Super Mario 3D Land director Koichi Hayashida was previously a student of legendary developer Shigeru Miyamoto, having participated in the Nintendo Dentsu Game Seminar.
During Hayashida’s presentation, titled “Thinking in 3D: The Development of Super Mario 3D Land”, at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, he reflected on key words of wisdom that Miyamoto had shared with him.
Some of these were as follows:
“Remind yourself everyday of what you are trying to make”.
“Analyze new information and build your own perspective”.
“Even simple things anyone can do can become difficult when you do two of them at the same time”. (To best illustrate this, Hayashida challenged those in attendance to make their right hand alternate between Rock-Paper-Scissors whilst the left hand only did Rock-Paper!)
“We need to remember to let people play the way they want to”.
Regarding the last statement, Hayashida revealed that he took it particularly to heart. His six-year old son had never played a video game before, and spent an hour tackling the first level of Super Mario 3D Land before turning to him and saying “Collecting coins is fun, Dad”.
[Thanks Silconera]
Miyamoto offers words of developmental wisdom
