Mario 3D World devs on design and name, cat suit, multiplayer, new and old elements
Even more interview quotes from the Super Mario 3D World team have appeared, this time from IGN. There are more comments from Shigeru Miyamoto, producer Yoshiaki Koizumi and co-director Kenta Motokura on the game’s design and name, cat suit, multiplayer, and new/old elements. Head past the break for the full roundup.
Miyamoto on the design of Super Mario 3D World and why the name felt significant to him…
“It was in following that game with Super Mario 3D Land that we tried to combine elements of those two series, the side-scroller and 3D, by incorporating the ease of play from one and the ability to explore and move freely in 3D from the other. The inclusion of ‘3D’ here, of course, is meant to mean that it’s still a 3D world, not that it’s a stereoscopic view like on 3DS, which I guess is a little funny for some people when you get tripped up on it. But really, it just represents us taking ideas from these two series and raising them to this new level.
We’re trying to take elements from a 2D Mario – which is easy to play, where you understand where the goal is, and there’s a certain simplicity there – as well as this other series, where you run around freely in 3D and have all these different fun actions. We’re trying to combine both of those together in a single game.”
Koizumi on the cat suit…
You may have been able to gather this from our appearance at E3 with the paws and the ears, but the thing we’re trying to focus on with people the most is the element of the Cat Mario that you play in this game. The reason we decided incorporate the cat transformation in this game is not just because it’s cute – although of course that doesn’t hurt – but rather because when you’re trying to design a game that’s a combination of these 2D and 3D elements, you’re looking for something that’s easy for anyone to play, and also has a high degree of freedom. We felt like Cat Mario was especially well-suited to achieving both of those goals together.
As you guys probably learned, you’re able to climb walls as Cat Mario, but you can also do this diagonal pounce from mid-air. There are all sorts of acrobatic actions that Cat Mario can perform. You can chase after enemies and slide into them. This means that even in the same course, you’ll be able to consider all sorts of different routes and find new shortcuts and have different ways of playing through. This kind of variety is really good for advanced players, people who are looking for a new challenge.
Motokura on multiplayer…
You can choose which one matches your own personal preference in play style, or the layout of the course you’re about to play. Cat Mario also makes an appearance very early on in the game, so we hope that stands out as something attractive that will bring people into the experience. Another way to think of it is that there’s a lot of replayability, when one course can offer four different experiences if you choose to play as each of the four playable characters.
I believe that Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Miyamoto discussed quite a bit about what sort of commonality this game should share with Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the other games that inspired it. In addition to all those shared elements, I think you can feel the sense of this common universe among all of them, with a couple of new ideas thrown in, like the clear pipes and Cat Mario.
And so when we were trying to think about how to create a fun gameplay experience, we came up with a few different things. For example, we ended up asking our team members, where do you guys go on dates? What sort of things do you like to do for fun? Just to come up with some real world implications for how to capture the same emotion, the same experience of having fun, in a game like this.
On returning elements and new elements…
I hope that everyone, children and adults, sees this and feels attracted to having the ability to play in this catlike form. I think you’ll see some returning elements from previous games, like the white tanuki suit, or even the regular tanuki suit, as well as the boomerang suit, as well as all sorts of new elements that you haven’t seen in any game like this before. So many that, sometimes, you’ll notice new ones that are specific to individual courses. You’re exploring all of this and experiencing it with four-player multiplayer. I hope you have a great time.
