TITLE
The Making (And Legacy) Of Super Mario Bros. 3
AUTHOR
Alyse Knorr
PUBLICATION
Kotaku
YEAR
2016
ARTICLE TYPE
Book Excerpt
FROM THE ARTICLE
SMB3’s entire development team consisted of just eleven people: Miyamoto and Tezuka as directors and designers, four additional designers, four programmers, and Koji Kondo as composer. During SMB3’s two years of development, Miyamoto’s days at the office had no definite start or end time, and he often stayed up working late into the night.Miyamoto acted as more than just a designer on SMB3—he was mentoring his entire team, guiding them, and bringing out their best ideas, just as his mentor Gunpei Yokoi had famously done for him during the design of Donkey Kong nearly ten years before.
Miyamoto was leading his team on a quest for fun. He has said many times that he’s always been more interested in designing toys than designing games, and the word he uses most often to describe his design philosophy is “fun.” Although he’s pioneered innovations with character, narrative, and hardware, Miyamoto’s design philosophy privileges gameplay over everything else.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Nintendo
GAMES MENTIONED
Super Mario Bros. 3
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Shigeru Miyamoto
PLATFORMS MENTIONED
Nintendo Entertainment System [NES]
EXCERPTED FROM
Boss Fight Books – Super Mario Bros. 3