Galaxy director Koizumi on how Mario became Galactic
Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi gave the keynote at this year's Montreal Games Summit, discussing the evolution of 3D Mario. He has unique perspective on this, having been not only a 3D animator, but also co-director of Super Mario 64, then director of Sunshine and now Galaxy. His portfolio also includes work on Link's Awakening and directing the fantastic Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat.
It goes without saying that all the talk about the early development of Mario 64 is fascinating -- including descriptions of Miyamoto pantomiming certain movements for the animators -- but the really interesting part of the story is how the problems of 3D platforming influenced the design of Galaxy. The major problem? The camera.
The world of Galaxy is, basically, a world free of walls. Without walls, backtracking is reduced, and sudden 180-degree camera movements become unnecessary. "We should tune the game so people can play without ever having to think about the camera," said Koizumi. An admirable goal -- awful cameras have just about sunk the Sonic series and countless other 3D platformers.
