Summary of Edge article on Splatoon
- Main article has quotes from Amano/Sakaguchi and Nogami and talks about Edge playing the same demo build of the game the media played a few weeks back.
- The prototype had basic block characters and the ink painting mechanic. You were invisible when you were in your own ink. Amano/Sakaguchi added in jumping, hiding in ink, and the ability to shoot up and down. After that, though, they were confused about what they wanted to do with the game. They thought they might put a squid character on the box art but they needed a humanoid character to hold the guns. They thought a "squid human" wouldn't sell.
- Amano/Sakaguchi were scolded by Miyamoto in 2013 when doing the prototype who said "I don't understand. What do you want to do? There's no appeal to this game".
- They had an epiphany on Jan 6, 2014 that they could have you switch between a squid and human form and they rapidly got a bunch of ideas about how you swim faster in your own ink, you slow down in enemy ink and take damage, you can swim up walls, etc.
- Amano is a fan of "shooting games", but when he would invite friends to play with him they would get frustrated. He wants to make a game that is different that people who aren't fans of traditional shooters can play.
- Edge magazine says "Splatoon has no voice chat and never will". Amano says: "This is coming from personal experience. When I played online games, I didn't like the negativity I got and people telling me 'You're crap. Go away'. So we wanted to focus on the positive aspects of online gaming". Amano says he's not saying that chat in an online game can't contribute to fun but they want to grab new players.
- Confirms that there are some Splat Zone maps with more than one boxed-off area to capture. If you claim all the territories your timer starts to count down, but if your opponent captures one the timer stops.
- The same primary weapon can come in a variation with the different sub/special weapon
- Can start firing after a super jump right before you land
- More online modes besides Turf War/Splat Zones
- One respawn point per team, but you're invulnerable while on it to discourage campers.
- A lot of the designers on the team are in their 30s, so the 90s style with street fashion and trainers is a big inspiration for the outfits
- Trick to balancing the weapons according to Sakaguchi is to make people want a little more ("if only it could shoot a little farther/shoot faster"). They aren't going out trying to make the strongest weapon in the game.
- 15 singleplayer challenges and "5 rare pieces of gear" for each of the 3 Amiibos
- Q&A with Katsuya Eguchi. Thinks Splatoon IP has huge potential and the characters could appear in different types of games. Challenge of HD development with large teams is that team members have different skill/experience levels and it is important that work isn't unnecessarily duplicated. Trying to do new things to take opinions of younger team members into account even at the beginning of a project and not just senior staff. It is important to have things for Splatoon that will draw attention to the game after release (basically hints at content
updates/DLC).
---
A few other notes:
- A note mentions that one of the pairs of shoes available changes color to match the Inkling you've created
- The article mentions one of the challenges for the girl inlking Amiibo might be completing a stage in a certain time limit
- Nintendo is testing the game internally and there are frequent "quarrels" between team members discussing which weapon is stronger in certain situations
- They spent two hours talking about how long it should take the grenades to explode
- Amano and Sakaguchi have been been thinking about the game so much that they've been dreaming about it. Sakaguchi actually dreamed that he asked one of the programmers on the team to come up with something and the programmer in his dream implemented it and showed it to Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi loved the idea. He had that programmer (in real life) put it in the game the next day!