Did 
you know?
One of Shigeru Miyamoto’s earliest influences
for Super Mario 64 came from watching his
pet hamster wander around his room.
This experience likely influenced not only
the size of Mario 64's stages, but it's free-roaming
camera as well.
He was also inspired by miniature train sets
and dioramas.
But Miyamoto's first thoughts about a 3D Mario
came years earlier while working on the original
Star Fox.
His team experimented with a prototype based
on the SNES Super FX chip, but the technology
just wasn't there yet.
It ended up taking five more years for Miyamoto’s
vision to become a reality.
Mario 64 was the first Nintendo 64 game to
enter development.
In fact, work began long before the N64 actually
existed, so the developers started by making
prototypes on a computer and keyboard.
They didn't have a proper controller for the
next six months, so they modified some Sega
controllers for testing.
These controllers were likely XE-1 AP Sega
Genesis controllers, which had an analogue
stick years before the N64, PlayStation, or
Sega Saturn were even conceived.
About 100 different N64 controllers were developed
by Nintendo R&D3, and each controller was
tested with Mario 64 to see if it was up to
scratch.
According to R&D3's manager Genyo Takeda,
they became more ambitious with each new controller,
even prototyping a motion-sensor wristwatch.
The watch worked so well that they actually
filed for a patent.
However, when the wristwatch was play tested
by a focus group full of kids, they were confused
by how it worked.
In the end, R&D3 had to abandon the idea.
DidYouKnowGaming asked Mario 64 programmer
Giles Goddard about the prototype controllers,
and if there was anything memorable from Nintendo's
tests.
Goddard said "There was one prototype joystick
I worked on that stood out.
It was made by a UK company I think, and it
had the ability to programmatically constrict
movement in 2 axis...
I thought we could use it to give force feedback
or to give texture to certain movements, but
when I made some test demos with it, it felt
more like it was stuck on something instead.
Still, it was way ahead of its time as there
was no such thing as “haptics” back then."
Ultimately, they settled on the N64 controller
we know today, even though Miyamoto was still
dissatisfied with it, and actually wanted
a second D-Pad instead of the C buttons.
The game started out as just Mario running
around an empty grid, with the next character
added being MIPS the rabbit.
From there, the team spent months just perfecting
Mario's movements and the game's camera, ironing
out these fundamentals before they built even
a single stage.
Assistant director Yoshiaki Koizumi made nearly
250 different Mario animations, about 50 of
which got cut, including a somersault that
probably broke Mario's fall after a long drop.
A few animations didn't get cut, but ended
up virtually useless -- like the crouching
trip kick, which Koizumi says he made for
beating specific enemies that never got programmed
into the game.
To test out different camera systems, developers
ran experiments like creating a mountain and
having Mario and MIPS race to the summit,
then switching the camera and going again.
They tested out thousands of different camera
systems -- having it locked, having it move,
having it so the player controlled it entirely,
and so on.
There was one programmer whose whole job was
just working on the camera system, and one
day he finally came up with a camera Miyamoto
was happy with.
But it wasn't long before a Nintendo lawyer
ran upstairs and told them Sega had a patent
for switching cameras, which sent shockwaves
through the entire office.
They investigated what sort of legal consequences
they might face by using Sega's patent, but
ultimately decided to throw caution to the
wind and use it anyway, praying they wouldn't
get sued -- and they never did.
Mario’s face on the game’s title screen
was originally made for a prototype of Mario
Paint 3D, which ultimately released as Mario
Artist: Paint Studio on the 64DD.
The game’s main menu has an interesting
origin as well.
It’s directly based on an SGI graphics demo
called buttonfly.
SGI machines were used to make N64 games,
and the machine’s tools clearly had an influence
on how Mario 64 was made.
Another influence for Mario 64 was licensed
asset packs.
Nintendo used sound libraries from the company
Sound Ideas, which can be heard prominently
in early versions of the game.
Some early clips used samples of Looney Tunes
actor Mel Blanc for Mario's voice.
The game’s art direction was also influenced
by these asset packs.
Several researchers have combed countless
archives and asset packs to find Mario 64’s
original textures.
Many of Mario 64’s textures come from the
Japanese ‘Material Dictionary Datacraft‘
series, which have hundreds of photos of natural
and man-made objects.
This use of stock imagery might also be why
the background of the Shifting Sand Land features
the Great Pyramids of Giza, and why the Wet-Dry
World uses a photo of Casares, Spain.
Many textures also came from SGI workstations
the game was developed on, such as the texture
for Metal Mario.
When it came time to build the Mushroom Kingdom,
stages were designed on a fixed path with
a flag pole at the end, just like classic
2D Mario stages.
But the team decided it’d be more fun if
players could wander around freely, like Miyamoto's
hamster exploring his room, so they replaced
the flag poles with a series of stars.
This also freed up cartridge space, and reduced
the level-design work load.
The designers didn’t use blueprints when
making levels, instead adding and subtracting
from levels until they felt right.
The first stage made was Bob-Omb Battlefield,
which originally had a river running through
it.
But when the team play-tested it, they realized
the river's current was too strong and could
be frustrating, so they drained all the water
and left a dry valley in its place.
Programmer Hajime Yajima wanted stages to
have destructible terrain which the game would
remember.
One example he gave was the player destroying
a block, and the game remembering the block
was gone for the entire playthrough.
According to programmer Giles Goddard, half
the team was focused on developing, while
the other half just focused on play-testing.
They even brought in some children, including
Miyamoto's own son, to play test Bob-Omb Battlefield
and see what they thought.
As a director, Miyamoto was happy to see the
kids were all having fun... but as a parent,
he was concerned to see his son trying to
run up an unclimbable hill over and over again.
After a few dozen attempts, Miyamoto started
to wonder about his son's intelligence.
A couple months later, co-director Takashi
Tezuka told Nintendo Power they'd already
made 32 stages, and the final game might even
have 40, plus bonus areas like The Princess'
Secret Slide.
However, the stage-count ended up being scaled
back, and the final game only had 15 stages.
The overall difficulty was dialed back too.
According to Miyamoto, there was a change
late in development which made gaps easier
to jump than in 2D Marios, as the team worried
players might have a hard time judging distances
in 3D.
This provoked "a lot of booing from the staff,"
who felt strongly that the game's difficulty
should remain intact.
A large portion of Mario 64's development
overlapped with the production of The Legend
of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, resulting in lots
of ideas originally meant for one game getting
switched to the other.
Mario 64 had more puzzles than any previous
game in the series, with areas like Shifting
Sand Land's pyramid feeling more like a Zelda
dungeon than the Mushroom Kingdom.
That's because many puzzles were actually
made for Ocarina of Time, but were moved over
to Mario due to its development being behind
schedule -- taking assets from Zelda and putting
them in Mario 64 was an easy way to speed
up development.
Even the castle system itself was initially
meant for Zelda,
but got repurposed for Peach's Castle.
The Nintendo 64 and its three launch titles
were originally scheduled to release at Christmas
1995, but the launch-date was delayed twice
so Miyamoto had more time to
flesh out Mario 64.
When the game finally launched in June 1996,
critics praised it for setting a new standard
in gaming.
It eventually sold 12 million copies, making
it the best-selling N64 game ever, and spawned
a whole generation of copycats -- a long-running
trend Miyamoto chalked up to
Nintendo’s culture.
He said "I believe we are not making Japanese
games, but are making Kyoto games... the taste
of a Kyoto game is different from that of
a Tokyo game...
We Kyotoites hate to follow the fashion, but
rather love to set the fashion.
[...] We really did want to change the culture
of gaming, and it was in that spirit that
we made Mario 64."
In Miyamoto's view, this explains Nintendo’s
devotion to innovation and forging their own
path, while Sega and Sony’s Tokyo-based
competition always left them following the trends.
Despite all the delays, Mario 64 actually
had the quickest development cycle of any
game in the series, and the stress took a
heavy toll on Nintendo’s staff.
The entire game was made by just 15 people,
and afterwards two of them were so burnt out
they quit programming, and never worked on
another video game ever again.
It was the end of an era for Miyamoto as well;
Mario 64 was the last time he sat in the director's chair.
In the 25 years since, he's only worked as
a producer, supervising the work of directors
and their teams.
When Mario 64 first launched in Japan, it
cost 9800 yen -- roughly $100 US dollars.
Miyamoto winced at the price tag and went
on record saying Mario 64 should have been
closer to $60 -- which ultimately became the
price when it launched in America three months later.
The American version fixed some bugs and had
other small updates, like Mario saying hello
on the start screen, and rambling in his sleep
about spaghetti and ravioli.
In the original Japanese version, the princess
didn't talk at all.
For the American update they added the voice
of Leslie Swan, the senior editor of Nintendo
Power magazine, and also had her localize
the game's text.
Ten months later, Japan got their own update
of Mario 64 -- the Rumble Pak Compatible Version
— Shindou Pak Taiou.
As the name implies, the biggest update was
a new rumble feature, which stayed exclusive
to Japan.
The updates from the US version were brought
over as well, with more bug fixes.
The developers also let players summon 40
copies of Mario's face on the game's title screen.
But even after all the updates and extra development
months, Miyamoto still wished he had more time.
Mario was the first game developed for the
N64, so the team hadn't figured out how to
take full advantage of the technology.
Ultimately, lots of content was cut, including
three separate modes incorporating Luigi.
One was a split-screen mode where Mario and
Luigi started on opposite ends of the castles
and ended up meeting in the middle.
Another mode was more like a traditional co-op,
with the camera pulling back to fit both players
on one screen.
Earlier versions of the game were even called
Ultra 64 Mario Brothers, referencing Luigi’s
inclusion and the N64’s original name, the
Ultra 64.
Due to programming difficulties, Luigi got
cut just months before Mario 64 hit store shelves.
The team tried to make up for it by adding
a Mario Bros-style mini-game with Luigi, but
this was cut as the N64 was only bundled with
one controller, making multiplayer a rarity
for most players at launch.
Immediately after wrapping up Mario 64, Miyamoto
started talking about a sequel.
In May 1996, he told reporters "I couldn't
put everything into Super Mario 64 that I
really wanted, so we've decided to continue
working toward a sequel which will take about
a year-and-a-half at least... [for] Super
Mario 64, I believe we have utilized only
60% of the whole capacity of the N64 technology."
He later dubbed the sequel ‘Mario 128’
and told fans a prototype was sitting on his
desk that had Luigi as a playable character.
But he wasn't satisfied just bringing back
cut content from Mario 64, and was exploring
4-player split-screen, like in Mario Kart
64.
The sequel would change the gameplay, add
more enemies, and retool the presentation.
Miyamoto wanted to shake off Mario's "just
for kids" image by ditching his then-iconic
peace sign, and having him stop smiling and
laughing so much for no good reason.
He even did an interview in Japanese Playboy
Weekly to hype it up, telling Playboy that
Mario 128 would offer a fresh new experience.
But in the end, the sequel was never finished,
and footage of it was never made public.
All the cut content from Mario 64 -- along
with all Miyamoto's brand new ideas -- were
either recycled into other games, or left
on the chopping block.
Did you also know Diddy Kong is actually in
Mario Kart 64?
Or that Wario was German in Mario Kart 64?
For more facts, click the video on-screen.
I’m Seth Everman.
