the others.

Ah, I see.
So the book is used for travelling between dimensions. Like seasons and ages.

Does that scrap the heiroglyphs idea?

^Might as well just make it a weapon like the Book of Mudora from A Link to the Past.

....this post was in response to Viper's previous post, I didn't even notice the last two.

Wait, make it a weapon? The games name is Oracle of Secrets, so why make the book of secrets a weapon? I mean, each Oracle has something they carry with them, Din the rod of seasons and Nayru the harp of ages, and Farore keeps the Book of Secrets with her (Which is actually what it's called).

Oh, nvm about what I said then.

speaking of weapons and items, let's come up with some.
I'd like to sprite them.

Corrupt one wanted to have the fire rod in the game, as Kholdstare is going to be a boss in the game, I was thinking of having to use the mirror shield as a weapon needed to defeat Blind instead of just slashing him, and why not coming up with some ideas for swords?

Okay, heres an idea. How about the main bad guy ripped a number of pages from the book. Most of are about locations, and things.

For example, you find the page of storms. You find that a town is on fire, you open to the page and it rains.

You find the page of renewing. You open it and revive a someone who passed away or something.

Basically, this idea would allow you to have some room to try new things, but keep an over all zelda feel.

Yeah, then there could be a page for teleportation, allowing you to transfer to the dimension in the book.

more like a dimensional map.

So, a map in the book, showing the two dimensions, Is what you mean. That would probably work out good.

Not to be a sir, but;

Zelda fangames usually don't go very far. Have you started on an engine? I would recommend doing that ASAP since you already have so many resources (sprites, sounds, etc) from the earlier games already.

Possible item concepts.

Wooden Sword: The beginning sword that you get from Impa?
Hylian/Hero's Sword: Level 2 Sword.
Master Sword: Found in the woods somewhere?

Wooden Shield: The beginning shield. Gotten from Impa? Can burn if touched by fire and can be eaten by like-likes.
Hylian/Hero's Shield: Level 2 shield. Can't be burnt, but can be eaten. Killing the Like-Like that eats it allows you to get it back.
Mirror Shield: Level 3 shield. Can reflect stuff and can't be eaten.

Hero's Clothes: (Green Tunic) Regular clothes.
Zora Flippers: Allows Link to swim in deep water.
Zora's Armor/Tunic: Allows link to dive underwater.

Book of Secrets
Fire Rod
Power Gauntlets (unsure if you want the power bracelets or not)
Bottle (with fairy) (could possibly work similar to in OoT. Press the butt on to swing the empty bottle, and if you catch a fairy, you can keep it to heal you later or revive you if you die.)
Bow
Hookshot
Bombs
Roc's Feather

we also need something that will replace Ricky
as in, we need an item that allows Link to jump up cliffs

think about this:
Moosh was technically replaced with Roc's Cape in Seasons (you can jump over large gaps of holes without his help),
and Dimitri was replaced with the Mermaid Suit in Ages (turbulent waters? Now you can swim them AND dive in them with this handy new suit!)

It's Ricky's turn for this game