While playing and rating games recently I was reminded of Nintendo's design philosophy about gameplay-first and how they would create a prototype without art, music, etc. and refine it until it can stand on its own. I realized that I never quite understood what people meant when they said prototype, and I learn best by example so I never truly made the connection. I know what a prototype is, but is there something different about how Nintendo makes a prototype?

I dug up Nintendo's GDC17 talk about BotW and found a section that shows a real prototype that they used to make the game and it's very similar to the original Zelda. I thought I would post it here to help give us all a bit of inspiration from the masters of the medium. Enjoy!

Note: There is a lot of info in this presentation so I'd recommend watching the whole thing. They reference the prototype a few times throughout the talk but the actual focus is on multiplicative design and freedom of choice. The prototype is just a means to get there.

Demo of the prototype starts at 18:07

https://youtu.be/QyMsF31NdNc