Ocarina of Time led to the three-day cycle idea for Majora’s Mask

“At the time we were developing Ocarina of Time, not many games had both day and night. In order to heighten the sense of reality within the game, we thought changing from day to night would be important, so we set some events to happen during the day and others to happen at night.

In the game, we were only able to completely differentiate day and night, and there was no in-between. But in planning these events to occur at different times of the day, we learned how to control the characters’ actions in real time as measured within the game. Afterward we wondered if other types of gameplay would be possible using that system, and the result was the three-day cycle in Majora’s Mask.” – Eiji Aonuma