Koichi Hayashida has revealed that Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’s unique design was ultimately inspired by Miyamoto’s fascination with the Rubik Cube. Hayashida says that Mr Miyamoto had been thinking long and hard about how he could implement a Rubik cube style of gameplay into a video game. The end result became The Adventures of Captain Toad which featured in the critically acclaimed Super Mario 3D World. Here’s what he had to say,

“He’s a fan of the Rubik cube. And at one point he was thinking about implementing a Rubik cube-style of gameplay into a video game.” When Miyamoto saw what the team accomplished, he suggested they make Captain Toad into its own video game.”