My very first GDC (in fact my first industry event since E3 1999), and here I am not 5 feet away from the man behind Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and of course, The Twilight Princess. Today Eiji Aonuma is speaking about the process of developing the blockbuster Wii and Gamecube title, from its roots as a sequel to the cell shaded Windwaker all the way up to the release of the game that launched a million Wiis.

I snap the picture and sadly return to my seat all the way in the back of the meeting room, but I'm lucky enough to have a chair to sit in. When I arrived at the venue the line was stretching far off into the hallway, and I was sure I was going to be turned away before I even got to the door.

I put on my special headset and listen to the music playing on it as Aonuma gets ready to speak. Since he will deliver the session in Japanese, us non-speakers have to listen to a woman over the headset who translates on the fly.

He begins by speaking about his hopes for Wind Waker. Despite critical acclaim the game did not perform as well as he had hoped in North America, and things were even worse in Japan. A phenomenon was occurring there which he calls gamer drift...gamers losing interest in games. They needed a new way to play games. Something that would bring back the old gamers, while reaching a whole new market. While the team was already working on Wind Waker 2, they found that toon-shading wasn't popular with the fans, while 3D gameplay that hadn't changed much since Ocarina of Time would get boring for older players while at the same time confusing the newer ones.

One answer they tried was connectivity. He explains that while connectivity had played a part in Wind Waker and other games, no other game had fully taken advantage of linking the GBA together with the Gamecube. Enter Four Swords. He was very hopeful for the success of the game, but it turns out people weren't happy with having to buy four GBA systems, and to the outsider the process seemed overcomplicated. Suppose the entire internet could have told him that, but even big time developers have their vision clouded sometimes.

Wind Waker had alienated their teen demographic and Japan needed a new way to play to get over the gamer drift, so Aonuma decided that he should create a game to cater to the North American audience since Japan was still uncertain. He decided to make a realistic Zelda game, announcing it at E3 2004. He was worried the staff working on Wind Waker 2 would be upset at the different direction, but they loved the idea.

Aonuma announced the game at E3 04, with a release target of 2005. People were intrigued, excited, overwhelmed, ecstatic, orgasmic, and several other adjectives.

Now he shows some footage from the prototype of Zelda DS, which would eventually go on to become The Phantom Hourglass. Originally the 3D portion was on the top, but the controls didn't really work. Moving right along.

He explains that he wanted to play with the concept of transformation. Light and dark, good and evil. Inspired by the bit in Link to the Past where Link becomes a bunny, he decides to explore the wild and heroic...link will become a wolf!

Aonuma left the game in the hands of the team and went to work on The Minish Cap, the game that brought Japan back and made the worries about gamer drift fade. Awww, he says that he had put himself so fully into the Minish cap in order to avoid the fear of not coming up with innovative gameplay for the adult Zelda.

In 2005 the response to the wolf Link was overwhelming, but there was still no real innovation. Time to break out the Miis!

Miyamoto said that the 'Revolution' would be the key to innovating the game, but Eiji says hewas torn...he didn't want to alienate the Gamecube users, and making different versions would push the game to 2006. Iwata had the answer.

Huzzah!

He says that since the hardware between the Gamecube and the Wii were not all that different, transferring the code was a snap. Now he details the control issues...the trial and error used to make the game feel right. He says that control was a problem with the E3 2006 demo, and his reactions when Miyamoto told him weren't all that positive.

Still, controls were ironed out. A new way of targeting, sword strokes with the wiimote taken out, then returned with a complete mirroring of the game's maps to make the right-handed sword holding make sense. Brilliant move there. Much better than trying to rework the entire character with only several months of development left.

Finally they did internal playtesting...he says that even the women in the office could play it, meaning it had to be good. Not sure what he is implying there ladies. He said it, not me.

The game finally came, and the rest is history.

He says he suffered a lot during the development process, but he says creation is about suffering...you must learn from your pain.

Now he talks for a bit about The Phantom Hourglass, explaining the multiplayer aspect. One player plays Link, the other plays three phantoms trying to stop him from collecting gems. The gems are of varying sizes and weights, which effect how fast or slow Link moves towards the base. He can only see the phantoms on the map when he is holding a gem, and they cannot see him in his base or a safe zone. Looks...interesting. Not exactly fun, but interesting. When one player loses the sides are swapped. Hmm.

And now his final parting words. It's about his family...his wife, and his 5 year old son. Dammit, what is it about you fathers putting your five year old sons into everything you do? Not to name names, but here and here and here.

Aww, his wife never plays games, and his son wanted a wiimote...not the Wii, but the wiimote, because he saw it on TV and it looked cool. His son loved Wii sports, and then played Zelda. Then one day he comes home to find his wife playing the game with his son.

And that wraps the whole thing up into a lovely package. Eiji Aonuma struggled for years to come up with something that would be special enough for fans and new gamers to enjoy, and is paid off by discovering his non-gaming wife playing the game he created with his son. What a heartwarming tale, with a storybook ending. And they all lived happily ever after. Michael Fahey