[Interview] ‘A Hat in Time’ developer talks the decline of 3

[Austin]

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NintendoEverything sits down with 'A Hat in Time' developer Mecha the Slag, pretending to spend a quiet evening sipping on tea, talking about where all of the awesome platforming games went-- and how he's going to unintentionally bring them back.



Author: Austin

Earlier this week I learned of a game.

I was scouring the internet for any sign of the dead 3D exploration platforming genre to no avail, and I turned to reddit to have a discussion on the topic, asking for any games people knew of that fit the bill. The response was pretty sizeable.

I was recommended games from Cave Story to Shadow Complex, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts to Prince of Persia; none of these games quite scratched the itch I had though. There was always something "off" about them, either gameplay-wise or artistically. Perhaps they were too linear, or didn’t feature enough backtracking; maybe the atmosphere was closer to a Saturday morning cartoon than a charming game of the N64 era-- each one had some different "flaw". The point is that after ten hours, I figured that maybe the genre was dead, and I was looking for something that wasn't there. Apparently developers had simply abandoned the genre overnight, and now a former industry staple was nowhere to be found.

But why?

[invader_quirk]

I haven't missed this genre at all, but it's sad to see any genre die out... I guess.

[Austin]

I am flabbergasted you don't like this genre! No Banjo Kazooie or Mario 64 for you!?

[KIDNINTENDO]

I loved Mario 64 (best game of all time, my opinion) and I loved Wind Waker's art style and if the camera in this game works like Nintendo Land's motion controlled camera, then this might be the dream Gamecube game I have searched for so long, HD is an added bonus, along with Off-TV play (if it's going to the Wii U). I already voted up this game on Steam.

[thomas]

I can see Mario Universe reviving it, although with more hand-holding.

[Austin]

Be careful getting your expectations blown out of proportion. It would be hard to expect a Nintendo-level of polish from this game given it's just one guy making it, but if it's a good game in its own right and it performs well commercially, we can hope for an even better sequel!

That being said, it's always possible one guy can make a Nintendo-level game. It's just not LIKELY.

[invader_quirk]

Mario 64 is fantastic, but that genre's different (and still alive). Rare's 64 efforts, however, I think are beyond weak, especially DK64. I find them obnoxious and full of tedious busy work. I have generally thought of them as bad platformers, but apparently they have their own genre named after their greatest fault: Collectathons.

But at this point in my life, I am well aware that I'm just about THE only one who thinks that, and my point is not to rain on you guys' parade, so I'll just wander out now.

[Patrick]

Mario 64 is fantastic, but that genre's different (and still alive). Rare's 64 efforts, however, I think are beyond weak, especially DK64. I find them obnoxious and full of tedious busy work. I have generally thought of them as bad platformers, but apparently they have their own genre named after their greatest fault: Collectathons.

But at this point in my life, I am well aware that I'm just about THE only one who thinks that, and my point is not to rain on you guys' parade, so I'll just wander out now.

Nope, I totally agree. It's a genre that had to die. Or at least get adapted into the open-world sandbox genre - I'd call stuff like the Assassin's Creed games modern "collectathons", but most of the collection is completely optional.

That said, A Hat in Time looks neat. I just hope the developer stays away from the stuff that killed the genre in the first place.

[Austin]

@invader_quirk: I'm not going to bother arguing whether you're right or wrong for not liking a genre-- to each their own of course-- but I will make the case that Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie ARE part of the same genre. There's no more "tedious busywork" in Banjo Kazooie than Mario 64.

What do you think makes them so different?

@Patrick: You too!? Noooo. Alright I'll ask you the same question: What "killed" the genre? What aspects of the games made you dislike them?

[Patrick]

@invader_quirk: I'm not going to bother arguing whether you're right or wrong for not liking a genre-- to each their own of course-- but I will make the case that Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie ARE part of the same genre. There's no more "tedious busywork" in Banjo Kazooie than Mario 64.

What do you think makes them so different?

@Patrick: You too!? Noooo. Alright I'll ask you the same question: What "killed" the genre? What aspects of the games made you dislike them?

I'd definitely lump Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 together in the same genre, but there's a lot less collecting in Mario 64. Ignoring the dumb 100 coin challenges, each star is basically its own level that just happens to use the same area as other stars (doesn't Mecha the Slag say that in the interview, anyway?). By comparison, Banjo-Kazooie's levels are much larger and the game expects you to collect just about everything in them in one go. Also:

Things to collect in Super Mario 64:
- Stars
- Red coins
- Gold coins
- Hats?

Things to collect in Banjo-Kazooie:
- Jiggies
- Music Notes
- Jinjos
- Mumbo Tokens
- Hollow honeycomb pieces
- Level-specific collectibles
- A whole bunch of feathers, eggs and stuff
- Those cheat page things?

I'd call that a lot more "tedious busywork".

The genre died because there wasn't a whole lot developers could do to expand on the genre outside of adding new moves and more pointless things to collect. Most of the "collectathon" games either borrowed elements from other genres and became something completely different (like Jak and Daxter, Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro) or disappeared completely. Part of the initial draw of 3D platformers was the promise of having massive (by the standards of 32 and 64 bit consoles) worlds to explore and plenty of secrets to discover. Once Grand Theft Auto III came along and sold like crazy, it showed that another genre could do the same thing and end up being much more profitable. I think that during the last two generations 3D platformers in general were seen as being exclusively for kids (the countless Disney and Dreamworks tie-ins didn't help) so when something like Psychonauts came along it was pretty much ignored.

As for what was wrong with the genre, well, collecting things is fine in small doses. It's just games like Donkey Kong 64 that made collecting a bunch of dumb colour-coded objects even more tedious by spreading them out over large levels and forcing you to constantly backtrack and switch characters to find everything. I do like the sense of discovery that comes with hunting down hidden objects, but when you've already seen everything in the level more than enough times it just becomes repetitive and boring. It also comes down to the whole quality vs. quantity thing - some games in the genre just threw in a bunch of stuff to collect without giving much thought to having decent platforming mechanics.

/rant about why Donkey Kong 64 is A Bad Game.