Spirit Tracks Inspired By Children's Storybook

With The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks hitting stores this Friday and excitement building up for the game, gamers may be anxious to know a little bit more into the development of the game. In a recent Iwata Asks interview, with Zelda director, Eiji Aonuma, he revealed where he got his inspiration from when designing Link's main form of transportation in the game.

During a section of the interview, Eiji Aonuma revealed that he would read his son a book called, "The Tracks Go On" when he was about four or five years old. The picture book follows the story of some young children exploring the land, by building train tracks, as they rode a train. He also admitted that he kept it a secret that he got the inspiration from it.

Aonuma: Something about it seemed as though it would fit with The Legend of Zelda But I didn't tell the staff about this book.

Iwata: Even though you'd gotten the idea from it, you kept it secret.

Aonuma: That's right (laughs). I didn't tell them about the book, I only said, "Let's make it a train." And then, "Let's make it so that you can lay the tracks yourself." I brought it up, and we started from that experiment.

Iwata: I see.

Aonuma: But, at first, when I thought it up, I was very casual about the whole thing. I'd say "It would be fun if we could lay the tracks, wouldn't it!", things like that.

Iwamoto: We all said that, didn't we? Cheerfully. (laughs)