Iwata: "So you wanted to know what it was that made players insert another 100 yen coin once the game was over and have another go?"

Miyamoto: "And basically, I concluded that this was born of the players being mad at themselves. So I would try to analyze how the game made players feel that way."

A key point here is that players were mad at themselves, not the game, which is why Mario's tight, nearly perfect controls are so important.

And that is what I do not understand about Super Mario World (SNES). It seems to be the most popular of them all and people love it. To me the controls are very inaccurate and sluggish, especially compared to Super Mario Land 2 (6 golden coins, Gameboy).

Sluggish? Really? The reaction times for air movement and probably movement in general are miles faster than in the original SMB. Are you sure you're talking about SMW? The one that introduced Yoshi?

Yes. I think it is something about the air control or "braking" that makes me feel this way. SML2 is way more direct.

The original Donkey Kong is easily the hardest and most frustrating video game I have ever played.

Did you try Spelunky or Nethack?

...also the funniest and cutest. then answer is donkey kong.

I guess you've never played any of the games the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewed?

http://www.cinemassacre.com/new/?page_id=13

I bet a lot of 100 yen coins were spent on Super Mario Brothers 2 (Japanese version, 'The Lost Levels' in the States)

I do not think that was an arcade game.

Yes it was, on the Playchoice system (SMB had a Vs. system release). See the KLOV: http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9914

Huh, maybe only SMB was.

"Iwata: Donkey Kong involved jumping, as did Mario Bros., so you felt that Nintendo were the real originators of this kind of game. Miyamoto: I did. I went as far as thinking that jumping is an original idea and that it should be patented! Anyway, I thought: "Right, I'm not going to let those other games top us!" (laughs) We had done tests where a large character jumped around with the blue sky in the background…"

Now, close your eyes... then, try to imagine a world in which nobody other than Nintendo can legally sell a game which involves jumping in some way (unless they have a license). The terror.

Have a look at the source:

    <div class="utterance"><div class="name">Iwata</div> 
    <div class="message">In this interview, we're going...

I would have chosen "speaker" rather than "name", but this sort of attention is nice to see :)

Good attention to class names, but terrible use of markup. He should be using paragraphs instead of divs. Edit: Span for the name.

Why on earth would you use a semantically insignificant element (SPAN) to markup something as significant as the name of the interview object?

I'd easily mark this up as a DIALOG:

   <dialog>
      <dt>Iwata
      <dd>In this interview, we're going…
   </dialog>

Is a paragraph a logical or a visual concept? Can a paragraph have a name/speaker attached to it? The author answered these questions differently than you, and kudos to them for thinking about the problem. Markup is "terrible" when people don't think about structure at all.

The number of (laughs) in this interview makes me believe it is truly Japanese.

I've never read an interview before which sounded like so much fun to be a part of!

Well, in my understanding, what seems like free and unforced laughter is actually a sort of social signifier intended to grease the conversational wheels: "I am having a good time, we can continue talking." In the same way, Japanese conversations are marked by constant "aizuchi," little words of agreement and encouragement by the listener. A listener can constantly mutter "yes, quite so" and "now I understand," out of reflex, and then immediately follow up with a scathing rebuttal. Interesting cultural difference. In America, you show attention by being quiet and making eye contact.

general - the other articles (the early ones at the very least) are all incredibly interesting discussions wrt video game design.

Highlights: "The Reason Mario Wears Overalls" (character design by pixel): "Before you know it, you've used up 8 X 8 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."

"Letting Everyone Know It Was A Good Mushroom": "That's the reason why it's designed so that whatever you do, you'll get the mushroom."

If you're interested, you should play Portal in the 'commentary' version -- a lot of thought went in to making the game intuitive with zero explicit instructions. I think they were pretty successful.

"Miyamoto - That's when we thought about what kind of creature could withstand being struck from below and would eventually recover. We racked our brains thinking what we could use…"

"Iwata - And that's how you came up with the turtle! (laughs)"

"Miyamoto - The turtle was the only solution! (laughs) Strike it from below and it flips over! Leave it for a while and it rights itself!""

I always wondered how turtles came to be so heavily involved.

This interview makes me wish that someone would write a "Video Game Designers at Work".

You might like "Masters of Doom".

If anyone is interested in knowing, Iwata was at HAL Laboratory (before recently moving to Nintendo proper) where he programmed such games as Kirby, Earthbound, and (at least the original prototype for) Super Smash Bros.

I always thought Mario was a bad copy of Giana Sisters. Seems like Giana Sisters was a clone with minor improvements...

I never realized that they made it so you couldn't jump over the mushroom in SMB. That is so cool, and I need to somehow make my brain have those kind of ideas.

Yes, a brilliant idea. It seems that much of the design in video games is to trick the player into failing. This was a case of tricking the player into success.

There's a good exploration of how SMB World 1-1 teaches you how to play the game, here:

    http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=465

Valve does a lot of this based on testing with players - they notice that players aren't doing what they need to do, or looking where they need to look, so they alter the level with (more-or-less) subtle ways to guide/force them into doing it.

I'm pretty sure you can jump over the mushroom if you either do so in the areas without the overhead blocks or if you time it right. They merely made it very difficult for a new player to avoid the mushroom.