Nintendo Life has an extensive interview up with Hisashi Nogami, the producer of Splatoon. Nogami commented on a variety of topics, including the single-player campaign, amiibo, the game’s ability to appeal to different age groups, and more.

Excerpts from the interview are posted after the break. The full discussion can be read here.

More: Amiibo, Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top

Splatoon producer once again comments on lack of voice chat, staggered content roll-out

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 187 Comments

The developers behind Splatoon have commented on the game’s lack of voice chat on numerous occasions. But if that wasn’t enough, producer Hisashi Nogami commented on the situation once again.

Nogami recently mentioned:

We want everyone to play this game from the same point, so that all players – those who haven’t played shooters before, as well as those who have – can enjoy the game. Getting to this though meant going through a selection process for all features that should appear in the game, and as part of this process we decided to leave out voice chat.
We think there are two reasons for wanting to use it: to play strategically, and to know what you opponent is feeling. We designed the game so that it’s still possible to play strategically, while also giving due consideration so that there is no extreme advantage one way or the other. In terms of knowing what your opponent is feeling, we really do understand the fun that can be had with this, but we hope that you will also understand that it can also have a negative effect too.

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top

Splatoon producer on the game’s prototype, plaza, communication; “allows for adaptive playstyles”

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 37 Comments

USgamer has a new interview up with Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami. Nogami commented on various topics, ranging from the game’s origins to the type of player Splatoon is aimed at. Additionally, he was asked about how he thinks players will communicate given that voice chat is not included.

You can find a few excerpts from the interview below. The full transcript is located here.

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top

Nintendo wants to support Splatoon with more content after launch

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 13 Comments

After Splatoon launches, Nintendo will continue supporting the game with additional content. Producer Hisashi Nogami teased upcoming plans while speaking with GamesRadar, and noted that the team hopes Splatoon “will become a franchise that Nintendo can be proud of.”

Below are Nogami’s full words:

We can’t go into a lot of detail on that today, but we do have some plans to follow up with content to keep interest in the game post-launch. We on the development team are thinking of the launch as a first step of sorts. We hope to add to that in terms of content, and even to the degree that we’re hoping that this will become a franchise that Nintendo can be proud of.

Mario Kart 8 received a ton of DLC after launch, and now we’re starting to see the same thing with Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS. Might Splatoon be next?

Source

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top

Splatoon devs didn’t want the game to be based on a Nintendo franchise

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 7 Comments

GamesRadar was recently given an opportunity to speak with Hisashi Nogami, producer of Splatoon. During the chat, Nogami spoke about how the team wanted “to not get too caught up in Nintendo’s already existing franchises”.

He said:

“We went through a period of creating lots of prototypes. We didn’t want a franchise-based game, so we made a bunch of prototypes and one of those prototypes happened to be the game that became Splatoon. The idea was ‘something fun, something new, something different,’ not ‘a shooter.'”

Nogami also spoke about how playing other games has some impact when creating new titles:

“The development team is made up of people who play games a lot, and among them are people who play shooting games a lot, including Mr. [Yusuke] Amano, one of the game’s directors, who I’ve heard has spent his college years playing Perfect Dark. As game designers who play games, you can’t really help observing things you like and don’t like, and having those have some degree of influence on your thinking. The best way to express this is that it forms a base of thought that you bring into game development, but it doesn’t directly influence the game development.”

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon

Splatoon devs on how Miyamoto wasn’t satisfied with the game’s original ideas

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 17 Comments

EDGE brought us a whole bunch of information about Splatoon in its latest issue. One topic covered by the magazine was the game’s development, and Shigeru Miyamoto’s thoughts on its early days.

Co-director Tsubasa Sakaguchi, producer Hisashi Nogami, and director Yusuke Amano spoke with EDGE about how Miyamoto wasn’t originally pleased with what the team had come up with Splatoon. Here’s what the three developers shared:

[After] the prototype phase, we had all these ideas about the height, the ink, the characters, and the image of the character and the squid. But we couldn’t kind of filter it down to a final result that would result in a simple, fun game. And during this period, we were being scolded by Mr Miyamoto all the time.
He was saying, ‘I don’t understand. What do you want to do? There’s no appeal to this game.’
We had the basics and then we were like, ‘Let’s add the hiding [in ink] feature; let’s add jumping; we need height, because it’s a 3D map.’ And then we thought, ‘We need to be able to shoot up and down.’ And we realised we’d added all this stuff, and we got confused. We didn’t know what the game was about.

Splatoon launches for Wii U on May 29.

Source

More: EDGE, Hisashi Nogami, interview, Shigeru Miyamoto, Splatoon, top, Tsubasa Sakaguchi, Yusuke Amano

Splatoon devs on the project’s origins, why squids were chosen

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 6 Comments

Famitsu published its full interview with the developers behind Splatoon on its website today. Producer Hisashi Nogami, director Yusuke Amano, and co-director Tsubasa Sakaguchi participated in the discussion.

Siliconera translated some excerpts from the interview. You can find a summary of what was shared below.

“Many staff members that have worked on Wii U launch titles are working on this game, so now that we have a grasp of the Wii U’s functions, it started out with discussions about wanting to make something new with what we already know. There were many plans, but the one that stayed until the end was Splatoon.”

– Nogami says that it was just around the time Sakaguchi finished working on Nintendo Land, and Amano with New Super Mario Bros. 2, that Splatoon’s plans began
– Wasn’t always about squid characters
– Originally had tofu-like square characters
– Eventually chose to make it a competitive 4-on-4 game that required spraying the environment with ink

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top, Tsubasa Sakaguchi, Yusuke Amano

Voice chat undecided for Splatoon

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 11 Comments

It turns out that voice chat hasn’t been officially confirmed for Splatoon after all. Producer/manager Hisashi Nogami and project lead Tsubasa Sakaguchi, speaking with GameRant said that the functionality hasn’t been decided just yet.

“The core concept of Splatoon is that by looking at the way the ink is being spread around and progressing, you know, you can kind of see what your enemies are doing, what your teammates are doing, and then you’re able to decide what you want to do. And that’s kind of the main thing we’re always thinking about, and we kind of get similar questions about the number of people that can be in a multiplayer match, but for this game it’s really that four-on-four is the best number. With four-on-four, the amount of influence that a single player has is perfectly balanced, but also the speed at which the battle changes, the way the battle is developing changes is also completely perfect.”
“The idea being that the core concept is basically that players look at the way the ink is being spread around, the way it’s being painted around, and decide what to do. If in any way that doesn’t disrupt that balance we’ve created, we’ll definitely consider different ways of communication and introduce that to the game as we go forward with development.”

Nogami concluded his comments by stating: “Basically, I haven’t decided.”

Source

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, Tsubasa Sakaguchi

Splatoon devs talk more about the game’s origins and new IPs at Nintendo, original characters were the only fit

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 2 Comments

Game Informer caught up with Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami and co-director Tsubasa Sakaguchi at E3 2014. The two were asked about several topics, including what it’s like to get new IP started at Nintendo, and they also discussed why original characters were the only fit as opposed to established ones.

As usual, we’ve picked out some excerpts from the interview below. You can find the full interview on Game Informer.

More: Hisashi Nogami, interview, Splatoon, top, Tsubasa Sakaguchi

Nintendo on how Splatoon came to be, couldn’t have been made without the GamePad

Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 1 Comment

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.”