Home > Discussion of the New Puzzle Types in Spirit Tracks!
Aonuma: In Spirit Tracks, I think the staff properly absorbed their own definitions of what The Legend of Zelda is, and created new ways of playing while protecting past traditions.
Iwamoto: It's the same with the subplayer's puzzles.
Aonuma: The person who thought up the subplayer puzzles was another former programmer, like Director Iwamoto. The puzzles that planner thought up are games that make you use different parts of your brain than usual.
Iwata: At EAD, there are lots of planners who came from Design — such as Miyamoto-san, Tezuka-san, and you, Aonuma-san — and relatively few people from Programming, aren't there. Do you think the puzzles are different from the usual ones precisely because someone from Programming thought them up?
Aonuma: I do. They're clearly different. And, when I tried them, I felt, "Oh, I see! I never would have thought of this!" many, many times.
Iwata: And I think, once the people playing the game have solved those, they'll be able to think, "Hey, check it out! How smart am I, huh!?" That's one of the best parts about the puzzles in The Legend of Zelda.
Aonuma: But there was one place that I just could not manage to solve. We were still in development, so I thought, "It's probably a bug", and I went to the planner and said, "This isn't solvable, is it." And he said, coolly, "No, it is." (laughs)
Iwata: I bet that was pretty mortifying. (laughs)
Aonuma: So, during the final half, things sort of turned into a battle of wits between the planner and myself. (laughs) I said, "I am absolutely going to solve this!"
Iwata: That's probably exactly what he wanted. (laughs)
Aonuma: But they really do make you use your head in different ways. I was a Liberal Arts man, so maybe I feel it more strongly because of that. In any case, I think you can look forward to puzzles the likes of which you've never seen.
Iwata: This time, they've added Science puzzles, you mean.
Aonuma: Right. (laughs)
