So, throughout my entire time playing the game, I couldn't shake the thought that Nintendo must have decided on the size of the world at the start of the project and couldn't back-paddle afterwards simply because the world is made out of one huge terrain. Most Terrain engines don't allow you to easily modify and change sizes once various parts have already been built, since scaling the terrain would affect everything you've already built (again, I'm not saying Nintendo didn't have more sophisticated terrain tools, but that's my simple guess since the world feels way too large for its own good).
Yup! They often stated that they started building the map on a
walkable Kyoto, with similar size structure from the start. To fill in the gaps they also had a tool that
mapped where all the testers walked to help find the places to balance.
The terrain topography seems generated at least, based on
this short glimpse at their tools from their GDC.
Rassembling some data and links for future reference.
The same is true for the Korok Challenges: Most of these are completely mindless and similar: Find a certain rock in the world that stands out, pick it up, a Korok appears. Put a rock in the right spot in the middle of a ring of rocks, boom, a Korok appears. Jump into a ring of flowers in the water, a Korok appears. Shoot some balloons, a Korok appears... Rinse and Repeat. You'll do these exact same challenges DOZENS of times. Again, I'm guessing Nintendo just saw that their world is too big and they had to put in a lot of these repetitive, not very fun little challenges in order to at least have SOMETHING in the world instead of just traversal followed by more traversal. Why have such a huge world if you then have to fill it with repetitive content?
Just to be complete, some more Korok puzzles types:
•
"Finding" a place:
-Pick up a suspicious rock somewhere (on a tree, on a mountain, under a pile of leaves)
-Dive in a ring of plants floating on water
-Shoot all suspicious targets posters scattered around a camp
-Melt weird big icicles
•
Different variations of matching games:
-Match two blocky shapes with one loose metal block piece
-Complete suspicious rock shapes/pattern in the nature
-Match the amount of apples on suspicious aligned trees by taking the apples in excess
-Fill statues offering plates with missing apples/eggs
•
Different variations of putting things into holes:
-Throw a rock in a suspicious ring of rocks on water
-Solve a Cup-and-ball games with a chained metal rock
-Make a big rock roll into a cavern
•
Challenges:
-Reach a stump to start a speed race to a ring of light that disappears after a certain time
-Reach a windmill to start a shooting gallery (obvious baloons, or less obvious acorns dancing over a tree)
-Reach a succession of suspicious flowers appearing one after the other
-Catch an invisible running Korok based on sound and sparkles
A lot of them are less obvious environmental puzzles.
My thoughts: Most of the fun from the puzzle is actually looking for it rather than solving it. You enter a pattern of thought where you look for out-of-place suspicious environmental details (since you can't find Koroks via the item tracker). Anything that seems more like deliberate design in the world is an opportunity for a Korok puzzle. Some people say that it makes the world design feel as having some "intent" ("recognising the creator's hand" in the areas that seem less "designed"). It could also helps the brain "filter out" the less interesting parts of the world by focusing on the things that stands out due to the simpler visual style. Their position is not random either, often on the way of a point of interest, so instead of being raw "content" to fill an empty place I think they are used more as a guide to point the player in the right direction when they stray away from the main path. There still are pockets of voids that have no interest being explored that they want to steer people away from after all.