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.
_thumbnail.jpg "Mega Man 9")
_thumbnail.jpg "Smash Bros. Brawl Snapshots")
