Nintendo and Paladin Studios reveal how they ended up working together on Good Job!

The Nintendo Direct Mini back in March treated fans to a surprise announcement and release. The office-themed puzzler Good Job! was revealed for Switch during the presentation, and then launched on the eShop immediately after.

Good Job! wasn’t actually a project made entirely by Nintendo as Paladin Studios was just as much involved. As part of an interview with Nintendo Everything, the two companies spoke about how they ended up coming together.

Paladin Studios lead producer Robert Abercrombie and Nintendo of America producer Takao Nakano told us:

Abercrombie: The founder of Paladin (Derk de Geus) had been trying to get his foot in the door for around 10 years, and fortunately Nintendo wanted to proceed with one of our pitches and that was the start of Good Job! development.

Nakano: It’s been a long time since we first met Paladin. I think it was one of those game events somewhere. I’ve played some of their smart device games before, and all of them have a very cheerful atmosphere, and I got the impression that they make their games with great care.

Also, I heard that Paladin had experience working with Japanese game publishers previously, so from that standpoint as well, I may have been more interested in Paladin as a game studio. Since then, we had been looking for an opportunity to work together.

In 2017, our Nintendo team had an opportunity to visit Paladin Studios and at that time we discussed further about working on a project together. Nintendo requested Paladin to work on an experimental game idea, and from that experiment project the base of Good Job! was born. After discussions between the two companies, we agreed to polish this “raw stone” into a product, and the full game development started.

We’ll have more from our interview with Nintendo and Paladin Studios regarding Good Job! very soon.