ND: When did the development of this title start?
Iwamoto: It was around May 2004, right after we finished the Four Swords Adventures game. The DS hadn't been released yet and the game was in the experimental stage. We started by trying many ideas on how to use the stylus and the two screens.
Aonuma: There were many other DS games in development at the time, so we worked at a relatively easy pace. During the first year, we had a team of just five people.
ND: How did you end up with a game like this?
Iwamoto: At first we worked on creating a game that followed the connectivity style of Four Swords Adventures with the two screens, but then Mr. Aonuma suggested we didn't continue with that. He said we should think of a completely new Zelda gameplay that would become a DS standard. We didn't mind the simplicity, so we ended up with the idea of a stylus-controlled game.
Aonuma: When we decided to use just the stylus to control the game and after Fujibayashi joined the team, everyone worked on making that gameplay possible. We moved in that direction and in March 2006, Mr. Iwata said at the GDC that the game would come out that same year. But in the end, the release date was moved to 2007.
ND: Did you have a stormy passage during development?
Aonuma: No, the DS game was coming along nicely, but after finishing Twilight Princess, I wanted to get deeply involved in the development, so I delayed the release date.