As much as Tingle divides The Legend of Zelda fanbase, the stories he continues to provide the Nintendo community are priceless. During a chat with Kotaku about Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe revealed the quirky fairy hopeful - starting out in Majora’s Mask - was going to be the star of a horror game way back in 2010.

Looking back eight years ago, we were developing a horror game with Vanpool that starred Tingle as the main character, but that project was canceled due to a variety of reasons.

Nintendo kept in contact with the Tokyo-based studio who had previously worked on Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland for DS. This led to the development of a prototype game where the main character rolled about and was controlled by a “slingshot” control method using a stylus and touchscreen.

Tanabe explained this was how the character Dillon was created:

We had some discussion and came up with the setting and the main character through the association of Rolling => Armadillo => Texas => Western, and Vanpool also liked that idea. And so, a new IP, ‘Dillon’ was born.

If it wasn’t for the cancellation of Tingle’s horror game, we may have never got Dillon’s series on the 3DS. Are you glad to hear this, or would you have preferred a horror game starring Tingle? Tell us below.