Everything about it was new, and full of secrets and mysteries.
“Therefore, on the latest game, I tried making a new version of these secrets and mysteries.
Can’t you make this so instead of going to another area, the environment itself changes?”
I made constant changes that have never been seen in a Super Mario Bros. title.
I made the Warp Pipes wiggle and the Piranha Plants break out in song.
But how has realism in gameplay evolved?"
For example, he said, “Does Mario feel pain when he hits an enemy?
“We held brainstorming sessions where the whole team shared their ideas for Wonder Effects,” Mouri explained.
At first, we asked everyone to write any and all ideas on sticky notes, without any conditions.
After all, if you start with conditions, you stifle creative freedom.
At this stage, we collected around 2000 ideas.”
The team then began narrowing down the ideas by thinking about specific criteria that made for good Wonder Effects.
The first was “a connection between pre-Wonder Effect and during the Wonder Effect.”
“This testing phase was also conducted by everyone on the team,” Mouri explained.
When necessary, we created new temporary design data and sound data.
Once the testing phase was over, all team members would play the prototype, then share their opinions.
And more importantly: coming up with prototypes is just fun!"
“At Nintendo, even first year employees and programmers pitch in ideas.
And if those ideas are good, of course they’re adopted!
Without any more specific info!
Do you think we can call this a good idea?!
“When I saw this, I thought to myself: ‘This idea has potential!’
The second was a faintly horrifying pitch from the game’s sound director, Koji Kondo.
“It was such an interesting idea, it would’ve been mottainai to not use it.”
Above all however, was this notion of wasted opportunity, “mottainai”.
