User:KamekSans/The Making of Pikmin

The following is a transcript of an interview conducted between Nintendo Power magazine and Shigeru Miyamoto, as well as Pikmin developers Masamichi Abe, Masamichi Abe, Shigefumi Hino, and Colin Reed.

It All Started with Adam and Eve

NP: Two people have the role of director of this game. How do two people share those responsibilities?
HINO: I was mainly in charge of design direction.
ABE: I was the main director of data coordination.

NP: The staff list shows that Mr. Reed is listed as main system programmer and another person is listed as game system programmer. What's the difference?
REED: Game system is the AI part. The main system programmer takes care of the animation of the characters, how the characters relate to other objects, the demo scenes and so on.

NP: What was your role, Mr. Miyamoto?
MIYAMOTO: This time, two directors were working separately on different parts of game design, and I combined those parts and sometimes suggested ideas for them.

NP: Please tell us the story of how this game got started.
MIYAMOTO: When we were in the testing stages of the Nintendo GameCube, I requested one thing—to try and animate objects as much as possible. However, my people wanted to create a game in which you control 10 or 20 characters at once. There was a discrepancy between my idea and my people's idea. In my mind, I wanted to go off the image of the "100 Marios." (As seen in the technical demo for the Nintendo GameCube shown at Space World 2000, the "100 Marios" footage depicted 128 different Marios—each with unique animations—simultaneously moving on the same screen.)

NP: Was the "100 Marios" just a demonstration to show off the Nintendo GameCube's abilities or were you actually planning on developing a game based on it?
MIYAMOTO: Yes, I was. I still want to. I used some ideas from that concept for Pikmin, but I am still keeping some ideas for future projects.

NP: Did you have the idea for this "plant-type" of character from the beginning?
MIYAMOTO: No. It was completely different at the beginning of the testing stages. We called them Adam and Eve.
HINO: When the designers had a discussion about the characters, we thought it might be better to use a simple design so we could show a lot of them at once. So we created characters that had a ball for a body and eyes and a nose. Maybe it's difficult to imagine...
MIYAMOTO: Some toys have that kind of shape. A fuzzy ball...

NP: And their names were Adam and Eve. There were only two characters at the beginning, but their numbers increased gradually, right?
MIYAMOTO: Something like that.

NP: What were they supposed to do?
MIYAMOTO: That was the most difficult part.

NP: you're showing a lot of characters on the screen at the same time and they're all moving, so what would players make them do?
MIYAMOTO: At the beginning, the idea was just to look at their life. I thought it was an interesting idea from a producer's point of view. "Watch their life" was the theme. Give them love or make them fight. Act like God. Depending on the decisions, they could make a nest and have children. While we were moving toward that theme, we faced a problem: What is the goal? The process got me more involved in the game. There was a kind of desire to control a big group of characters by using the newly developed C Stick. After a while, that changed into the idea of grabbing and throwing characters. (Laughs.) Then we used trial and error to figure out what we should ask them to do. Doing something with character AI was an ongoing goal since the beginning of the project.

NP: It was kind of a surprise to see completely new characters and a new game setup for the launch of a new hardware system.
MIYAMOTO: During the second half of game development or the Nintendo 64, we started to think about departing from the traditional concept of a game and we tried to move toward a new concept of what a game could be. Based on that thinking, we started various projects. The Yoshi's Story and 1080° Snowboarding development teams are the foundation of the Pikmin development team. I asked them to create a completely new game that would be nothing like a sequel to Mario. That was the starting point.
ABE: It was a request that there be new characters that have never existed before and all new Controller moves.
MIYAMOTO: I knew everyone was thinking about the new concept, but I thought they were still sticking to producing a game for "people who want to play one game after another." I kept saying that we should create a game not only for regular gamers but also for those who haven't played games before. From that standpoint, I think that Pikmin became the game that could appeal to people who've never played video games before.

NP: The game plays out with action of all types. Did you intend to create an action game from the start?
MIYAMOTO: When you play this game, you control only Olimar, but you get the impression you're actually moving the Pikmin, don't you think? When you play Super Mario Bros., you control just Mario, but this game will leave you feeling like you're actually Olimar and you're controlling the Pikmin. I don't know any other game that can achieve such a feeling.

Pikmin As Big As Cats

NP: Did you choose to set Pikmin in a small backyard world from the beginning?
MIYAMOTO: No. It wasn't decided upon until we finalized the entire game design. We did not have any clear image of the game's world until then. The scale of the world was very vague at first. When we were working on the Adam and Eve idea, we had an image of a primitive world—several villages, a fight with a mammoth. How many people would survive? It had a grand scale—the original size of the spotty bulborb was as big as a mammoth. From all that, we thought it would be better to set the game in a more familiar world. We started to create the current Pikmin world about a year ago.
HINO: When we discussed the backgrounds for the world, it was suggested that we look in the forest. There was also an idea that the Pikmin could be like ants. Those two concepts fit together, and from there we arrived at the current world of Pikmin.
MIYAMOTO: The current design of Pikmin was decided on almost a full year after our first test. And six months after that, we arrived on the current setup and scale.

NP: Does that mean the size of the Pikmin wasn't yet decided when the design was chosen?
MIYAMOTO: Yes. Since Pikmin are plantlike creatures, I was thinking they would be around 30 centimeters to 50 centimeters tall.
REED: We were thinking they'd be about the size of a cat.

NP: What was the reaction of the team when the design of the Pikmin was presented?
REED: In the first design, they were just black with no colors. I didn't like that. No facial features like eyes or a nose. They really looked like ants. I liked them after they had colors. The original colors aren't like the current ones—they were more pastel.
MIYAMOTO: Because I like vivid colors, I decided to use red, blue, and yellow.

NP: Did the Pikmin have flowers on top at the beginning?
MIYAMOTO: Yes. All of their bodies were shaped like onions or bulbs, and each Pikmin had a different body type—fat, tall, short, etc. Those differences are gone, but we added the difference in coloring.

NP: Wouldn't it be too difficult for the GCN to animate 100 different-shaped Pikmin on screen at one time?
MIYAMOTO: We can do it. In fact, we could actually attach a personal life meter to each Pikmin and come up with a system so players could manage more complicated things—moving tired Pikmin over here, separating their favorite Pikmin for battle, etc. However, the game play would get too complex if we did it. We decided to discard those ideas.
ABE: Current Pikmin are created in great detail. Each one looks at its surroundings and acts differently depending on the situation.
MIYAMOTO: It's almost the same as 100 Marios moving simultaneously.

NP: When we're commanding many Pikmin, there are always some that don't do their work. Why is that?
ABE: I wanted the player to feel that each Pikmin has its own will. There is a program that accounts for that. The game will feel more real to you if there are some Pikmin that listen to you and some that don't.
MIYAMOTO: We could allow the Pikmin to act more freely, but if we did it too much, players would start to feel unnecessary frustration. Mario Club (Nintendo's testing group) said that the E3 version (the demo version of Pikmin shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2001) was better because the Pikmin followed orders correctly. I told them that they're confusing the difference between "good" and "easy." (Laughs.)

NP: Pikmin naturally want to beat down pellet flowers that haven't blossomed yet. Don't you think that's too much?
MIYAMOTO: I like the selfish Pikmin. When I use the whistle to call them and tell them, "Hey! It's too early! Come back here," I get the same feeling as when I'm yelling "Wait!" at a dog. (Laughs.)

NP: Ordering Pikmin around is fun, but it's also fun just to look at the Pikmin in the ground. They look like they're alive. If you leave a Pikmin sprout in the ground too long, will it wither?
ABE: If you don't pick it and leave it planted for a certain time, yes, it will wither. However, there's a life cycle. Withered Pikmin will turn into seeds and regrow. The reason you find some Pikmin where you had a battle with creatures is that eaten Pikmin get expelled and fertilize the ground, allowing new Pikmin to grow.

Getting It All under Control

NP: Mr. Miyamoto, you once said that you wanted to create a game in which you controlled the character with the Control Stick and used just the A Button. Did you make that comment based on this game?
MIYAMOTO: Not exactly. However, I wanted to create all games with that type of simple control setup.

NP: Is there any other good use for the C Stick besides using it to march Pikmin into something so they'll attack it or work on it?
MIYAMOTO: When you're leading many Pikmin, the group witll spread out easily. If you press the C Stick in the opposite direction of where you're heading, you should be able to keep your Pikmin in organized lines.
REED: When you fight a big creature, you can keep your Pikmin near you by using the C Stick. If you Pikmin are bunched up beside you, you can throw them faster and continuously.

NP: You use the A button everywhere in this game. Was that your intention?
MIYAMOTO: Yes. We were using a more complicated of A and B Button controls in the beginning. We reworked it later and tried to add functions to the A Button as much as possible.

NP: We heard that you used to be able to pick all of the Pikmin sprouts by whistling. Why is that idea gone?
MIYAMOTO: I persuaded my people to dump that idea during the last two months of development. I said, "Let's dump this idea." The ideas was definitely convenient for them, though, because they had to play Pikmin every day.

NP: How did you persuade them?
MIYAMOTO: When you tried to get coins from a 10-coin block in a Mario game, how many times did you have to punch the block? "I had to punch a lot of blocks" would be what you'd remember and go away with after playing that game. So even if you need to pick 1,000 Pikmin, you'll have to push the A Button 1,000 times. (Laughs.)

NP: So you persuaded them forcibly. (Laughs.) If you press Down on the Control Pad, Olimar will lie down and Pikmin will carry him to their onion. When it tries to beam him up, fireworks will come out.
ABE: The idea was originally for enemy creatures. I thought it was a good idea to be used as a secret.

NP: Not many people will figure out that secret, though.
ABE: If you don't touch the Controller for a while, you'll get the same effect. And Pikmin will carry Olimar if you get the bad ending...

NP: Why did you choose a whistle sound for rounding up your Pikmin?
MIYAMOTO: That was my preference. I wanted the sound to be like a teacher at school. We took out the whistle for a while but ended up bringing it back. I thought, "This must be a universal sound!" (Laughs.)

NP: Do teachers use whistles in England, too?
REED: Yes, they do. Even more so. I couldn't understand the significance of the chime sound that rings at sunset. That sound doesn't make sense to British people.
MIYAMOTO: In some rural areas of Japan, they use melodies to herald the coming of sunset.

NP: How do you approach using the camera in a Nintendo GameCube game?
MIYAMOTO: In the case of Pikmin, I wanted to make the player unaware of the camera. I aimed to make everyone feel as if the camera moved with them. I don't think there is any 3-D game with this time of camera setup, wouldn't you agree? This is a 3-D game, but people can play it like a 2-D game.

NP: It's convenient to be able to switch to top-view mode.
MIYAMOTO: I don't like top-view mode so much. Skilled players will use top-view mode a lot, but it turns each Pikmin into a simple playing piece. I was suggesting to remove that move until the last minute of development. I really want people to play this game in regular, close-up view.

The World of Pikmin

NP: The first two stages of the game convey a strong "backyard" feeling, but the next two stages have a grander atmosphere and don't feel like an adventure in a small world.
MIYAMOTO: Perhaps, because those two areas don't have objects like empty boxes or cans.
HINO: The Forest Navel was made for carrying parts across long distances. That's the reason for that type of setup.

NP: What was the inspiration for the enemy creatures?
HINO: We asked the designers to develop their concepts freely. We asked them to create things outside of nature. There are several creatures inspired by real ones.
ABE: When this was the primitive man's story, the spotty bulborb had the role of a mammoth. The bulborb is the only enemy creature we kept from the beginning of development.
MIYAMOTO: The primitive people are after something, but they get attacked by a giant bulborb. That was the original thinking behind the game.

NP: Is the ladybug the model for the bulborb?
REED: The bulborb is a bulborb. (Laughs.)
MIYAMOTO: The enemy creatures aren't frightening, but they became frightening once the programmers created creatures that eat Pikmin.
REED: The most frightening one was the creature that kept doing its own thing while keeping a Pikmin leg hanging out of the side of its mouth. (Laughs.) Of course, I removed it.

NP: Do you think the game would be even more powerful if an Olimar-view existed?
MIYAMOTO: It could bring a more realistic feeling that the player is in the world of the Pikmin, but the game play would become difficult. That's why I didn't make Olimar's view. Top view is the opposite thing—it can make game play easy, but the player loses the sense of being in the world of Pikmin.

NP: This game seems to emphasize planning and arranging things so you can carry rocket parts, but it seems light on puzzle aspects. Was that your intention?
MIYAMOTO: We thought about including more puzzle elements, but I thought that it would become too much of a "game" if we brought too much of that in. Actually, at one point we were headed in that direction, but I adjusted it in later stages of development. I wanted to make an environment where the part locations seemed as natural as possible. If we developed a game like "The 500 Difficult Tasks of Pikmin," I could add more puzzles, but Pikmin is an "AI Action Space Fantasy" this time. (Laughs.)

NP: Pellets pop out once creatures are defeated. Isn't that forcing things a bit? (Laughs.)
HINO: The creatures ate them. (Laughs.) The reason a pellet comes out is that the things the creatures eat turn into lumps of nutrients and they stay in their stomach.

NP: Was there always the idea to carry a creature's body to breed Pikmin?
MIYAMOTO: It wasn't much of a concept yet, because we still had to decide on the kinds of enemies we'd have. But I think players are happy if they can carry the bodies of creatures, don't you think?

NP: How did you decide on the length of the days and the 30-day limit on game play?
MIYAMOTO: I wanted to give the game a definite size that people could play and replay many times. In the beginning, we thought we should make it last 40 or 60 days, but players wouldn't want to try playing the game again if it was too long.

NP: It's not easy to collect all parts within 30 days on the first try, but people will probably want to try playing the game a second time.
MIYAMOTO: I think this game will become more interesting upon the third or fourth play. People have taken many tries to finish the first stage of Mario. During the process, I don't think the player starts to dislike the game. I think players enjoy finding out that they are eventually doing better and making more progress each time through. I think that feeling is a very important element of game play.

NP: Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin don't seem to require dozens of hours to finish. Is it safe to say taht this type of "not too short, not too long" game will be a standard for the Nintendo GameCube?
MIYAMOTO: In general, I think so. However, the next Zelda won't be like that.

NP: We were just trying to get you to tell us if the next Zelda is going to be short. (Laughs.)
MIYAMOTO: No, it's not. (Laughs.)

Dear Diary...

NP: We like the feature of Olimar's journal.
HINO: The original Japanese text was written by the person who's in charge of engineering. He reads four books a day, and he wanted to be involved in working on game scenarios.
MIYAMOTO: He was very busy on another project, but I forced him aboard this project. He wrote the text at night as an extra job.

NP: Actually, the journal seems to contain a lot of thinly veiled messages to the writer's family. The text oozes with painful feelings that he can't go home because of his game development job. One line says something like, "My boss is short-tempered, especially when he is very busy." Is that you, Mr. Miyamoto?
MIYAMOTO: Let me see. Everyone wrote something. I wrote, "I'll buy a present for my children." (Laughs.)

NP: What was the most difficult part of developing the game?
ABE: Following Mr. Miyamoto's direction that all of the game's concepts had to be completely new, and making sure that it wouldn't be frustrating for players to guide so many Pikmin at once.
HINO: The most difficult part was to create something that no one hasexperienced^[sic] before and to put it in a compact, playable package. That was the initial direction from Mr. Miyamoto. We don't have many opportunities to develop completely new ideas for original games that aren't sequels. It was scary but fun to draw out our new concepts on paper. As we expected, even when we came up with solid ideas, we were spending long periods testing them out with trial and error and making no progress. We had a fairly clear idea of what we wanted to do, but we had difficulty pulling all the concept together. Mr. Miyamoto watched us struggle without saying anything, but finally he couldn't bear to watch us go through that, so he showed us his ideas for the game design that he had on two pieces of paper. It was a very strange concept. To be honest, it made me think that he had actual alien friends. That was the real starting point of the game's development.

NP: What's the reason for Challenge Mode?
MIYAMOTO: Around the time of the E3 show, I started to think about ideas for casual play. How many Pikmin can you breed within a limited time? If that turned out to be difficult, I was thinking about adding a two-player mode.

NP: Two-player mode?
MIYAMOTO: Red Pikmin versus blue Pikmin. (Laughs.)

NP: Are you thinking about a sequel?
MIYAMOTO: I have no idea what kind of sequel we could create. I would like to raise Pikmin to the same level of popularity as Mario. I have a lot of ideas that I couldn't use this time around.

NP: For example?
MIYAMOTO: It's a secret. (Laughs.) I think we'll see a lot of the same types of games around Christmas 2002. I am thinking of another idea that would be altogether different.