Upending the Tea Table

Upending the Tea Table is a phrase used to describe when someone, usually Shigeru Miyamoto, steps in toward the end of a game's development to suddenly and radically change its direction. This often involves starting from scratch, rendering a large amount of work worthless. The phrase originates from a scene in a famous Japanese manga called "Star of the Giants", in which an angered father upends the tea table at which the family is eating, spilling dinner on the floor. Eiji Aonuma calls it the Miyamoto Test and sees it as a measure of how well the team is aligning to the essence of Zelda. Although it is destructive, Miyamoto always helps to clean it up and make improvements, and the team usually welcomes his wisdom.

Four Swords Adventures

Rupees didn't suit the role that was required of them in Four Swords Adventures, so Miyamoto had them replaced with Force Gems.

Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess was plagued by several upendings of the tea table late in development. First, there were issues translating the very beginning of the game to the Nintendo Wii, since this was a new console that players wouldn't be familiar with. So, after the script had already been sent out to be localized, Miyamoto presented a plan to spend three days in Ordon Village instead of one. Later, he asked for an originally separate sub-event to be tied into the main story.

Spirit Tracks

Eiji Aonuma upended the tea table halfway through the development of Spirit Tracks. The team had spent the previous year striving to create a world where the player could lay train tracks anywhere he or she pleases. Several problems such as balancing freedom with story progression were bogging down development, so Aonuma decided to abandon the idea of complete freedom in favor of the pre-defined routes that appear in the published game.

References

Interview:GDC Roundtable May 17th 2004 In an example with Four Swords Adventures, I was the producer on that game, so I didn't actually put the story for that game together—that would be put together by the director of the game. And in the end on that game, as we got closer to finishing it, of course, Mr. Miyamoto then came in and upended the tea table, and we changed the story around quite a bit at the end with Four Swords Adventures. And what Mr. Miyamoto pointed out in the case of that game was that the storyline shouldn't be something complicated that confuses the player. It should really be kind of a guideline that helps ease the player through the gameplay process and helps them understand what it is that they're doing. So that was one example of how the gameplay was there first, and the storyline changed all the way up until the very end.

Interview:Nintendo Power June 2005 At last year's Game Developers Conference, where I spoke about the challenges of Zelda development, I jokingly explained the "Miyamoto Test" in terms of "upending the tea table," a classic pop-culture reference in Japan in which an old-fashioned father overturns the family dinner table when he's upset. I said that Mr. Miyamoto will do that during the final stages of game production, but it's not chaotic, since he then kindly helps the team get on the right track and "picks up his own plate." Mr. Miyamoto has chided me a little for talking about it in those terms, since now everyone at Nintendo tries to plan for his tea-table upsets! But seriously, neither of us thinks that it is the producer's job to overturn his team's work. However, I face more and more situation where I need to judge staff ideas as good or bad, and to decide whether to do them or not, and I'm developing a strong intuition about making the right decision. But how to communicate that decision – that's so important. I'm still working on that talent. Mr. Miyamoto is a great communicator, and I could never hope to be as skilled.