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The unsuccessful prototype that became Super Mario Bros. 2
Before there was a Super Mario Bros. 2 (in the US), and before there was a Doki Doki Panic, Nintendo was messing around with the idea of vertical platforming. "The idea was that you would have people vertically ascending, and you would have items and blocks that you could pile up to go higher, or you could grab your friend that you were playing with and throw them to try and continue to ascend," Donkey Kong Country Returns producer and Super Mario Bros. 2 director Kensuke Tanabe, who worked on the prototype, told Game|Life. "The game was mocked up (so that) when the player climbed about two-thirds of the way up the screen, it would scroll so that the player was pushed further down." The technology was cool, but there was a problem: the prototype wasn't actually any fun. Shigeru Miyamoto suggested adding some more traditional Mario-style side-scrolling, and the weird concept that eventually became Mario 2 began to take shape. "Picking up blocks was the same thing as pulling out vegetables from the ground," Tanabe said. This concept was first released as Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic; while it was in development, Fuji Television made a deal with Nintendo to release a game featuring characters for the Yume Kojo technology expo. Then when it was converted from Famicom Disk System format to a cartridge for Western release, Nintendo took the chance to make a couple of other changes -- like putting the Mario characters in. "We knew these Fuji TV characters wouldn't be popular in America," Tanabe said, "but what would be attractive in America would be the Mario characters."
Retro reflects on Donkey Kong Country Returns, denies sequel plans
If Nintendo is following up Donkey Kong Country Returns with sequels like it did the original Donkey Kong Country, it's not doing so right now. Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe, who works with DKCR developer Retro Studios, told Game Informer, "I wouldn't say we won't do a sequel, but we don't have anything planned at this time." In a postmortem panel at GDC on the development of last year's sucessful DKCR, Retro revealed the difficulties of making the side-scroller. The team attempted to adapt the Metroid Prime morph ball camera to the side-scrolling, but found it unable to handle the quick and complex movements of the DK characters -- especially once Tanabe insisted that two-player simultaneous play be added. There are over 2000 animations for the player character, a number inflated by the second character -- and by the late-stage suggestion from Shigeru Miyamoto that Donkey Kong be able to blow on background items to reveal secrets. Miyamoto was testing the game, running back and forth for about ten minutes, when he declared that Donkey Kong appeared to be exhaling when he turned around. And then, he said that "it might be fun to make Donkey Kong blow on things," causing extensive damage to Retro's metaphorical tea table. And the Super Guide -- "oh, jeez," one of the team exclaimed when that subject came up. It turns out that Retro had to rewrite the engine to make it deterministic -- make it that all the inputs would result in the same output every time, essentially eliminating randomness. This turned out to be a boon, however, as the same mechanic that allowed the team to record playthroughs also made it easy to reproduce bugs in testing. Retro ended its panel by joking that it would like to refresh the Doki Doki Panic (Super Mario Bros. 2) series next, along with making a "Pokemon Prime." "We've been looking at Tingle a lot," as well.
Monster Games is behind Pilotwings Resort on 3DS
We didn't expect to get news about Pilotwings Resort during a Donkey Kong Country Returns panel, but here it is. During Retro Studios' GDC postmortem, Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe cited two other American developers that Nintendo works with: Next Level Games, which made Punch-Out for Wii, and ExciteTruck/ExciteBots developer Monster Games -- which he said is working on Pilotwings Resort. Until now, it seems that this detail had been a secret (and Pilotwings creator Nintendo EAD had been assumed to be the Resort developer) -- or, at least, it just wasn't mentioned. Resort isn't the first Pilotwings game to be co-created with an American company: Nintendo EAD worked with Paradigm Simulations for the Nintendo 64 sequel.
3DS, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bleszinski talks at GDC
We're guessing Satoru Iwata will talk about the 3DS during his Game Developers Conference keynote. But it's even safer to assume that Nintendo's Hideki Konno will mention the system during his newly-announced GDC talk, called "The Development Process of the Nintendo 3DS". Konno works as producer for Nintendo hardware, and is also producing Nintendogs + Cats, so he should have at least a passing familiarity with the hardware. A third high-profile Nintendo talk has also been announced: Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe and Retro Studios' Michael Kelbaugh and Bryan Walker will present "We Hate You: Why Donkey Kong Country Returns was So Hard". Okay, it's actually called "Donkey Kong: Swinging Across Oceans" and it's about developing the game across continents. GDC also announced one more marquee presentation: Cliff Bleszinski's "Industry Lessons Learned and Applying Them to the Road Ahead", a wide-ranging talk about "Bleszinski's thoughts on AAA gaming, social gaming, and the connected future" as well as the importance of PR and marketing to game design.
Nintendo not done with Metroid Prime series
You may have completed Metroid Prime Trilogy and begun to enter Full Excitement Mode™ for next year's Metroid Other M, but there could be even more Metroid in store under Prime's banner of first-person action. Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe, who oversaw development on the Prime games for Nintendo at Retro Studios, recently told ONM that Nintendo is "always planning to make new games in the Metroid Prime series." Tanabe didn't speak of a continuation on Wii, but noted that depending "on the timing and the situation, we cannot deny the possibility of realising it on DS or DSi." Though Retro hasn't isolated itself from the franchise, we know Nintendo isn't shy about sharing Samus with external developers. Just don't call it "Metroid Dread," guys. Bad memories.
Metroid Prime producer hints at future Prime titles
With the recent release of Metroid Prime Trilogy, it was easy to presume that the Prime series of Metroid games had received a final nail hammered into its coffin. According to a recent interview with Kotaku though, it appears the series' producer isn't quite done. In response to a question regarding multiplayer in the series, Kensuke Tanabe said:"As all I take part in is the Prime series, I am not capable of commenting on the whole Metroid series. But we will keep considering multiplayer for the Prime series. For instance, I think I can come up with some unique ideas using the Morph Ball, which is a specific skill of Samus'."Though the series got a spinoff for the DS in Metroid Prime Hunters, and it's possible Tanabe is speaking about future Prime titles for Nintendo's handheld system, hearing about more Prime games in any capacity is intriguing news. While Team Ninja is busy working on Metroid: Other M, it's possible that Prime series dev Retro Studios could be working on the future of its brand of Metroid. Don''t just take it from us, take it from Retro Studios prez and CEO Michael Kelbaugh who said so himself!
