Year's ago, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker director Shinya Hiratake had a dream for a game set in a series of small diorama-like levels where the hero couldn't jump. Instead players moved the camera around the diorama, guiding their hero through a dangerous environment before finding the exit. That hero was, of course, Link.
Before Captain Toad ever made his debut in Super Mario 3D Land, Hiratake dreamed of a game set inside smaller worlds. He had reasoned that if he removed the jumping mechanic from a platformer that he could shrink a game's levels by a significant degree. However, Hiratake figured that this kind of a game wouldn't fit into the Mario universe since most of those characters could jump. The Legend of Zelda's Link however, would be the perfect protagonist for a game like this.
"We must have done too good of a job with our demo," says Hiratake, "because during our presentation, Mr. Miyamoto asked us how we were planning on bringing these dioramas into production. He thought we were pitching him an actual physical product design."
After the release of Super Mario 3D Land, Miyamoto actually approached the team and encouraged them to take the concepts in the Toad Tracker minigame and expand them into a full blown title.
http://www.gameinfor...campaign=buffer
pretty cool how ideas like this form into what we have now.
