Nintendo on how Splatoon came to be, couldn’t have been made without the GamePad
In an interview with Eurogamer, Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami opened up on the game’s origins. It started out as a prototype with an idea from programmer Shintaro Sato, who was attempting to create something new.
Nogami said:
“It’s something we do a lot of at EAD. We’re constantly making different prototypes with different game ideas to see what’s going to be good. One prototype that a programmer made was just this kind of idea of shooting ink on the ground, and doing a territory control game. We played it, thought it was really fun and maybe we can make a full game out of this.”
Splatoon transitioned from a prototype to a full on via through a presentation made to Nogami’s management – including Katsuya Eguchi. Following a long period of development and refinement, the game started to take shape.
As far as the initial reaction to Splatoon is concerned, Nogami stated:
“The reaction was good! We got called back to keep refining things, and we presented it multiple times before we got to where we are now.”
Nogami also shared a little more about Splatoon’s origins:
“In the beginning, it was a white box that you could move this way and that and shoot ink in. It was very, very simple. We found that when people were playing it some people would rush to the front and engage the enemy, and some people might hang back and try and paint their base more. Even then, in that prototype, there were lots of play-styles coming about. So we thought this could be a game that lots of people could enjoy and play at the same time. It was interesting even then, but we knew that we had to give it a more Nintendo feel, and have more Nintendo-like actions – so we had more raised platforms, the ability to swim quicker, to be able to look around more easily and readily.”
One more interesting quote from Nogami: “If we didn’t have the GamePad, we wouldn’t be able to create the game we have now.”
