It was, I gather, his first game made exclusively for a console.
Devils, sure, but also bibles and crosses.
It’s always sounded weird and intriguing.
But the iconography is far from the most interesting thing about this game, I suspect.
Let’s dig in.
Because here’s Miyamoto working with a very established game design to build upon.
So what does Miyamoto do?
He layers stuff on.
And he tweaks the variables in interesting ways.
It’s ingenious stuff, but Miyamoto and Tezuka can’t help tinkering with it.
But the crosses, which stand in for the power pills, work a little differently.
This does quite a lot for the drama of the game, if you ask me.
This is a game where the power-ups really define your thinking.
But there’s another aspect to Devil World which I actually find even more interesting.
This is pretty ingenious, actually.
But it doesn’t just loop.
They stay in place.
you could get caught and die!
And that’s the final thing: the direction in which the maze moves isn’t set.
I absolutely love these elements.
- it also plays around with the idea of a game’s UI in interesting ways.
Devil World feels very fresh to me.
This comes down to that part about being squished by the screen.
It’s so clearly a part of the design, a hurdle to navigate.
I think my sister totally understood what was going on.
