banner
LightNews
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols
@maxnichols.bsky.social
4.6K followers 380 following 7.1K posts
He/him. Game designer. I make worlds that you want to explore. Sr. Tech Design in AAA. Prev: Bungie, Turbine. I run @HyruleInterviews.bsky.social Blog: namelessquality.com Portfolio: maxnicholsdesign.com
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 1h
"Meta-[medium]" comes to mind, but I'm not sure I've actually seen that term thrown around
1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 4h
Last i checked at least
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 4h
And yet there’s no current printing!
1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
And now he's 57 and he's led 3D Mario for 25 years. We may never get to see more of that kind of work from him
6
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
But Koizumi had another side: the side that invented the backstory of the Triforce & the three goddesses; wrote the dreamlike story of Link's Awakening; designed the 3-day system and directed Clocktown & the bomber's notebook quests in MM.

That romantic side of him didn't get to thrive on Mario IMO
PEOPLE: - Takashi Tezuka, age 49. Director of Link’s Awakening. - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 41. Writer for Link’s Awakening. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 57. Producer of Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: Tezuka: It looked like [Koizumi] would be good at creating a story, so we lured him into our afterschool club. Koizumi-san was in charge of the opening movie and main story. He's a romantic, and I think that shows in Link's Awakening. He was in charge of the whole flow of the story. Iwata: What was Miyamoto-san doing [during Link’s Awakening development]? Tezuka: I think he was busy with something and didn't pay us much mind. Aonuma & Yoshiaki on co-directing Majora's Mask, 2000. Source: GlitterBerri's Game Translations #Zelda #MajorasMaskQuote #AonumaQuote,#KoizumiQuote https://www.notion.so/29f994ce55ec4439842c50abc3f2fbf2
1 1 11
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
Aonuma's strengths lay in dungeon design and 3D spatial design, basically.

Zelda is more about exploration, Mario more about "athleticism" and the core gameplay verbs. Whence the split.
1 4
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
When I say Aonuma "didn't really have the chops", I basically mean that Koizumi had a lot more experience with core gameplay design. He was assistant director for Mario 64, designed the combat and items and movement in Zelda 64.

Aonuma did not have that core gameplay design expertise.
1 3
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
But I'm not sure that was an option. Koizumi was a good choice to lead Mario or Zelda; he'd been instrumental in Super Mario 64, too.

Aonuma didn't really have the chops to lead Mario. So if those were the two that Miyamoto was training to be the next gen of directors, that had to be the split
1 3
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
I've always wished that Koizumi had done Zelda instead. He has a much clearer & stronger aesthetic that I think was a better fit (than Aonuma) for Zelda, and was a more natural fit for Zelda than it ended up being for Mario.
1 5
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
After, Aonuma directed The Wind Waker+Twilight Princess and then became producer of the Zelda series.

Koizumi directed Super Mario Sunshine+Galaxy and then became producer of the 3D Mario titles.
1 3
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 10h
Koizumi was a crucial figure in making both Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask go down their strange, wistful, dreamlike storytelling paths.

Koizumi and Eiji Aonuma co-directed Majora's Mask together--
hyruleinterviews.bsky.social
Hyrule Interviews @hyruleinterviews.bsky.social · 11h
#Linktober 11: Dream/Nightmare

Koizumi on writing the story for Link's Awakening, 2007.

Source: Wired

#Zelda
#LinksAwakeningQuote
#KoizumiQuote, #MiyamotoQuote

www.notion.so/adccbdbf92a3...
PEOPLE: - Yoshiaki Koizumi, age 39. Writer for A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. - Shigeru Miyamoto, age 55. Producer of A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening. QUOTE: Koizumi: Back then, the people who wrote the manuals often became the people who came up with most of the backstory for the entire game. The first real game work that I did was on Link's Awakening. … I came in to write the manual, as I did on [A Link to the Past]. But they had nothing in place. So I ended up making an entire story to go along with the game. The dream, the island, that was all mine. And so that was my first experience doing the kind of work that we would now call "event design." But there were not too many people at the time with expertise in that area, so I really had free reign to do what I wanted, so long as I didn't make Miyamoto angry.
2 5 26
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 21h
Yeah! I had to look it up, but that is indeed how it works.
1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
I am gonna bench Cloud so deep he’ll never be seen again, lol
1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
But also, if I’m doing a fairly natural player behavior, doing stuff that’s fun and useful, one that I expect is extremely common in this game…

Then I’d expect the experience to be designed to accommodate that!
2
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Both. My main party is a bit overleveled (compared to the enemies) and the named characters are joining underleveled (compared to the same enemies).
1 2
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Final Fantasy X had lock and key systems in the combat, and hard counters. Certain characters were hard counters for mechanics or enemy types.

Then they let you freely swap characters in-and-out. That rocked.
1 6
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Suikoden 3 had different chapters where you controlled entirely different sets of characters before they came together late-game. That was cool
1 7
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Golden Sun: The Lost Age let you just have two parties and you could tag-team between them in battles. You got to use ALL the characters. Love that shit
1 2
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
I recognize that in some of these games the idea is to replay with different team compositions.

But that doesn’t do _me_ any good since I almost never replay games. Especially RPGs.
2 1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Anyways

If you’re gonna give me a cool character later in the game, let me use them! Let me use them without benching another character I’ve invested in!
1 2
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
Suikoden is maybe the best at this of the “large roster” RPGs. They have really strong rubberband exp mechanics where underleveled characters can quickly catch up, mix up required party members, and have other systems to make use of many characters at once: army battles, errands, base assignments
1 4
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
In story driven RPGs they can kinda just share exp with the whole party and be done with it. But that doesn’t work in games where investing work in building characters is a core element of play.
1 2
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
This means stuff like:
- Expanding party size at the right time
- having periods of time where the party splits up
- having quests that require different party compositions

But it also means designing progression systems so it’s not a miserable grind to keep too many characters at level
1 3
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
There is a fundamental tension, I think, in mixing and matching generic characters and special named ones in the same roles.

I think all of these games would benefit from paying special attention to that dynamic, and intentionally designing to allow players to actually use their new recruits
1 1
maxnichols.bsky.social
Max Nichols @maxnichols.bsky.social · 22h
It makes me sad! I want to use every character.

Structurally, I don’t know why anyone would use some of these characters that join up after I’ve already put tens of hours into building up my squad and crafting their builds.
1 1