Zack and Wiki inspired by Princess Tomato
That's not the entire message of Chris Kohler's interview with Hironobu Takeshita, producer of Zack and Wiki: Quest for etc., but it's the part that makes us grin the most. When Takeshita mentioned that the game was indeed inspired by classic adventure games, Kohler asked which games in particular were most influential.
Apparently this has been the subject of some conversation between Takeshita and the game's director, Eiichiro Sasaki (who did Power Stone!). He cited the following games: " Princess Tomato In The Salad Kingdom, and (obscure, horrible-looking Japanese adventure game) Dezeniland. Also Spelunker, which is that game where you die really quickly."
Spelunker, it would seem, got the team to consider how death would work in the game; Takeshita goes on to talk about the system of buying continues with tokens, and restarting at a particular puzzle. It's comforting to know that the guys in charge of this title have some experience with classic adventure games-- maybe they'll have learned what works in an adventure game, and what kind of illogical puzzles and game-ending mistakes don't work.
The interview also covers We Love Golf, and gives some information about how swinging the club actually works in that game. As expected, it's significantly more complicated than Wii Sports Golf.
