Shigeru Miyamoto (born 16/11/1952), a Japanese creator and producer of the best known and most influential video games in the world – Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Start Fox, Pikmin, Donkey Kong, Splatoon, Metroid Prime etc.
Published: 1990
Developed by: Nintendo EAD, Shigeru Miyamoto/Takashi Tezuka
Published by: Nintendo
Platform: Arcade, Super NES, Game Boy Advance
Genre: arcade, platform game
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Shigeru Miyamoto, also called Spielberg of the gaming industry, started working for Nintendo in 1977. Nobody would guess that they just found the person who would develop the top games of all times and who would turn all known procedures in the gaming industry upside down.
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Since young age, Miyamoto liked manga and he dreamt about becoming their recognised author. Although his life took another direction, he was influenced by the way Asian stories and manga comics were told and he reflected that to the gaming industry. It is rather useless to introduce the game itself, characters or the gaming rules. Yet, considering there are main and side game series, let’s do it just for clarity: the story line of Super Mario World will walk you through a rescue mission of princess Daisy, kidnaped by a mean turtle-like creature called Bowser. Mario gets help from a friend – Yoshi the dinosaur.
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What was the origin of Mario himself, the world’s best known plumber? Miyamoto kept improving a character that he called “the Jumpman.” Once Nintendo was late with a rent payment and the building owner, Mario Segale, invited the American division president to provide explanation. Segale was only told that the payment will be made and the president left. The atmosphere in Nintendo inspired Miyamoto to rename Jumpman to Mario so the world known character was named after Segale. First episode of the series was called Super Mario Bros (1985). Each following episode didn’t have only better graphics, but also control and Mario’s skills. The series became so popular that Mario games were available with almost any console by Nintendo. According to the official sales statistics, there were sold 20,610,000 items of Super Mario World (SMW) by January 2020. In the sales chart of the 90’s games it places 3rd after Pokémon Red, Green and Blue (31.38 mil. sold) and Pokémon Gold and Silver (23.1 mil. sold).
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1/ Miyamoto lets his closest friends and family test the new games. But there is one condition: They have to control the game using the other hand than they usually use as dominant. Like that Miyamoto can see if it is easy to control the game for beginners.
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2/ Kyokan – shared deep experience in Japanese. Miyamoto aims for this in each game.
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3/ Mario is still in, even in the 21st century. Nintendo came with a new concept where the players become the game developers and they can create their own maps. If the players can complete their map, it can be added to a network from where it can be played by anybody else. If you want to try it, you need to play it first – it is called Super Mario Maker.
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4/ The definition of a good game according to Miyamoto is simple. It has to be fun, easy and intuitive to play.
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5/ Mario made it to the silver screen in Super Mario Bros by R. Morton and A. Jankel in 1993.
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