Don't be deceived: the reason why these plans look nice is because of the team structure of the Zelda project. The design team spent a lot of time drawing up polished graphics and layouts and then "threw it over the fence" for implementation, in waterfall fashion. This is still a common practice within Japanese teams, as evidenced by, for example, Mighty No. 9's documentary, where you can witness an entire level constructed in Microsoft Excel. [0] The separation of roles is not a definite downside if the game design is already well-understood, and American teams have flirted with big up-front design on occasion, but tend to lean towards making sure everyone stays hands-on and can test and iterate independently.<p>One of the stories about Zelda that appears in interviews is that the second quest is the result of a miscommunication about how much space was available: They could have had a single quest that was twice as big.<p>The main direct advantage of drawing everything out is that you can quickly explore different types of setups(relative scales, positioning, iconography, etc.) and do a few passes of testing on it before committing it to code, for the same reasons that one might do wireframing and mockups for application UI.<p>[0] <a href="https://youtu.be/Ri4bV3Z186Q?t=249" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Ri4bV3Z186Q?t=249</a>
Do also check out, if you haven't already, this Iwata Asks interview from 2009, which contains further insight into the development of the original Zelda, and more design documents:<p><a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Spirit-Tracks/Iwata-Asks-Zelda-Handheld-History-/Bonus-1-Ancient-Documents-from-1985/Bonus-1-Ancient-Documents-from-1985-233949.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-The-Legend-...</a><p>(Be sure to click the Next button at the bottom of that page for the second part.)
Very disappointing. Uploading a few sketches to a blog is hardly what I'd call "releasing original design doc". Where's the rest of it? What about the story? Boss mechanics? Weapons? Enemies? Dungeons?
I once took an English class where we read screenplays that were printed in a book. One of them was of the great movie "Chinatown."<p>The professor --- who had never worked in film-- said: "See, the screenwriter really comes up with everything. See how he thinks of every scene, every bit of dialog, that the actors and the directors follow."<p>Later I read a book about the making of Chinatown and learned that the script was some huge thing that Robert Town and Roman Polanski rewrote every day while they were making the movie. The version in the text book was the correct script in the order of the final cut.<p>Anyone who takes a class in video game design or development should be wary of those who haven't really done it.
Can we have the url point to <a href="https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-behind-the-scenes-with-design-documents-from-The-Legend-of-Zelda--1169414.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-be...</a> (the original) instead? I didn't see gamasutra adding anything worthwhile