Miyamoto on Super Mario Run – dev timeline, modes, different from console games, pricing, more
IGN has now published its full interview with Shigeru Miyamoto about Super Mario Run. Among the responses, Miyamoto touched on when development truly began, the various modes, the fact that it’s a different experience compared to the console games, pricing, and more.
We’ve rounded up the interesting comments from Miyamoto below. You can read IGN’s full article IGN.
On announcing Super Mario Run at Apple’s event…
“Yeah it’s the same that we always do. Apple’s never done anything like this, where they had translation on stage for their events. I think that had them a little nervous originally, but that’s what we always do. I was worried that we might come out and everyone might say ‘Hey we’re here to see iPhone 7, get off the stage.'”
On the game’s development and team…
“Since I became creative fellow, it’s actually a lot easier for me to focus on individual projects. So it started, I was finishing up Star Fox Zero and working on this at the same time. And since Star Fox Zero finished, I’ve just been focused exclusively on this.”
“The director of the game is Takashi Tezuka, who I worked with on the original Super Mario Bros., and so I’m just working with that team every day on the game.”
“Hideki Kono was the map director. He designed the world map for Super Mario World and he’s been doing the network side of things on the Mario Kart games. For this game, he is heading up the kingdom side. So we’re actually making this game with all of the past team members coming together to make a new Mario game.”
On customizing the Mushroom Kingdom…
“Today we’re just focused on announcing the game is coming, so I can’t go into detail [about you can customize your Mushroom Kingdom]. But from an overall gameplay perspective, the courses are a little bit shorter than normal because it’s really geared toward the quick play on a mobile device and the experience is one where if you’re not very good at Mario, you still get a real good sense of running through the level and reaching the flagpole at the end of the level.”
“But if you are a skilled Mario player, there is a lot in there for you to discover, and as you hone your techniques there will be areas you can get to with more coins to collect and things like that. And so that’s the main gameplay, and on the kingdom side it is really about playing the battle mode over and over again and gradually increasing the toads you have in your kingdom and then using the coins that you collect to customize it, which is a fun new element that we haven’t had in previous Mario games.”
On how Toad Rally lets you play against people on the Internet…
“We’ve obviously had the ability to race against people in Mario Kart and with Mario Maker you’re able to share your course with people around the world. In this game, what you’re able to do is you’re able to choose an opponent from a list of people, and you’ll see people you don’t know, players from around the world, and the people on the list will be relatively matched to your skill level. But then you’ll also see within the list the faces of people that you absolutely do know who are your friends, and so you can choose who you want to compete against.”
On how Nintendo is thinking up courses…
“So one of the things that we’re doing is, as you play through each individual level in the world tour, then those components of those levels will appear in the battle mode. In the battle mode they’re arranged in a way that becomes endless in battle mode, so you can keep running through until times runs out. So that’s one of the areas that’s a little bit different this time and we’re putting a lot of effort into that right now.”
On Miyamoto’s goals and what he’s learned from making Super Mario Run…
“I think first what we’ve done is create a Mario game that’s very distinct from what we’ve done in the past and what’s available on home consoles. And so that I think is great because it’s its own unique style of Mario play designed for mobile devices that I think will be great for people who haven’t played Mario up until now.”
“So really the hope is that through this we’ll be able to reach a much broader audience and turn them into Mario players and then be able to offer them a next step with Mario on our own platforms. I think in terms of something from a development standpoint that we’ve learned, there hasn’t been a whole lot of new discovery there other than maybe the fact that we were surprisingly happy to see how playable Mario is in a vertical video format.”
On whether Nintendo looked at other runner-style games for inspiration…
“Yeah. not really. I think it’s natural to think that with a smartphone you want to turn it sideways and play it almost like you’re trying to press buttons. Instead what we wanted to do was we wanted show Mario as big as we could and so we wanted to make it vertical and bring the view in and have that simple style of play.”
On pricing…
“The basic goal is to give people a sample of what the gameplay will be so that they can get a sense of what they’ll experience when they get the full game. But of course one of the reasons that we want to offer the game for a set price is so that parents who are buying it for their kids can know that ‘I’ve bought the game and now my kids can play it as much as they want and there’s not going to be additional costs associated with that.’ But obviously I think between the world tour single player mode and clearing all those levels, plus the kingdom mode, plus the battle mode, you’re going to want the full experience because it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
