Tag: niche

Nintendo’s Unusual Structure

Over on Bluesky there’s an extremely interesting thread by Max Nichols, that reveals a number of groups that are often thought of as divisions of Nintendo are, in fact, separate companies!

A LOT of the companies that we think of as "Nintendo companies" were actually external studios that happened to work closely with Nintendo.SRD, despite programming basically all of Nintendo's flagship games and being physically located inside Nintendo's offices, was independent until 2022.

— Max Nichols (@maxnichols.bsky.social) 2024-12-13T18:25:40.072Z

It’s a good idea to click through and read the whole thread, and there’s a number of people among the respondents, as well as Max Nichols himself, who are likely worth following if you’re on that platform. One of them, Hyrule Interviews, has this quote from old Nintendo of America employee, and idol of millions of preteen NES addicts, Howard Phillips:

SRD is such a strange case. When Phillips talks about working with external programming teams to develop arcade games, they’re talking about companies like Ikegami Tsushinki, who programmed Donkey Kong for them based off of Shigeru Miyamoto’s design. Brought into context with Nintendo’s “independent subsidiaries,” it becomes evident that they never really stopped doing that, but became more careful that they had the rights over whatever was produced.

It’s also interesting to put this into context with:

  • Rare, who came to work very closely with Nintendo for Donkey Kong Country and all during the N64 era, but then parted ways and was bought out entire by Microsoft. Rare still made games for other platforms during the 16-bit era, releasing Championship Pro-Am for the Genesis and versions of Battletoads for SNES, Genesis, and even for arcades.
  • Argonaut Software, who worked with Nintendo to make the 1st party release Star Fox and then-unreleased Star Fox 2.
  • Intelligent Systems, developers of Advance Wars, Fire Emblem and Paper Mario, among other games.
  • HAL and Game Freak, which are other companies Nintendo has close relationships with but are technically separate. HAL has released mobile games like Part-Time UFO; Game Freak made Drill Dozer and Pocket Card Jockey.
  • And as pointed out in the thread, Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Nintendo’s megahit series Kirby and Super Smash Bros., has never been a Nintendo employee! He created both series while working for HAL, then broke away and worked as a freelance game director.

It causes one to wonder: is Nintendo’s reluctance to staff up on the people who actually construct their games old-fashioned, very modern, or just idiosyncratic of them?

Caves of Qud Intro Videos

Caves of Qud, after over a decade of development, finally reached a 1.0 release and has, for now at least, become the toast of the more-enlightened gaming internet. Of course there will people who will look at its time-based graphics and look down on it, and go back to their games of Call of World of Fortnight Among Us Craft Duty League. But if you’re here, then there’s a good chance that you get what’s special about roguelikes. And not just roguelikes, but classic roguelikes: heavily randomized, turn- and tile-based, and challenging. Hence, Caves of Qud.

Honestly, the roguelike scene is so large now that no one person could reasonably be expected to keep track of all of it. But there is no need to; others hold aloft that particular torch. Here’s a couple of videos, then, on getting started in Caves of Qud.

Publisher Kitfox Games (who also publish the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress) sponsored a video with “Getting Started” right in its title. Here it is (18 minutes):

It contains information on the different modes, the best starting location for beginners (Joppa), basic controls, navigating around the starting town, how to get around the world map (reminiscent of Alphaman!), how to spend kill points, how to read things, how to examine Artifacts, how to experiment with things (even if it gets you killed sometimes), how to steal things, performing the water ritual, and some combat tips.

Another, slightly longer at 24 minutes, intro video is by Rogue Rat:

It covers ranged weapons, the town of Joppa, Truekin, what to do when you get lost, some different skills to learn, gaining levels from giving books to a specific NPC, using its Crawl-type Autoexplore feature and other topics. Rogue Rat did a longer, more basic, intro video (34m) last year that went over many of the same topics as the first video here.

Kit & Krysta Explore a Secret Game Dev Hangout in Tokyo

I am SO ENVIOUS. Kit & Krysta, formerly of the official Switch video podcast Nintendo Minute, currently of their own projects and Youtube channel, got cell phone video of an amazing place, a location in Tokyo somewhere that gamedevs sometimes meet at, and is crammed tightly with game memorabilia. It’s almost a museum all to itself, and unlike the Nintendo Museum, seems like they don’t mind video footage escaping their confines, although on the other hand this doesn’t seem to be open to the public. It doesn’t look like a lot of people could fit in there at once, anyway!

I usually steer well clear of the hard sell, or “prompt for engagement,” when it comes to asking you to follow links and view videos from here. I figure if you’re interested you’ll click through, and if you’re not, then maybe tomorrow. But I’m breaking through that reserve just this once, as this place is amazing. You really have to see this if you have any interest in Nintendo, APE, Pokemon, Dragon Quest or their histories (12 minutes):

Our Private Tour of the Top Secret Nintendo Game Developer Hangout in Tokyo (Youtube, 12m)

Moving Miis from Wii to Switch

Fact: even after the disastrous life of the Wii-U, Miis still exist on the Nintendo Switch, and even though a lot less fuss is made about them now, there are still games that support them.

There are also games that used to support them but no longer do. The version of Super Mario Galaxy on Super Mario 3D All-Stars doesn’t let you select a system Mii to use as the file icon. You’re limited to one of the Mario characters provided! It’s a shame that. But, Nintendo Switch Sports, Smash Ultimate, and of course Miitopia supports them, as do four other games on the platform.

I’ve actually been through the process explained in the below video, by CJCat, which involves using Amiibo to transfer Miis over one by one from a Wii-U that had a Mii collection brought over using the Wii import channel. We played a lot of Wii, and it’s nice to know all the goofy characters we made, and the memories they carry, are on the Switch, even if few games use them any more. I hope the Switch 2 doesn’t forget about them, and that it makes them easier to bring over!

Bringing a Mii from Wii to Switch (Youtube, 9 minutes)

Zelda NPC Naming Inspiration

The Japanese versions of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have hundreds of characters in several fictional cultures. User Chubby Bub over on zeldawiki.com has a couple of spreadsheets collecting much of the naming inspiration of both these games’ many characters, and has put them up on Google Docs! Here’s the one for Breath of the Wild, and here’s the one for Tears of the Kingdom.

That’s all this time, but if you’re interested in this information it’s a lot to get through. They have information on character names, map names, the shrine Monks, monsters, items and quite a bit more! And if this isn’t that interesting to you? Well, we’re a daily blog here, so check back tomorrow!

How Many Bokoblins are in Tears of the Kingdom?

Now that the release of the game is some distance behind us, it seems apparent that, after all the videos about death machines and Korok torture have run their course, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t have as much meme longevity as Breath of the Wild had. This is probably because BotW got some of the categories of video (like harassing Yiga) out of peoples’ systems, and also how brightly the Zonai device roundup compilation flame burnt for a while. Even Wolf Link’s minimalist run collection has slowed to a halt lately.

This is why I was pleased to see a video appear yesterday from MiahTRT both telling and elaborating upon how many Bokoblins there are in Tears of the Kingdom. The brief answer is 3,509 in the various tiers. Some of them can advance in power through the game due to the game’s hidden experience mechanic, a carryover from Breath of the Wild, that causes the monsters in the game to become more powerful depending on your actions in the game. (It does not increase Link’s power, although it may cause stronger items to generate.)

It’s a short video, at about four minutes, and unlike many videos seeking to stretch themselves out to increase ad revenue, it gets right to the point in answering its question. Thanks, MiahTRT!

How Many Bokoblins Are There In TOTK? (Youtube, four minutes)

Retro365 on Little Computer People

It’s one of those genius ideas that, after its introduction, lay fallow for a long while, 15 years in fact, before bursting back on the scene again and becoming a megahit.

The box of the European version of Little Computer People for Commodore 64. (image from MobyGames)

The original is Activision’s 1985 “game” Little Computer People, designed by Rich Gold and David Crane, and the return was Will Wright’s 2000 release of the original The Sims. The Sims has a bit more game elements than the original, and a lot more in terms of progression. Other than some minor moments of interactivity LCP was largely a passive thing, but the they share the same central idea: simulated people living inside your computer, living their own lives.

It’s something that game designers return from time to time. There was the satirical web game Progress Quest, where you “create” an RPG character who goes on adventures completely without player input. As a “zero player game,” there is absolutely nothing you can do there to help or hinder the simulated character; it may be the first game that can live entirely on your desktop’s system tray. The concept is also reminiscent of Yoot Saito’s Seaman on the Sega Dreamcast. More recently there’s the Garden screen in this year’s UFO 50, where a little pink person lives in a largely empty field and house, unless you can fill it with furniture, devices, animals and other items by completing various goals in its 50 games.

A Little Computer Person with his Little Computer Dog. (image from MobyGames)

Retro365 looked into the history of Little Computer People, and tells us that Rich Gold’s original idea was for a completely passive experience, inspired by the fad at the time for pet rocks, and it was David Crane that added the idea that you could interact with the character living on your computer disk, using a simple text entry system and parser. The article contains the interesting fact that Will Wright was not only inspired by Little Computer People, but spoke with its creator during the creation of The Sims.

The unexpected Japanese box art for the PC88 version of Little Computer People. Weirdly, the line-drawing art in the background kind of looks like a Sims house.

While LCP was nowhere near as popular as The Sims, which became one of those perpetual cash cows that seem to be all EA has cared about for many years now, its foundational nature means that all students of game design should take a look at it.

Little Computer People: When Digital Life Came To Life (Retro365)

Sundry Sunday: DK Rap Remixed by Kirkhope and Substantial

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

People remember the DK Rap, the theme song from Donkey Kong 64 back on the Nintendo 64. It’s certainly memorable, and arguably iconic, although most would agree it’s not great as a rap? It was written by George Andreas (who wrote and sang the lyrics) and Grant Kirkhope (who composed the music).

We’re referred to it before here in a Sunday Sundry about brentalfloss’ excellent (but very dark) 2018 parody version, which kept most of the music the same. Well here’s an update that’s changes the music and lyrics, with the music from original composer Kirkhope, and the words written and sung by rapper Substantial, and by all rights it’s a much better song. Hear for yourself (3 minutes), it’s (puts on monocle) remarkably funky:

Ridiculous Tetris Piece Spinning

Modern-day Tetris contains some weird techniques. Some time back they regularized the ruleset of Tetris, using a confidential, yet mostly deduced, system called the Tetris Guideline. Although there are some games that go outside the guideline in some ways, modes that are called standard Tetris, or just plain “Tetris,” must stick to the guideline as a condition of their license agreement.

The Tetris Guideline, by now, has been part of the game for longer than it’s existed without it, but the most popular versions of the game, the Gameboy and NES ports, existed before the Guideline became a thing, so many people who mostly played that version may not be aware of how the game has changed since those days.

Some aspects of the Guideline are a bit controversial, like allowing infinite spin. Others have to do with regularizing how pieces move when rotated, which has some unexpected consequences.

These two short videos contain demonstrations of Tetris piece spinning. Now, I know for a fact that some of these spins are not part of the Tetris Guideline, especially those that involve spinning the “O” piece, the 2×2 square. Apparently a couple versions of Tetris support spinning this piece, even if it doesn’t make sense, and it has the potential to behave in odd ways. It’s interesting to speculate on the exact kind of drugs the spin algorithm is using when they allow pieces to warp into completely enclosed regions.

Here are the videos. Tetris Spins From Satisfying to Cursed (2 1/2 minutes):

And an “All Spins Tutorial” (6 minutes):

While some of the spins are not possible in standard Tetris modes, many of these are. Some games even reward you for pulling them off.

Legends of Localization Shows Signs of Activity

Clyde “Tomato” Mandelin, translator and localizer of video games, including especially of the fan translation of Mother 3, has a website and blog called Legends of Localization. It had been sleeping for a couple of years, but recently has sprung to life again with two posts this year. A few days ago he linked to a 2017 live playthrough and translation in a series of Youtube videos he made of a Sega Saturn JRPG called Tengai Makyō: The Apocalypse IV, a satirical game that pokes fun at Western culture, that he refers to as kind of a cousin of Earthbound. At 31 videos, each about two hours long, it takes quite a while to get through the whole thing, but it sounds like fun. Here is the 62-hour epic:

On the same day, he posted a history and timeline of fan’s waiting for news about an official localization of Mother 3.

Back in April he curated a collection of articles about bad game translations, including games like Twinkle Star Sprites and Breath of Fire II, but also has a collection of iffy translations of English games into Japanese. It turns out that Atari Games was notorious for them, inspiring a couple of long-lasting Japanlish memes.

At the top of the screen: “koin ikko ireru,” an awkward way of saying “Insert Coin.” (image from the Legends of Localization site)

I hope these posts are an indication of further writing from Tomato in 2025!

The Ringer on Funny Mario RPGs

Joshua Rivera on The Ringer reminds us of the history of comedy RPGs involving Mario, beginning with Super Mario RPG, then branching into the twin threads of the Paper Mario games and the Mario & Luigi series. They all share the common aspect of making Mario pretty boring, the archetype of the silent protagonist, and instead focusing on the world he inhabits.

Mario & Luigi (image from mariowiki)

In particular, the article mentions how the two of the principals behind Super Mario RPG went on to work on Mario and Luigi, and how Nintendo hasn’t made developing the series any easier with increasingly strict guidelines on how the characters can be used, like how modified versions of iconic, yet generic, types like Toads and Goombas can’t be created, possibly for fear of diluting their brands.

Zess T., a classic Thousand Year Door character who couldn’t be created today, because she’s not a bog-standard, mint-in-box Toad. (Image from mariowiki.)

The article also notes that both subseries have undergone revivals lately, with Origami King and Thousand Year Door in the Paper Mario series, and the new Brothership in the Mario & Luigi line, despite the shutting down of AlphaDream, who made them. But it’s not getting easier to make new games in either series, with Nintendo’s growing strictness over outside use of their characters and the serieses painting themselves further into a corner with each installment consuming more of the feasible possibility space.

Oh Fawful. Will we ever see your like again? (image from mariowiki)