Mario Party 10 devs on the difficulty of ensuring balanced gameplay
One of the most prominent difficulties faced by the Mario Party development team was gameplay balance. That’s according to director Shuichiro Nishiya from Nd Cube and Nintendo producer Jumpei Horita.
Speaking with Nintendo Life, the Nishiya said:
Ensuring the gameplay was balanced was indeed the toughest challenge during development. The game is based first of all on the outcome of rolling dice, so depending on your luck, the game could end very quickly, or Bowser might never be able to catch up. We encountered a number of possible issues we had to resolve in order to balance fairness with fun. Through our test plays, we came up with various ways to help those lagging behind. For example, players who are out of the game can provide items to their team mates, Bowser Jr. can offer dice to Bowser when he’s falling behind, and so forth. Thanks to these additions, the outcome of the game is up for grabs right until the very end. Of course, even with all our careful adjustments, if you end up rolling nothing but “1” you still won’t have a chance of winning.
Horita also chimed in. According to him, “the outcome of the roll is 100% pure luck”, even though some have believed that the game controls it by some means.
I just want to add an extra point here. I often hear or read doubts about the fairness of the dice roll, that it might be controlled somehow by the game. I assure you that the outcome of the roll is 100% pure luck. That said, even when you’re down on your luck, you can still take advantage of the minigames to survive Bowser’s onslaught and stay in the running. There are plenty of ways to turn the situation around so I encourage you not to give up until the very end!
