New details about the development of Nintendo Land

In an interview with Famitsu, the team behind Nintendo Land spoke about the game's development, revealing a number of interesting facts. Here are a few interesting excerpts:

"The Wii U is a game system with a completely new structure, so we wanted to have a full line-up of games that allowed gamers to experience the system's features straight on. So out of all the prototype programs we put together, we made a collection of games that made decent enough use of the TV and the Wii U Gamepad." -Katsuya Eguchi, Producer

Once the prototypes were functional, the team tried to tie them in with various franchises based on their gameplay.

"Generally it was easy to match the gameplay from the prototypes with one series or another," said "For example, a game with air and ground battles works well with Metroid. There was a time when Metroid Blast was going to be a Star Fox title, but the prototype featured this vehicle that hovered around like a helicopter and we figured that'd never be a good match for an Arwing." - Yoshikazu Yamashita, director

"I'll admit that some of the tie-ins, like Donkey Kong and Octopus, might be stretching it a little. With the way the courses are designed, we were originally thinking about making Donkey Kong's Crash Course into an Excitebike or 1080 Snowboarding title at first." -Takayuki Shimamura, co-director

The games may look very simple, but they have a lot of depth to them. Surprisingly, the team who created The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time actually put together The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest.

"With that game (Zelda Battle Quest), that was the developers of Zelda: Ocarina of Time seriously making a Zelda for Nintendo Land, so the project document for that game was this really thick tome. We tried to produce a lot of stages for each of the attractions. With all of them, you can 'beat' them if you put in a little effort, but that's just the first set, and there's a nearly equal number of stages unlocked afterward. These stages are set up to be a lot harder, so I don't think you'll run out of stuff to play anytime soon." -Yoshikazu Yamashita, director

Producer Katsuya Eguchi explained that the game does not have online multiplayer because they felt the game worked best when played by people in the same room.

"Nintendo Land's multiplayer attractions work because of the communication shared between the people playing them, so they were set up from the start to be something people in the same room could enjoy." -Katsuya Eguchi, Producer


"We've played the games with a 'no talking' rule in place, and it's amazing how much that changes the balance, even with us devs." -Takayuki Shimamura, co-director

Source: Famitsu via Polygon

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