The text on this page is taken from pages 30 and 31 of the Zelda Box guidebook, released in Japan in 2002.

The Developers Discuss the Outset Islanders

Aonuma: Zill was created early on, wasn’t he?

Haruhana: He was the 2nd or 3rd character made by the designers in charge. An illustration of a snotty-nosed kid suddenly appeared on the scene, and I didn’t even have anything to do with it. [Laughs] I asked the programmers to make sure his trademark snot droplet moved smoothly. [Laughs]

Takizawa: A lot of work went into that snot drip. Even though it didn’t feature in the gameplay at all. [Laughs]

Takano: Zill’s name comes from the sound a dripping nose makes in Japanese. Since we already had the little brother’s name picked out, we managed to finalize the older brother’s name, too. We called him Joel, since “Zill & Joel” sounded cool. Plus, the names don’t really suit village children, so that disconnect is interesting.

The Developers Discuss Orca & Sturgeon

Takano: Orca and Sturgeon are characters who exist to teach the player the basics of the game. The fact that they live on different floors of the same dwelling has meaning. The wise Sturgeon, on the 2nd floor, is the brains of the two, while Orca, on the first floor, represents the body, the one behind the action.

Haruhana: When I was first shown Sturgeon’s 3D model, he was just a bald old man. I felt it lacked impact, so I played around with the graphic tools a little bit and made his head 3x bigger. [Laughs] The designer in charge of him was kind of shocked and asked me “Are you sure this is OK?”, though. [Laughs]

Takizawa: Not only that, but these are the only two characters out of the entire cast that don’t really have official names. They’re just called by their nicknames. [Laughs]