Nintendo, Next Level talk Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon development, struggles, multiplayer and MUCH more
The following info comes from a Kotaku interview with Next Level Games...
On multiplayer
"Miyamoto-san actually challenged us to say that this multiplayer will only be in the game if people will constantly play it, similar to Mario Kart." - Next Level gameplay engineer Brian Davis
"That was his (Miyamoto's) response: 'Put it in the game if people can play it longer than they play Mario Kart.'" - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
In the bottom-left rectangle were and Ryuichi Nakada, another supervisor who backed Ikebata up. Both men work out of Nintendo's Software Planning & Development Department and were sitting in a conference room in Nintendo's home offices in Kyoto, Japan. At least one other Nintendo official was off-camera.
In the top-right rectangle was a translator and another member of the Nintendo team at the company's U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The translator, Jonathan Yeckley, would interpret my questions and the Next Level guy's answers for the Japanese developers and would translate what was said in Japan for the rest of us.
- development of the game began in 2009
- this was before Next Level Games knew what the 3DS would be
"Nintendo usually keeps a lot of secrets. Even being the developer, after learning about the project, we didn't know what we were building it for or on. We had to kind of envision what system this would be for. So we just started writing paper designs, researching the old game and coming up with new ideas. We pitched a detective game, and then we were working on a little Gauntlet-style paper design to kind of shift the series and then eventually we started getting more details from Nintendo about where they wanted to go with the framework." - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
- Nintendo thought Next Level Games would be a good fit for Luigi's Mansion, so they got them on a video conference call the next day
"We were developing something in secret, like we usually do working with Nintendo. There was a conference call very similar to this one where it was kind of announced to us that we would stop working on what we were currently doing and start—they even added a little drum roll—to work on Luigi's Mansion." - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
On the 3D and multiplayer tests with the original Luigi's Mansion...
On multiplayer
"Miyamoto-san actually challenged us to say that this multiplayer will only be in the game if people will constantly play it, similar to Mario Kart." - Next Level gameplay engineer Brian Davis
"That was his (Miyamoto's) response: 'Put it in the game if people can play it longer than they play Mario Kart.'" - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
In the bottom-left rectangle were and Ryuichi Nakada, another supervisor who backed Ikebata up. Both men work out of Nintendo's Software Planning & Development Department and were sitting in a conference room in Nintendo's home offices in Kyoto, Japan. At least one other Nintendo official was off-camera.
In the top-right rectangle was a translator and another member of the Nintendo team at the company's U.S. headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The translator, Jonathan Yeckley, would interpret my questions and the Next Level guy's answers for the Japanese developers and would translate what was said in Japan for the rest of us.
- development of the game began in 2009
- this was before Next Level Games knew what the 3DS would be
"Nintendo usually keeps a lot of secrets. Even being the developer, after learning about the project, we didn't know what we were building it for or on. We had to kind of envision what system this would be for. So we just started writing paper designs, researching the old game and coming up with new ideas. We pitched a detective game, and then we were working on a little Gauntlet-style paper design to kind of shift the series and then eventually we started getting more details from Nintendo about where they wanted to go with the framework." - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
- Nintendo thought Next Level Games would be a good fit for Luigi's Mansion, so they got them on a video conference call the next day
"We were developing something in secret, like we usually do working with Nintendo. There was a conference call very similar to this one where it was kind of announced to us that we would stop working on what we were currently doing and start—they even added a little drum roll—to work on Luigi's Mansion." - Next Level director Bryce Holliday
On the 3D and multiplayer tests with the original Luigi's Mansion...
Read the rest of the story...
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