[size=+2]Nintendo on Super Mario 3D World - development, camera, design, single/multiplayer content, Peach returning and more[/size]
The following comes from a Polygon interview with Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (EAD) Planner and Project Leader Koichi Hayashida...
"The first thing we do is decide on a concept for a stage that really drives how a player will be experiencing it. It's something we all get together to discuss — we get a lot of Post-it notes, and we just put up hundreds of them onto the wall and start looking at them and discussing them. And out of 100 ideas on all of these notes, we might end up only using one or two of the ideas generated. Some are completely crazy ideas!
But once we've decided on a concept, we make the stage, then we play it, then we refine it. And that process repeats over and over again until we get to the point where we feel like we're mostly polishing the gameplay in a very fine-tuned sort of way. When we get to that stage, we know we're almost done."
On creating the right type of camera and level design...
"We think about our level design from a perspective of first, 'is this something that's fun to play through as Mario?'. In this game, we had some interesting challenges in that you can lift up other characters and throw them ahead of you — so you can jump and throw someone — and they go really far. That can be a really interesting challenge in level design; to make sure people don't go where we don't want them to.
Having worked on games like Super Mario Sunshine, where you could hover with the flood into all sorts of interesting areas, or even in Super Mario Galaxy 2, we found that cloud Mario had a pretty big reach compared to what we were originally planning. So we had a lot of experience in thinking about players being creative to reach interesting parts of levels. So it feels like we're going to be ok with this one!"
On keeping things familiar but also new at the same time...
"Our goal, of course, is always to make something new and although we are certainly using familiar elements and perhaps the structure from Super Mario 3D Land, we're still — once we're in the development process — looking for any kind of ideas that can match with what we're doing at the time.
So, for example, you may recall that in Super Mario 3D Land, you were collecting star medals in stages — three in each one. We combined that with the idea of the green stars from Super Mario Galaxy 2. Each of them had kind of a unique route that you had to follow to get them. And so when you put those two elements together you come up with something that's different and really fun. We keep throwing any ideas that come across us like that out, and as soon as we find some form of expression for them, we put them all together. In that sense, I feel that the development style is very similar to what the Galaxy games have been like.
We're doing this kind of Galaxy-style development with a very large staff now. We have a process where [a given] gameplay idea can only really be expressed in a very unique way in a different kind of stage."
Why Peach is back playable...
"I feel like Mario games, as you know, have done lots of representation of male characters over the years. Perhaps much more so than female. So it's actually really nice to be able to have a female playable character in the game. I think she adds a lot to the sense of competition when you get in multiplayer: you can have different people choosing different characters based on their personality or whoever they like. And princess Peach is just really a lot of fun to play!"
On working with the nostalgia factor...
"Quite often, we find ourselves in the situation where new elements of gameplay that we've generated match very well with older expressions in Mario games. And if it's the sort of thing where it looks like something fits, where we want to do this gameplay idea, and this kind of enemy or terrain feature seems to fit from an older Mario game, we're happy to apply it in that situation.
And oftentimes, this happens because a lot of members of our staff are huge fans of the Mario series, and they're always the ones pushing for the inclusion of these retro elements. Sometimes we have to double check to make sure that they're thinking about gameplay first and foremost, because they are such big fans of these nostalgic elements.
For example, during Super Mario Galaxy, we weren't terribly worried about adhering to a certain form. It was really about coming up with gameplay first — making something fun and new — not necessarily focusing on nostalgia. Quite often, it's a lot of the staff that we've hired that bring in these ideas that they'd like to see from older Mario games!"
On gamers worried about the multiplayer focus...
"To those people, I would like to say that we're planning so many interesting new ideas for single player that you shouldn't necessarily feel like you are restricted to playing this game in multiplayer. As we said earlier, we had this kind of Galaxy-style development, where we threw out all sorts of different ideas and what we've come up with is really a lot of fun whether you're playing single player or multiplayer.
Ever since Super Mario 64, we've always wanted to create a multiplayer 3D Mario game, but there were lots of challenges and I feel like now we've gotten to the point where we've come up with the perfect expression, which is a very satisfying multiplayer experience in a 3D Mario world. I think people will have all different reactions to some of the developments that we're putting forward, some of which are very reminiscent of the Galaxy series style of play."
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