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If you enjoy reading this site, you might also want to check out these Think Services sites:
 Game Career Guide (for student game developers.)
 Indie Games (for independent game players/developers.)
 Finger Gaming (news, reviews, and analysis on iPhone and iPod Touch games.)
 GamerBytes (for the latest console digital download news.)
 Worlds In Motion (discussing the business of online worlds.)
 Game Set Watch (the Group's alt.game weblog.) |
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Yudo's Yonaga: Game Creators Can Learn From Nintendo's Focus
by Staff, Brandon Sheffield
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November 27, 2009
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Yudo (Aero Guitar) iPhone game exec Reo Yonaga has told Gamasutra that Nintendo games and titles like Demon's Souls have pinpointed the key to game design success in "a sound, valid sense of direction".
Talking as part of a larger Gamasutra feature interview posted today, Yonaga commented on what he believed was key to making successful games in today's competitive, increasingly crowded market:
"I think Nintendo's titles are really thought out well from the ground up; they're all really wonderful games. If everything was totally realistic, it'd be no fun at all. I think Nintendo's creators understand that; they pinpoint what makes a game fun from the beginning, or else they abandon the project.
I'm not saying that all companies should be like Nintendo. Instead, they need more of a sense of direction. For example, if we made a game that did nothing but perfectly simulate this room we're in, it'd be pretty boring, right? But if we took out this glass table and used the space for some kind of game, that'd be more fun."
Yonaga, who was a key personnel member at Lumines creator Q Entertainment before going to iPhone game and app developer Yudo alongside Beatmania co-creator Reo Naguro, went on to comment:
"You know Demon's Souls? I love that game, and I really think it was made well. And if you look into the process behind it, the producer of it is a really big fan of King's Field and the original idea was to create a modern edition of King's Field.
That pretty strictly defines the game right there, and I think that's just what the game needed -- a sound, valid sense of direction. If a less talented director was on that job, he'd take that idea and be like "Well, I don't really get this, but I guess we'll make a really hard game where you die a lot, and it'll be sort of fantasy or sci-fi or something; I'll have the designer come up with a document and take what I like from that." And it would just be a waste of time."
Yonaga's comments came as part of an extensive Gamasutra interview with the two senior Yudo staffers, including lots more specifics on the company's iPhone games and hopes for console and Natal development.
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Any single factor in a game can be boiled down to one of two categories: does it help the game, or detract from everything you've built so far. You need someone who knows how to make those decisions -- and not only about the ideas you're borrowing from other games, but someone with a firm enough standpoint in the project to be able to answer that question about any possible element, whenever it is placed before him. Game Directors need the confidence to make that choice themselves, without any input from anybody else. And ideally, it's someone who never once has to second guess one of those decisions.