Yoshiaki Koizumi talks Super Mario 3D
During E3 week, GameSpot Australia sat down with Nintendo’s Yoshiaki Koizumi to discuss Super Mario 3D. Koizumi commented on a number of topics, including hint systems, fan input, mobile games, and even the Wii U briefly. Read on below for all of the details.
Yoshiaki Koizumi on Super Mario 3D playing a lot with perspective/3D…
“The effect of things coming from the background to the foreground was definitely something we wanted to use specifically because we could present it in 3D. When you’re presenting someone with a fictional world, and you’re trying to help him grasp how to move objects around inside of it, it was always very difficult, particularly on 2D displays, to show something coming from the background toward you. But now, we’ve gotten away from that taboo in development, and we now feel like we can use that effect more easily.
“As for other effects, we’re thinking of how objects will move in a 3D game and how they will move within a 3D display. We’re thinking about several of them, but I’m afraid I can’t reveal anything at this time.”
Koizumi on Mario being obscured when he’s behind some objects…
“We’ve been using this shadowed Mario silhouette ever since Sunshine. It’s important in a 3D game to keep the player from losing the view of the character. In Sunshine, one of the solutions we had for this was to have the camera slowly rotate around the object that was obscuring the view of the character while it was still presented in a shadow silhouette. But we found that the camera movement tended to make some people queasy. We decided to fix this here by having a solution of a fixed camera and a constant presentation of the shadow.”
Koizumi on fan influence…
“I think it’s important to note that our staff are all fans of the series as well, having grown up with Mario. And, as such, they’re very familiar about what the traditional Super Mario game elements are and what makes it a fun experience. So we decided to focus on those few elements and culled the rest to really get down to the essence. And, of course, on that list, the tanooki suit was very high. So I would say in that sense, yes, we do listen to fans when we design the game.”
Koizumi’s thoughts on hint systems/whether this game will have one…
“I feel like Ocarina of Time is a type of game that players can work through the puzzles even without this type of hint system. At the time, we were very satisfied with the challenge level it presented, even without hints. But looking back, we do recognize that there were some exceedingly difficult spots for players, so we’re offering the hints in the form of video to help them out.
“But ultimately, I feel that game design should strive for an experience that allows players to complete puzzles without the use of hints at all. And, at the very least, we should strive to make these puzzles fun to try repeatedly without hints–that’s our ultimate goal.”
Koizumi on how difficult it is to design a puzzle or challenge that doesn’t get frustrating…
“Of course, Mario and Zelda games are very different kinds of experiences in the sense that Mario doesn’t have the same type of puzzle-solving you’ll find in a Zelda game. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some parts of the game that are quite difficult. The important part is to design a challenging area of the game so that it doesn’t feel like work if you have to do it more than once. So long as the experience is fun each time, I think players will still be satisfied.”
Koizumi’s thoughts on working on a more “traditional” Mario game after the Galaxy games…
“It’s kind of strange. When I worked on Galaxy, as with every Super Mario game, I always focus on the surprise and the newness of what we could bring to the gameplay experience. Perhaps that’s just my personality.
“While Galaxy had a lot of very interesting new features that weren’t present in other games in the series, I feel like we also were able to sink down to some of the origins of the series at the same time. We put a lot of effort into it as we were working on it.
“Similarly, this time I guess our approach is best described as focusing on how to bring the core essence of the Mario gameplay experience to a game that is presented in 3D. And this is taking us to lots of interesting new ideas that go even beyond what we did in Galaxy.”
Koizumi on the core Mario experience…
“I feel like the core experience is something that we may have started to get away from a little bit when we first started presenting games in 3D, like in Super Mario 64. The idea in those games is that you walk around in those environments and give the players a lot of opportunity to explore.
“But the real basics of the Super Mario series are that players have to get to the goal of a level without dying. You have short levels with a very quick tempo, and it should be a very thrilling experience. So, some of that was actually missing from Galaxy. The gameplay was a bit slower, and it was so much easier to die, so the core experience of getting to the goal without dying was harder to achieve.
“This time around, you’ll find that we have something closer to the three-minute levels you see in Super Mario Bros. So for me, overall, this feels closer to the core of the Super Mario Bros. experience traditionally.”
Koizumi on whether there are limits on how Mario can be modified due to fan expectations of how he’ll move/control…
“It’s interesting you say that because in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy, the jump height and distance was just a little bit different each time. And that’s something we always do; we always tune those jumps and the way you control the character to the specific requirements of the game. Regardless, fans all along have, I think, found the game easy to play and found Mario easy to control as a result. And I hope that’s because we were able to tune successfully each time.
“As for giving Mario a new power, every time we want Mario to do something really super, we just create a new suit. Hopefully, we’ve been able to retain that Super Mario feel in those new additions, as well.
“I do compare the old games fairly frequently. One thing I always notice was that Mario’s foot speed seemed a little slow in Mario 64. That’s something we wanted to get faster and faster, until eventually in Galaxy, we had to dial it back a little bit. But we certainly look back and tune it as we start each new game.”
Koizumi on where platforms can go next…
“Clearly, I can’t make an out-and-out prediction. And I have to say that presenting Mario in a 3D display still has some secrets that I’ll challenge myself to unveil. But I do look forward to the different types of experiences we can bring to the Wii U. Given that very interesting new hardware, I think we’ll be able to do a lot with it, and we’re exploring that right now.”
Koizumi on how he feels about having the responsibility of making the next Mario…
“I do occasionally have trouble sleeping through the night, but it’s not necessarily because of the sense of responsibility I feel for the next Mario game. Probably the feeling I have while working on these games is a sense of accomplishment because I’m so much aware of what we’re bringing new to the series. If anything’s keeping me up at night, it’ll be the occasional idea that I come up with and can’t get back to sleep.”
Koizumi on his inspiration…
“I guess I find the inspiration for Super Mario game from regular life. Considering that Super Mario levels are so full of simple props and gimmicks you can interact with…things as simple as turning a knob or hitting a switch are the places you’ll find inspiration for similar objects in the game.
“I should also mention that because I commute by train, I spend a lot of time looking out the window, and sometimes the buildings that pass me by look like giant Mario courses. For example, I imagine one of those giant, spiky skewers coming out of a building and wondering how cool that would be.”
Koizumi on whether he sees mobile as an opportunity or a threat…
“I definitely don’t see it as a threat. I feel if more people are brought to games through any means, it’s something that makes me happy; it’s definitely welcome. I think I would leave the worrying to others.”
Koizumi on whether he’d like to make a Mario game with a touch screen device…
“When we were developing for the Wii and the DS, we actually tried to do a few experiments where people were touching a screen to jump. We feel it’s important when making a Super Mario game, which is supposed to be accessible to a great many kinds of people, that you ask questions of those people. In that case, it turned out that buttons were the best option. But that certainly doesn’t limit our thinking about new types of interfaces, and those new kinds of interfaces wouldn’t necessarily need control pads or buttons, but we just don’t know yet.”
