Summary
Nintendodeveloped an internal Zelda-themed social media site to aid the development ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom(thanks,Automaton).
At a talk during Japan’s Computer Entertainment Development Conference (CEDEC), game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and engineer Kenichi Hirose held a talk and went behind the scenes on the development of the critically acclaimed Tears of the Kingdom.
Rupee For Rupee?
The internal social media site was a neat tool Nintendo used to foster a collaborative environment among the team. Like any message board, developers could make posts, receive comments and even ‘like’ posts by pressing a little rupee. It was dubbed the ‘Rupee Bulletin Board’ after the game’s currency.
As you may have gleaned, the site was used to rapidly share feedback on new features, bugs, playtests and so on during the development of Tears of the Kingdom. The ‘like’ feature was used as an unofficial prioritisation system - the subject matter of posts with the most rupees were seen as being very important to the team.
As with any social media site (except for X), Nintendo had a set of rules for the Rupee Bulletin Board. Posts had to be objective and free from any personal bias or opinions. Also, three was a strict ‘no argument’ rule, feedback had to be constructive and discussions were not allowed to devolve into conflicts.
The pair also highlighted an invention by the team’s infrastructure engineers. An image board was created so developers could test over 120,000 item combinations stemming from Link’s new fuse ability.
Obviously, the social media site was a good idea as it was partially responsible for the fantastic Tears of the Kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
WHERE TO PLAY
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a direct sequel to the Nintendo Switch hit Breath of the Wild. In it, Link must team up with Princess Zelda to rid Hyrule of another threat to its existence.
