Several weeks ago, our family cat passed away. Her official name was Isabel Allende (yes, we named her after the famous Latin American author), but we usually just called her Smudge. She was about 13 years old when she passed away. She went peacefully, and my family buried her near a lovely tree. We adopted … Continue reading Pokémon Retrospective, Part 2: Becoming Poké-Pals
Pokemon's 9th Generation is nearly upon us. With the franchise experiencing so much growth along with so much scrutiny, it's unclear what kind of legacy Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will leave behind once they come out in November. However, as we anticipate these new games, I want to look back at Pokemon's evolution throughout the … Continue reading Pokémon Retrospective, Part 1: Pokémon’s Magic Spell
Welcome to our last analysis on Shigeru Miyamoto's work! For this last post, I wanted to talk about how Miyamoto pioneered a new way people could both tell and experience a story. He certainly wasn't the first one or the only one to do this, but his early work is certainly a strong contribution to … Continue reading Summer with Shigeru, Part 3: A New Kind of Storyteller
It's no secret that Miyamoto has a reputation for coming up with unique and unexpected ideas for a game. He's not just an inventor, he's a reinventor. In a way, you can still see Miyamoto's attitude from Nintendo's early arcade days showing through, for better or worse. Miyamoto was famously inspired from Popeye to make … Continue reading Summer with Shigeru, Part 2: The Inspired Mad Scientist
Nintendo hired Shigeru Miyamoto in 1977, back when the company was still making toys. A year later, Space Invaders caused hundreds to flock to arcade machines across Japan, and Nintendo decided to branch out into making arcade games as well. In those days, most video games used simple mechanics with even simpler visuals. In Asteroids … Continue reading Summer with Shigeru, Part 1: Your Window Into the Game
Welcome to this year's Developer Analysis Mini-series! Last year we analyzed Masahiro Sakurai's works and game design philosophy. While he's certainly an important developer to the industry, and has created widely popular games, I mostly conducted that mini-series out of sheer devotion for Super Smash Bros.. Working on Shigeru Miyamoto is a whole other beast … Continue reading The Life and Times of Shigeru Miyamoto
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 