PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 58. Creator of Zelda & Mario. General Manager of Nintendo EAD. QUOTE: Miyamoto: The reason Mario is a plump shape is because gaming devices at that time could only read collisions between square boxes, not because I wanted to make him cute. His design turned out like that because I adjusted for the capabilities of the gaming device of the day. For example, resolution was low, so I made his face big.

Miyamoto on why Mario is a plump shape, 2011.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote, #SuperMarioBrosQuote
#MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/39d6164a4154...

PEOPLE: - Toshihiko Nakago, age 52. Main Programmer on Excitebike, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda. - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Director of Excitebike, Producer & Director of Super Mario Bros. & The Legend of Zelda. QUOTE: Iwata: So your job was to port arcade games like Donkey Kong over to the Famicom? Nakago: That's right. Then around the time that job was coming to an end, someone I didn't know came up behind me and said: “You're Nakago-san, right?” And that turned out to be Miyamoto-san. Iwata: So even though you'd ported Donkey Kong across to the NES, you didn't know Miyamoto-san? [laughs] Nakago: I honestly didn't know anything about him! [laughs] At that time, I didn't even know that anyone by name of Miyamoto was working for the company. Then he came up to me and said: “We're going to be working on Excitebike together.”

Nakago on the first time he met Miyamoto, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote, #ExcitebikeQuote
#NakagoQuote, #IwataQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/01d01475fc47...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Director of Donkey Kong. Creator of Zelda. - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. QUOTE: Miyamoto: [For Donkey Kong] I drew [Jumpman’s] eyes, nose, mouth and… Iwata: There's absolutely no way that you had enough pixels, right? M: Right, there weren't enough. Before you know it, you've used up 8x8 pixels. But if you draw a nose then a moustache, you don't really know if it's a mouth or a moustache, and it saves pixels. I: So if you draw a moustache, you don't have to draw a mouth. M: You don't have to draw a mouth, which makes a big difference. You only need one pixel for the chin and if you draw two vertical pixels, you've got eyes that hopefully look quite cute. [laughs] Also … by making him wear a hat, you can reduce the hair to only a couple of pixels.

Miyamoto & Iwata on the pixel constraints for drawing Jumpman's face, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #IwataQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Creator of Mario, Zelda, & more. - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. QUOTE: Iwata: Then, because he jumped up and down [in Donkey Kong], he became known as ‘Jumpman’, right? Miyamoto: Well, I called him ‘Mr. Video’. My plan was to use the same character in every video game I made. Iwata: So you had that plan right from the start? Why did you intend to use him in every video game you made? Miyamoto: Well, I thought the way Hitchcock cropped up in all the films he directed was really cool! [laughs] Iwata: [laughs] Miyamoto: Or take manga artists like Osamu Tezuka and Fujio Akatsuka who have the same character popping up in a variety of different works. I think I was probably influenced by that at the time.

Miyamoto on his ambition to use Jumpman in every game he made, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#MarioQuote, #DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #IwataQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Director of Donkey Kong. Creator of Zelda, Mario, & more. QUOTE: "Iwata: The ‘board’ that you just mentioned is the circuit board inside the arcade game cabinet. At that time, there was a fair amount of individuality, shall we say, in each machine and, depending on the specific type of hardware, there were different limitations imposed. Miyamoto: As we wanted [Donkey Kong] to be played on at least four connected screens, we simply referred to that as ‘scrolling’. [laughs] … The technical supervisor at the time asked us what on earth we were thinking: ‘One screen is plenty for a regular game! But you're making four separate screens! You might as well ask us to make four different games!’"

Miyamoto & Iwata on working with the constraints of arcade circuit boards, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote
#IwataQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Director of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Creator of Zelda. - Gunpei Yokoi, age 68. Producer of Donkey Kong & Mario Bros. Creator of Nintendo’s first video game, the D-Pad, and the Gameboy. QUOTE: "Miyamoto: In Donkey Kong, if Mario fell any distance that was greater than his height, you'd lose a turn. … Yokoi-san said: ‘Why don't we let him jump down from higher places [in Mario Bros.]?’ I thought … it wouldn't be much of a game. But as I pondered it, I thought: ‘Why shouldn't Mario be able to perform super-human feats?’ Then we made a prototype with Mario running and bouncing around and we realized that this was great fun. But … we wondered what kind of game it was going to be. It was at this point that Yokoi-san, who is someone who considers problems from first principles, said: ‘Since we've got all these floors, why don't we make it so that Mario can hit the floors from beneath?’"

Miyamoto on working with Yokoi to design Mario Bros (1983) for arcade, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#MarioBros.Quote, #DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #YokoiQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Producer & Director of Super Mario Bros., Director & Artist for Donkey Kong. - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. QUOTE: "Miyamoto: Sometimes there'll be a single block floating in mid-air, right? When I first made that [in Super Mario Bros.], I thought it was totally outrageous. Even when I was working on Donkey Kong, I'd design things properly. I'd make sure that if there was a floor here, then there'd be a pillar somewhere to support it. … When we made the game, it would start off with a large number of blocks and Mario would go along smashing those until there was just a single block floating there. We decided that ending up with just one block floating there didn't seem to feel unnatural. Iwata: But why doesn't it fall? [laughs] Miyamoto: Well, it's actually connected round the back... [laughs]"

Miyamoto & Iwata on single floating blocks and believability, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#SuperMarioBrosQuote, #DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote, #IwataQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Creator of Zelda, Mario, & more. Director and Designer of Donkey Kong. - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. QUOTE: "Miyamoto: The original Mario [in Donkey Kong] was a 16x16 pixilated image. At that time, when games made overseas used human characters, they were always rendered with life-like proportions. Iwata: It felt as if the developers weren't happy unless they'd drawn a figure that was eight-heads tall. Miyamoto: Or sometimes it would be six-heads tall. But actually, the number of pixels we were able to use was so limited that, if we did that, we'd only have had a couple of pixels for the face. Iwata: With two pixels, you wouldn't even have been able to draw eyes. You'd basically have ended up with a matchstick figure. In early video games from overseas, that kind of figure often featured."

Miyamoto & Iwata on pixel resolution and Jumpman proportions, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote,#IwataQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...

PEOPLE: - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 56. Creator of Zelda and Mario. Director of Donkey Kong (1981). - Satoru Iwata, age 49. President of Nintendo. QUOTE: "Miyamoto: I also recall that the cabinet we were making [Donkey Kong] for had one joystick and one button, but initially I intended it to be controlled using only the joystick. Iwata: So what you're saying is that if that cabinet hadn't happened to have a button, Mario wouldn't have jumped? You can't imagine Mario now without thinking of him jumping! [laughs] Miyamoto: Well, that might have been the case. Originally it was a game where you had to escape from a maze. To allow players to jump and avoid dangers would have spoiled the strategic element of the game. But then we thought: ‘If you had a barrel rolling towards you, what would you do?’"

Miyamoto on adding a jump button to Donkey Kong, 2009.

Source: Iwata Asks

#DonkeyKongQuote
#MiyamotoQuote,#IwataQuote

www.notion.so/309b8c772861...