Majora’s Mask Originally Meant to be a 7 Day Cycle, Canceled Project Influenced Time Based Design

Yoshiaki Koizumi, co-director for Majora’s Mask, had a huge influence on some base design principles in Majora’s Mask because of a project he was working on that got canceled right as he started work for the new Zelda title. He was working on what appeared to be a board game style video game based around cops and robbers, but it never saw the light of day. After working on this project for a couple years, Miyamoto moved him over to Majora’s Mask. From this we learned that he carried over some of the concepts of the game he was working on, such as the entire precedent of a game taking place in a set number of days.

Originally Majora’s Mask was supposed to take place in 7 days all together, but due to the time constraints on the project itself, it was set to a 3 day re-settable cycle. Here’s a breakdown from a report at German Nintendo site Nintendo Online:

• Yoshiaki Koizumi, current producer of the 3D Super Mario games at EAD Tokyo, co-directed Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time
• After Ocarina of Time, Koizumi started working on a new game (late 1998?)
• The project was likely a completely new game; Koizumi described it as “a board game, based around the theme of cops and robbers”
• The player was supposed to catch a robber within a week, which in reality should take about a hour
• Takumi Kawagoe, cut scene director of OoT, was also involved with this project
• Shortly after the beginning of the project, Miyamoto and Aonuma transferred Koizumi as a co-director to Majora’s Mask
• Because of that, Koizumi’s new project was cancelled (early 1999?); there is no more information available on the game
• The Three-Day-System of Majora’s Mask has been heavily influenced by Koizumi’s cancelled project
• Accordingly, Majora’s Mask was originally supposed to take seven days to complete, but the concept had to be scaled down to three days as Majora’s Mask had to be developed within only one year

Pretty interesting stuff. Be sure to check out our Majora’s Mask 3D Walkthrough on the 13th if you get stuck!

Source: Nintendo Online via Nintendo Everything