It's not often we get to hear a senior developer of a Super Mario Bros. game philosophise about game design. At gamescom last year, Takashi Tezuka, executive officer at Nintendo and producer on Super Mario Bros.
Wonder, and Shiro Mouri, the game's director, gave us a glimpse, as they spoke with Eurogamer about their intentions for Super Mario Bros.
Wonder. At the time, Tezuka said «There was a lot of feeling about creating something else, something new,» with Mouri adding that «in terms of the concept for creating a new Mario, we came up with the concept of mystery and secrets».
Much of that was echoed by the pair's talk at GDC last week: Tezuka noted the team's mantra this time was «Big Changes,» while Mouri mentioned the sense of lingering familiarity again, and the desire to evolve things in light of it.
Only this time they opened up a little further, offering detail on cut ideas, development approaches and more — but they began with the same point they made to us. «In the first Super Mario Bros., points came out when you hit blocks, and you grew bigger when you got a Super Mushroom.