Some screenshots of Ring Fit Adventures beta

Originally the game was far more simplistic

Players didn't have the Ring Con, and instead held two Joy-Cons in each hand. Players would move across a field, and in order to fit enemies have to punch them. Battling was still turn based.

Then they decided to add one of the Joy-Cons to the leg, and one to the wrist in order to allow for different kinds of movements like yoga.

Suddenly the game was running in the courses, and battles with training and running.

More stuff was added to the field in as new ideas were incorporated. They started adding more rythmn based mechanics, Stealth mechanics, and mini games. That's when it really became Ring Fit Adventure as we know it.

Here are some more pictures of what I mentioned above. The second enemy has to be fought with rythmn.

In addition, a companion character was added (yellow character in third picture) at this point.

The game started running into an issue where it wasn't as straight forward as Wii Fit.

That's when the hardware development team came up with the Ring Con controller which helped tie everything together.

They started getting closer to what would become the final product.

There was one major difference - - when battling players would need to squat 3 times to build up energy. Then players would shoot out energy from the Ring Con by pushing in.

They added Tanren Village where players could train at any time and added even more mini games. They felt like they finally had all the pieces together to make the game.

But there was a problem...

Kawamoto tried the game and enjoyed it. But he felt like something was off. He told the game's director, Matsunaga, "I was you to include more squats". Squats are good for using a lot of muscles.

Squats were in the game, but only done 3 at a time which wasn't too difficult...

The purpose was to mix fitness and gaming, and the team wasn't fully successful on it.

So they needed to work more difficult movements to the mix (picture gives example of Wide Squats, Planking, Mountain Climber, and Overhead Push)

In order to truly mix fitness and gaming the team decided to rework their ideas. Tanren Village was the place where players could do intense training while in the story, attacks were still mainly focused on getting the player to move. Steps and more difficult courses were added.

They decided to adjust the game flow. The world map and Tanren Village would be combined and tough training dojos were all mixed in the world map. The map also showed the course time how tough it would be so players could know.

The team decided that it wasnt a combination of games and fitness but it was becoming a fitness tool!

(the slide shows images of the map and title screen)

Since it was becoming a fitness tool, the title screen and the game started to change to reflect that. The menu changed into a real life gym, and information was added to help guide the players.

The clothing was adjusted to show sweat on the character in order to bring it more in line with what the player is experiencing.

Also they gave players more control over the intensity of the workout. It could be adjusted manually in game, or by a survey the player does at the start of the session.

OK this is pretty funny.

When they were testing it, it was quite unique as the floor would sometimes shake like it's an earthquake. Also since there was only one shower, the testing team would have to wait sometimes.

That's about all the important points I could find. If you use this translation please tell people to follow me on Twitter for more news and translations! Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed learning about Ring Fit Adventure's development!