Nintendo’s method of making games [video] | Hacker News Reader

Nintendo’s method of making games [video]

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141 pointsdreampeppers9942 comments

I just love Game Maker's Toolkit, if you haven't watched it and love videogames, you should.

Even if you don't like videogames, but you are creating experiences for other people, you should understand what's behind a videogame.

One of the great insights in the Rules of Play[0] (which is a great book but has some frustratingly fundamental issues because it uses a very naive interpretation of semiotics as its first principles), is that games have their own sense "aesthetics" compared to film, photography, or other art-forms before it.

Like film and photography in the last century, we're still figuring those out. But what is clear is that the main aesthetic experience revolves around the interactive loop a player has with a game. This is different from, say, the interaction with a painting.

In short: the aesthetics of games are fundamentally based on the aesthetics of interaction. And therefore much more broadly applicable than just a game-context.

This is why many interaction design studies have a game design course (I gave a few when was an adjunct IxD teacher at Malmo Uni). Other than being a bit of self-indulgence of the professors, that is.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_Play

I love the book and great summary about aeshetics of interaction. I like how they separated mechanics, interface & social context.

Curious what fundamental issues you had with the book?

Their interpretation of meaningful play and how they interpret the whole meaning-from-signs thing, which is a ridiculously banal interpretation of semiotics. I'm not even a philosopher proper but they're really out of their depth there; I suspect that they were trying to prove a point (that game design should be taken seriously) and cherry-picked philosophical interpretations for their needs.

I agree. I kind of collect channels that do these sorts of videos, here's some of my favourites:

- Ahoy, particularly Retro Ahoy (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOQZmjD6P2Hk9m-sEG_fo...)

- Game Array (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIr5cIzrkBIOwMCxJVJOx7Q)

- Sunder (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHKJTKyEfjmGegraWzCJY...)

- snowmaN (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrSZDOvRCmRBLuY5_DPZ0...)

- Satchbag's Goods (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCShqXc61KTV5NgGKDq7Fz6g)

- Gameological Dig (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3yMe49zMo6lKhLNZmIg_yw)

- RagnarRox (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFg9-S0cfu3UvBYuSNFT9hQ)

- Turbo Button (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWPTiFpzm8559H-9Err59gw)

- Innuendo Studio (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5fdssPqmmGhkhsJi4VcckA)

Please let me know if you have any more for me to check out :)

Errant Signal: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4JnxTxtvItQecKUc4zRhQ

Seconded this suggestion. I'd especially recommend his Boss Keys videos, especially if you're interested in the Legend of Zelda franchise and how it's changed over time.

Call me a fan boy or whatever. I was not able to pin point the reason I found Nintendo games more than any other developer, (the only other game that got me hooked like Mario did was God of War but that too had it's nuances but I was hooked). This video really brings out a lot of things that explains me why I ended up liking something stupid like Kirby more than Gears of War or Assassins Creed.

It's the attention to non graphical details and the density of the game. In modern games, you have huge spaces, and little density in the gameplay. In old games you are doing simple things in a small space, but very regularly with more steaks: it has way more density.

And old game has the charm and personality of the current indy games, but the professionalism of the greats. It has a soul, even with no story, few pixels. It has an identity.

It's very rare to find a game that has that today, and this is what nintendo is still good at.

Remember the first time you woke up in the kokiri forest ? It was amazing. I tried it again. It is still amazing. With very few things, it shines, it lives.

Now the first time I come out of the bunker in Fallout 4 ? The first time I spawn in Skyrim ? Meh. Not bad, it was fun. But it was not unforgettable.

Now I know it is possible to make a great game, with a lot of space, fantastic graphism, and density, and a soul. But it's very rare.

That and the fact we are getting older, and we are partial to games we loved when we were younger :)

When I interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto, he stressed his emphasis on gameplay, to provide the environments for the player to be creative. He added that story, background, etc. came afterwards to justify the gameplay.

"Inside the Mind of “Mario” Creator Shigeru Miyamoto" http://rickyreports.com/archives/miyamotoshigeru/

I think the key here is

Form follows function

Many gamedevs don't get this. The underlying mechanics form the core gameplay. You can always make the story, looks and characters fit, but if your game mechanics are boring and broken, only major rework or starting over helps. In fact, the form being restricted by function may even be beneficial for the creative process and make the form more original.

But if most customers buy all those games anyways, why should they change their methods? I mean, I’m all for Nintendo, and I have their current gaming systems, but I only have like two other friends who have Wii U, and all the others have PS4 and mostly love shooters or FIFA. Nintendo has kept afloat because, most of the time, they keep the same prices through the life of their systems, so they sell enough to keep going. Anyways, I hope they never really go bankrupt, or go the other companies’ way.

But if most customers buy all those games anyways, why should they change their methods?

If Windows sells, why should you make Linux?

If iPhones sell, why should you make Android phones?

If gasoline cars sell, why should you make electric cars?

Because we can do better. Because we should do better. And even if we do not - we force the orignal versions to be improved or lose their market share. We push boundaries by improving upon existing products. Frankly, I cannot enjoy games that put form before function.

AAA "realistic graphics, games as movies" only has so many potential buyers. Not everyone can survive in that space.

http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-...

http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/18/why-triple-a-devs-are-goin...

This is why I always went with bottom-up design.

I would prototype dozens of small game ideas in Flash without much planning until I found one that I spent more time playing than I did making.

Flash was great for banging out prototypes super quickly, thanks to its built-in graphics and animation support. I miss it.

For what its worth, a friend of mine still makes a living from making Flash games. He even uses AS2!

Kongregate, Facebook, and Steam have quite a few users that play Flash games.

The nostalgia! I programmed my first game in my early teens in AS2! Those were the days... Hehe. I think Macromedia Flash/ActionScript 2.0 were the perfect tools to get started with programming, I was really lucky. I don't think I would have done much with a mere C++ command line back then.

Chrome plans to make Flash click-to-play in December 2016 (with a temporary whitelist, to be removed in July 2017, for Facebook and a few other popular sites), so I would recommend he look into moving to HTML5-based game system soon!

You can churn out a complete HTML5/JavaScript game in 2 evenings. Granted, you have to import images and don't have the convenience of just drawing something and making a MovieClip out of it. However, fundamentally, it's very similar - you just have to program the main loop yourself with requestAnimationFrame and/or timers.

HTML5 still can't handle the animation heavy games I used to make in Flash. It's still a pain in the butt to make those type of games with traditional spritesheets. The fast vector graphics engine really allowed for some crazy feats with a very snappy and reliable container.

That being said, I the type of games I make now, it could probably handle, but it hasn't been anywhere near as pleasant of an experience to work with, so I've been pretty bad about porting my games to HTML5.

For all its quirks (and there were LOADS) I do still miss it. Any recommendations of something thats quick to prototype games with?

processing.org and love2d.org are nice little platforms for interactive visual stuff

You might want to take a look at Haxe and the OpenFL library!

While this may be generally true, I think that Rez is a counterexample. The gameplay is satisfying, and it doesn't get in the way, but it's very simple and not particularly new or interesting. The music, the scenery, the graphics. That's what that game is all about.

Here's another video that focuses on the mechanical side of a Donkey Kong Country level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wIIwBL784

It combines well with this video because it answers the question in detail of 'What do you do' and 'How do you communicate it', once you have your character's actions and mechanics nailed down.

My favorite example of this sort of game mechanic innovation outside of Nintendo itself is Katamari Damacy. Maybe even outdoes Nintendo.

There are tons of things to learn here for application developers of all sorts. I've found that working out the interaction model before polishing up the visuals usually results in a much better thought out and more usable application.

Too many designs start with how it looks and now how it works, but Nintendo's genius is to pick one interaction model, teach the user that model, and then just run with it.

Yes, Nintendo games and games from a few other developers are probably the most pleasant pieces of software that I've ever used: well-designed interfaces, low-latency interaction, very few bugs, and tons of attention to detail.

I wish there was more information out there about Nintendo's software development process.

Anyone else got goose bumps? Not a fan boy but those are genius things that only come out of love and desire.

If anyone is interested in the subtle background music, it's Resonance by HOME. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GW6sLrK40k

it's interesting to note how really good games take a simple concept and explore it to its ends rather than taking a bunch of loose fitting concepts and throwing them together. probably the best examples i can come up with, even better than the nintendo ones in my opinion, are the team ico games designed by fumito ueda.

ico: escape while escorting

shadow of the colossus: the boss battles are the levels

the last guardian: mix the previous two

> Nintendo is quite different

> Nintendo always starts with the same goal, coming up with a new way to play

As a game developer this comes across as quite the Nintendo propaganda video. Nintendo games are the least innovative things I have ever played, as they simply recreate their popular IPs over and over again (mario, zelda, pokemon etc) with somewhat better/different graphics. The only reason they are where they are today is the original games were released at the right time (timing + luck), and people continue to buy the sequels today out of nostalgia.

If they're trying to innovate on gameplay, it makes sense that they reuse existing characters as much as possible.

Super Mario 64 was an exploration of platform games in 3d: it doesn't require Mario, but he's a very good fit.

On the other hand, some of their games have new characters, Splatoon is pretty much new characters (except maybe the squid guy from Mario Brothers?)

Splatoon was briefly considered as a Mario game:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-considered-making-...

Not too surprising. I mean if you think about it, Super Mario Sunshine was basically a single-player Splatoon prototype.

I look at majoras mask and see a Zelda that's completely different from the other Zeldas (and yes, there are more examples, that's just the most obvious), so no, Nintendo doesn't recreate their popular IPs, but actually produces new experiences based on them.

More than any other game, Majora's mask still sticks in my memory. Hauntingly. I'd love to find time to play it again some time.

This is very true.

There are very few new game series from Nintendo with rich worlds in them.

Wii Sports is just Miis put into sports settings. Splatoon is just generic looking characters put into different arenas. Animal Crossing is avatars put in farms or whatever. Pikmin is just one generic spaceman and billions of little colorcoded plant people.

Nothing they make outside of sequels and spinoffs have much in the way of rich worlds in them. And even those are just reusing old content from earlier games. (Oh wow now we can have the tanooki suite again! Oh wow now we can play as a evil purple-colored baby version of mario!)

do you understand what a game is? you seem to be dismissing all of these nintendo games based on surface details unrelated to the game itself.

"wii sports is just Miis put into sports settings" what is bad about this? the game itself is very enjoyable and was a worldwide sensation. what was wii sports supposed to be? not every game needs to be an open world adventure starring a bald man who's wife and child were brutally murdered.

I'm not dismissing the games. Not every game has to have a rich world. But there is a obvious change in the level of work they put into rich new content compared to their NES/SNES days.

What happened? Who knows. But it's definitely noticeable.

sounds like you are a game developer who places more importance on things other than the gameplay. so not really a game developer.

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