Nintendo faced a challenge.
The company needed a pair of New Super Mario Brothers games.
One for the Wii U, to show off the new console’s unique hardware, and one for the 3DS, to similarly
display what could be done with the dual-screen handheld.
Each game would need its own innovative focus, and while they both had to be developed in
tandem, neither could feel too similar to the other.
Nintendo’s Golden Triangle of Takashi Tezuka, Toshihiko Nagako, and Shigeru Miyamoto, all
had something to contribute to these new game projects.
But one member of this trio, opposed to the introduction of a new mechanic, threatened
to tear everything apart.
This is the story of New Super Mario Brothers 2, and how the Mario Cram School and Nintendo’s
Golden Triangle managed to build something original out of a very familiar game series.
Going into his latest assignment at Nintendo, Yusuke Amano was more than a little worried.
He’d just finished work on Starfox 64 3D, and had immediately been given the role of
director on a New Super Mario Brothers game for the 3DS.
Yusuke was vaguely aware of the Mario Cram School, a training scheme that had helped
upskill a lot of new employees at Nintendo in the art of making a Mario game.
Takashi Tezuka and Toshihiko Nagako, who’d taught these classes, had continuously tried
to get Yusuke to participate, but he’d always been too busy.
Now, Yusuke realized why this had been so important.
He had been given the job of building a New Super Mario game, but had no other teammates.
He simply had to trust that things would work out.
One by one, Takashi assigned additional people to work on the game.
As other projects at Nintendo wrapped up, and other games were completed, staff became
available.
Thus, this game was built backwards.
Normally, teams would come together and talk through the framework of their games and what
they wanted to achieve.
But with this title, level design had begun at the Mario Cram School long before there
was an official focus for the project.
Yusuke did his best to organize his team.
They worked on level ideas and coming up with unique ways to make the game stand out, but
it was hard to find a solid direction that would set this game apart from another, similar
title that was in the works for the Wii U. Yes, this game would be made to utilize the
3DS’s ability to display 3D graphics, but what else could be done?
Luckily, Yusuke wasn’t left completely alone at this time.
Of the two directors working on New Super Mario games, he was the less experienced with
this series, and as such, the Golden Triangle was there to support him.
Takashi and Toshihiko sat in with Yusuke for a lot of his design meetings, and they talked
with him constantly about how to make the game stand out.
Yusuke noticed a lot of chatter between the two veteran Nintendo employees.
Takashi and Toshihiko kept muttering together about coins, and how good it felt to collect
these items in Mario games.
Could they perhaps start building something that focused on grabbing coins in interesting
ways?
The team began coming up with ideas for how the player might rush around grabbing more
gold coins that a typical Mario game, and this felt like a fun new way of approaching
the traditional platforming formula.
One idea was a special golden koopa that released a string of coins, which proved popular with
the team.
But the game still lacked a specific focus.
A guiding design idea around which everything could be built.
Takashi and Toshihiko kept pondering this.
They discussed it at length together, and with Yusuke.
Then, without any new ideas, they went to lunch.
This was a big deal.
The Golden Triangle lunches are infamous within Nintendo.
Takashi, Toshihiko, and fellow Golden Triangle member Shigeru Miyamoto get together every
available lunchtime to eat as a group, and chat.
Sometimes this chat focuses on what they are doing in their private lives, but more often
than not, it revolves around what specific challenges they’re facing at work.
Each member of the triangle has moved to different parts of the company, and they rarely work
all together on the same project.
Lunchtime is their rare opportunity to discuss what they were doing and what challenges they’re
facing.
Often, other senior members of Nintendo’s staff are eager to join the trio.
It was a good way of keeping abreast of the company’s challenges, and of getting a solution
to a problem.
Many difficult conundrums has been solved by these three developers, sat together at
lunch.
Typically, Mondays and Tuesdays are the most interesting lunches to attend, and these are
the ones that other employees looked forward to the most.
The Golden Triangle come to the lunchtable charged up and excited after a weekend away.
They’ve been pondering each others’ problems, and they often have solutions to offer.
By contrast, mid-week lunches take a different tone.
They’re quieter, and more reserved, as each member of the group is now stuck working on
various problems without really having enough time to focus on solutions to other problems.
At this particular lunch meeting, everyone seemed on fine form.
As the Golden Triangle discussed the lack of focus for New Super Mario Brothers on the
3DS, the vague idea of using coins blossomed into a solid motto for the project.
Takashi came back from lunch shouting, “One million coins!
One million coins!”.
This was to be the goal: to give the player the chance to see their coin collecting rise
into six figures.
But this was an ambitious goal.
The current design for the game gave the player a lot of coins, yes, but nowhere near a million
over the course of a single playthrough.
The team needed to be careful not to make coin collecting become a chore.
So, new modes of play were introduced, along with new mechanics that allowed the player
to wrack up an impressive coin count as quickly as possible.
The game was designed to shower the player in coins at every opportunity.
Soon, joining the golden koopa, other enemies in the game were given the golden treatment
as well.
Even Mario was turned gold, spewing out coins in all directions!
The team began to worry that this was getting very gaudy; it was certainly the greatest
use of gold in any Mario game to date, and it meant making a lot of shiny reflective
textures!
In reference to this bright, shiny focus for the gameplay, the team even considered calling
the game New Super Mario Brothers Gold, before ultimately deciding against it.
Instead, this was to be titled New Super Mario Brothers 2, even if it was actually the third
title in the series.
But not every member of the Golden Triangle was thrilled about this direction.
Shigeru Miyamoto wasn’t actively involved with a lot of the game’s development, and
when his colleagues and friends brought their work to show him, he was very unhappy.
In the words of Satoru Iwata, Shigeru was flipping over the table, and bringing the
whole project back to the drawing board.
This was all because Shigeru absolutely hated one particular element of the new gameplay.
In an effort to help the player wrack up coins, the team had invented the Gold Block, an item
that rested on Mario’s head, constantly streaming out coins for a short period of
time.
Shigeru hated it.
His major gripe: that the Gold Block made no sense.
Why would it appear on Mario’s head, and why would it release an endless stream of
coins?
Takashi knew his old friend well enough to know that this issue wasn’t going to go
away.
Shigeru had a very particular logic behind his Mario titles, and he liked to make sure
that new gameplay elements felt like a sensible inclusion in his bizarre fantasy world.
If the team didn’t want to throw everything away and start again, they’d need to convince
Shigeru that this item made sense.
This could well be a big fight.
Eventually, after some discussion, the group formulated a way to make the item feel logical.
It would appear when Mario was collecting coins from an established type of block within
the game, which would give a few coins for a short period of time if Mario hit it repeatedly.
The logic was that, in enthusiasm to get all possible coins out of the block, Mario would
hit the block too vigorously, and get it stuck on his head.
Then, he would run around, his head covered by the Gold Block, constantly gaining more
coins.
Takashi presented this plan to Shigeru, and braced himself for the response.
To his surprise, Shigeru agreed.
Yes, that would do just fine.
Takashi breathed a sigh of relief – he hadn’t expected Shigeru to change his mind that easily!
Thanks to this, the project was saved!
This idea of subverting expectations became a driving force within the game.
The developers wanted to lull the player into a false sense of security, showing them a
familiar element of Mario lore, and then twisting it, such as ghosts that would sneak up on
the player when they should otherwise be frozen still in fear.
This, everyone hoped, would make New Super Mario Brothers 2 feel like more than just
a retread of an established formula.
The game was released, and Yusuke relaxed a little.
He was pleased with what had been accomplished, and was grateful to the Golden Triangle and
their unique contributions to the project.
Thanks to all of them working together, even sometimes counterintuitively, they’d managed
to make a better game as a result.
The moral of the story is that it can help to talk things out with a friend.
Sometimes, as with the Golden Triangle’s lunches, you may get a bolt of inspiration
that can help you to find your focus in life.
At other times, a friend’s resistance may help you to see that you need a different
approach to a problem you’re facing.
Good friends are invaluable.
Remember to cherish them.
As you support each other, you’ll all enjoy the benefits that come from teamwork.