7 ms·

Can anyone explain the obsession with this game in particular? As a cultural phenomenon or how it stands the test of time or what that particular porting commu

Can anyone explain the obsession with this game in particular? As a cultural phenomenon or how it stands the test of time or what that particular porting community thinks about anything...

siva7 5y ago
It was back then a memorable landmark game which set off the 3D Evolution in Nintendo Games
paulryanrogers 5y ago
Nostalgia and a game that did a lot right when 3D was becoming mainstream. Few if any of its features were firsts but they were polished and combined to make a package that played better than most other 3D platforms of the day.
Taywee 5y ago
It's a lot of factors. It was a lot of peoples' first 3D game experience, it's old enough that a lot of people who were enchanted by it in their childhood are old enough to dig into it now, it's an early 3D game with relatively simple and primitive techniques that were state of the art for the time, and it's had a ton of time put into decompilation, and a few major leaks to help understand how everything fits together. It's also a very good game, and the controls and mechanics are more responsive and smooth than you'd expect for such an early 3D game. Mario games have all had a lot of effort put into understanding the way the code works under the hood. The NES Mario games have also been heavily broken down and analyzed, but there's not as much stuff you can do that's as exciting as what you can with Mario 64.
codetrotter 5y ago
Nintendo 64 and the original PlayStation were a paradigm shift in home consoles, with their native support for 3D. At the time of the announcement of these platforms, Super Mario 64 became a symbol representing the Nintendo 64. Sony wanted a mascot to represent them, and Naughty Dog convinced Sony to pick Crash Bandicoot as the mascot for the original PlayStation. As such, the marketing material and the press coverage talked a lot not only about N64 vs PS, but also gave a lot of attention to Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot. And in turn this meant that those of us who were kids at the time ended up playing these games a lot on N64 and PS respectively. Is it just nostalgia, or is there something more? Hard to say, but either way I think both these games will forever hold a special place in the hearts of many. Beyond that, porting efforts in general are interesting for their own sake.
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Crash, Croft, and a couple other games I'm forgetting competed in mind share as the mascot of the original PlayStation, but there was never an official mascot. I used to love reading the gaming magazines while my parents shopped and it seemed like every other month there was an article asking why Sony doesn't have a mascot yet and who it should be.
mattbee 5y ago
My first memory was that it was the first 3D platform game that didn't suck - they designed platforming challenges that worked without the player feeling like they'd been screwed over by the camera. You barely needed to touch the camera, and the stick responded very intuitively to what's on the (very low res) screen. (In 1997, directly controlling a character with one stick was not an obviously correct choice - some games had "tank" controls where one stick rotated the character/camera and the other went forwards and backwards! Imagine how much that used to suck) Plus it was a huge game, full of secrets, without being overwhelming. The castle & level structure was easy to understand so you weren't lost. Also it was tremendously charming by itself, but nostalgic for the crowd who'd grown up on the NES and SNES, like suddenly this kids game we'd known for 14 years can be a whole 3D world - and no other game franchises had reinvented themselves so successfully over such a long period. Finally it came at a time when the PlayStation was so dominant, and asserted that grown up games didn't just want EDM & edgy violence (to parody Sony's 1997 marketing). In contrast Nintendo had produced a masterpiece through game design discipline, and without compromising this charming childlike aesthetic. I guess these days some views might look a bit flat but I'm not sure they've improved on the Mario formula since.
- fho 5y ago
  > I guess these days some views might look a bit flat but I'm not sure they've improved on the Mario formula since. ^ this It has been decades, but you can still put people in front of Mario 64 and they will still instantly have fun ... it's just a joy to move Mario around in that game.
- monocasa 5y ago
  They actually published papers in Game Programming Gems about how the camera works which was the real insight. To work right, it has to participate in the physics system, attached with a spring to the back of the character you're playing as. When you do that, the control coordinate system being relative to the camera rather than the player seems natural to the playter. You almost need tank controls when the camera can just jump willy nilly, as the remasters of the original Resident Evils have proved.
  - 5y ago
kibwen 5y ago
Several reasons: 1) it's the ultimate codifier of the 3D platformer genre, 2) it pioneered the idea of a "camera" in third-person 3D games, 3) it was a cultural touchstone in its own day, and is still reaping the benefits of nostalgia, 4) like every physics-based third-person 3D game it has both a high skill ceiling and a bevy of exploitable bugs, making it excellent for speedruns (which are the primary means by which classic games remain in the limelight these days), 5) because of the prior point as well as its cultural impact it was a centralizing influence on the nascent speedrunning community in the mid-2000s, giving it outsized cultural importance in that context as well, 6) it's a Mario game, which remains a relevant brand to this day, 7) it's a pretty decent game (although, naturally, in many aspects it will compare unfavorably to its descendants).
bitwize 5y ago
Super Mario 64 was a legendary game that basically set the standard for 3D platforming and took a gaming icon from 2D into the 3D realm. It's also a very straightforward game with few "tricks" to get the most speed out of the hardware. (Matter of fact, it's suboptimal in some ways devs have improved on.) Meaning that decompiling it yields reasonable high-level code. Unlike NES or SNES games, all the graphics stuff was made via draw calls into an API in the console's ROM -- not by manipulating graphics hardware registers directly. So reimplementing that graphics API in terms of, say, OpenGL or Direct3D, automatically yields you high-performance native graphics without having to emulate a hardware part. So it really is an ideal game for this kind of work in multiple respects: it's familiar, has cross-generational appeal, easy to get high-level code for, and easy to make changes to.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
I believe it was "the" game that the platform was marketed with, just like the Switch got Zelda BOTW. Stores with a video games section often had a console available for kids to play in the store for marketing. I assume Nintendo was providing those, and as far as I remember, the N64 ones were always playing Mario 64.
bluedays 5y ago
Because even today the movement and agility is unparalleled. There is no other game that feels a fluid and solid when moving your character as Mario 64. At least in my opinion
- Levitz 5y ago
  There aren't many, but about every 3D mario has kept up with SM64 in that regard, the freedom in Odyssey might even be too much. Outside the series, A Hat in Time does it pretty well too.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    In a well functioning game industry, A Hat in Time should be in top selling charts of every gaming platforms. I don’t know if negative reviews even exists for this game.
leepowers 5y ago
Super Mario 64 and The Ocarina of Time elevated open-world 3D game play. So much of gaming to this point, even 3D gaming, was dungeon crawling, or traversing linear paths and story lines, or killing opponents in a closed arena. SM64 and Ocarina really transported the player into a whole new world. The camera work was almost perfect, and the subtleties of the system were revolutionary. The Wikipedia article[1], and this picture in particular[2] provide a good description. 25 years later I think of SM64 as the Citizen Kane of video games. Citizen Kane provided a glimpse of what the medium was capable of; it changed peoples perception of what a movie could be. Virtually every movie since has either been directly inspired by CK or has internalized its zeitgeist. Super Mario 64 played the same role for video games. Or - it could that since I grew up playing SM64 I've anchored to it and feel it's influence more deeply than history warrants :D [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#Influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#Influence [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#/media/File:Super-mario-64-camera-system-ai.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#/media/File:Sup...
DonHopkins 5y ago
It's one of the great masterpieces of Shigeru Miyamoto. Will Wright calls him the Stephen Spielberg of games. It was the flagship title of the N64, whose 3D graphics processor was designed by SGI. Shigeru Miyamoto GDC 1999 Keynote (Full) [@2:56]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI&t=2m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI&t=2m56s >In 1996, Nintendo shook the video game world with the breakthrough N64. Miyamoto's creativity now had free reign, and an exhilarating new era in interactive entertainment was born. N64's flagship game has been called his masterpiece. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918255 >I posted these earlier about Shigeru Miyamoto, and just transcribed a highlight from one of the videos of his two GDC keynotes (but watch both keynotes in full -- every word is profound, and they bracket an amazing time in game development history: 1999-2007!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626656 >I've seen some great talks by the amazing game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto >In an earlier talk, he explained that he designed his games starting with how you physically interact with the controls you're holding in your hand, and then inwards into the computer, instead of the other way around like so many other people tend to do. >In a later talk, about the Wii, he explained that now he designs his games starting with the facial expressions of the people playing them, then to the physical experience that could evoke such an expression, then on into the computer that could conduct such an experience. >As an example, he showed a picture of a grandfather with his granddaughter sitting in his lap, playing a game, looking totally entranced and delighted at the game, and her grandfather looking at her, with just as entranced and delighted an expression as on his granddaughter's face, even if he didn't necessarily understand what the game itself was about. He got so much enjoyment out of just watching his granddaughter enjoying the game, that it was fun for him, too. >The Wii was so successful as a social party game, because the players themselves were more fun to watch than the game on the screen, because they make spectacles of themselves, which is much more entertaining to watch than the computer graphics. And you don't get bored waiting for your turn to play, because it's fun watching other people play. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486280 I wrote this earlier on another forum but I'll repost it here: I've seen Shigeru Miyamoto speak at several game developer conferences over the years. He's absolutely brilliant, a really nice guy, and there's so much to learn by studying his work and listening to him talk. Will Wright calls him the Stephen Spielberg of games. At one of his earlier talks, he explained that he starts designing games by thinking about how you touch, manipulate and interact with the input device in the real world, instead of thinking about the software and models inside the virtual world of the computer first. The instantaneous response of Mario 64 and how you can run and jump around is a great example of that. Shigeru Miyamoto GDC 1999 Keynote (Full): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI At a later talk about how he designed the Wii, he said that he now starts designing games by thinking about what kind of expression he wants it to evoke on the player's faces, and how to make the players themselves entertain the other people in the room who aren't even playing the game themselves. That's why the Wii has so many great party games, like Wii Sports. Then he showed a video of a little girl sitting in her grandfather's lap playing a game -- http://youtu.be/SY3a4dCBQYs?t=12m29s http://youtu.be/SY3a4dCBQYs?t=12m29s , with a delighted expression on her face. The grandfather was delighted and entertained by watching his granddaughter enjoy the game. This photo -- https://i.imgur.com/zSbOYbk.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zSbOYbk.jpg -- perfectly illustrates exactly what he means! Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9OXg7lZoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9OXg7lZoE Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jer1KCPTcdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jer1KCPTcdE Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3a4dCBQYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3a4dCBQYs >So let me move from the vision of Nintendo to the vision that I have always employed personally in my career as a game developer. >In interviews, I'm often asked about specific elements of my games. Where did you get the idea for that character or that hardware? Why did you design that level in that way? >And sometimes I can tell that the people who are asking these questions have spend a lot of time analyzing my games in very detailed fashion to search for the answers. >But the riddle here is the harder they look at the individual parts of the game itself, the further away they get from determining that answer. >The reason for this is that my initial focus and my primary focus throughout development is not these individual elements of the game. >When I'm creating a game, what I always try to envision, it's what I always think about, is the core element of fun within the game. >And to do that, I imagine one thing, and that's the face of the player, while he or she is experiencing the game. >Not any individual part of the game itself. >And what the players feel will be reflected on their faces. And as an entertainer, I want them to be entertained. >I was remind of this recently, when we launched Nintendo DS in Japan, and first put the system out in public, for people to start playing. >We asked some of those people if we could video tape them, and you can see some of these videos, the first time they're playing the DS, at a web site called MyFirstTouch.ds. >So let's take a look at two cuts that impressed me most. Let's take a look. >(Girl singing in joy.) So cute. That guy there is happy because his girlfriends are so excited. >And of course this grandfather's happy that his granddaughter's having so much fun as well. >And since this is a stylus, a touch pen, he's able to play the game too. >So as you can see, not only is the person who's playing the game being entertained, but the people standing around watching are getting caught up in the excitement, and they're being entertained as well. >And that made me very happy. That's the reaction that I always want. Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBee2YlDPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBee2YlDPg Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3DB3tYiOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3DB3tYiOw Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwYBSkzevw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwYBSkzevw Shigeru Miyamoto Keynote GDC 07 - Wife-o-meter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMybmWHzfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMybmWHzfU
derefr 5y ago
The general obsession is just that it was the game that came with the Nintendo 64, so everyone who owned an N64 has played it, so there's a lot of nostalgia to go around. The secondary obsession, particular to the speedgame community, is that it's one of the first games to have a formalized, worldwide competitive speedrunning scene develop around it; and there's a shocking level of depth-of-mastery to the SM64 speedgame (i.e. people have been trying to beat the game faster for years, and they're still discovering new ways of doing that.) For the rom-hacking community (to which the game reverse-engineering community is closely associated), I'd say it's a combination of two factors: 1. SM64 has received very little love from Nintendo since its release—many people were anticipating that Nintendo's (temporary) Switch port of the game would at least be modified to be playable in widescreen, but it wasn't. So the community has taken it upon itself to implement the QoL fixes that Nintendo doesn't seem willing to give them. 2. SM64 has many underutilized engine elements, similar to SMB3 or SMW; like those games, it's ripe for modding and further exploration. (It might be said that Nintendo "leaves a lot of level design opportunities on the table" with each of their games.) Games like SMB3 and SMW, which are easy enough to mod, have had heavily-active modding scenes for decades, with many level editors written, new engine plugins developed, etc. But SM64, and N64 games in general, are harder to mod as compiled objects; you really do have to decompile them to have any hope of doing something new or different with them.
- pjerem 5y ago
  > 1. SM64 has received very little love from Nintendo since its release Let’s not forget SM64DS which was a really interesting remake. A lot of welcomed additions to the original game while still respecting the original game. I’m sad because I believe this version will never have a remake and since it’s a Nintendo DS game, it started and will continue to age terribly badly.
- flatiron 5y ago
  FYI it didn’t come with n64. I had a n64 as a kid and rented Mario 64.
pjerem 5y ago
It’s the first real 3D platformer. It aged absolutely wonderfully. The controls, although less good than more recent 3D mario are better and more precise than most nowadays games. This game is an absolute masterpiece crafted with a lot of love more than two decades ago and this love can still be felt today. It’s really difficult to explain but, Mario 64 was the first but was also « perfect » as an artwork. There have since been a lot of better games in almost all criteria but never as a whole. I’m glad it’s now « open source » because I feel like it’s a really nice way to preserve it from the passing time. If you haven’t played it recently, just try it if you don’t believe me. It’ll feel like an old game for maybe 5 minutes. Then, chances are that you’ll be hooked until the final credits. But play a « modern » version of it, so either the upscale Switch version or the PC port.
bumbada 5y ago
It was never my thing, but it is a masterpiece like Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 or Hitchcock films. It was the first real 3d world game and went to innovate in so many things that we take for granted today. In an open world the number of possibilities and combinations grow enormously. They had to solve so many problems for the first time. Games like Crash Bandicoot are much more constrained and simple. Other companies(SEGA) tried to create their own and failed. Today it is trivial to make such a world with the great tools that we have, but Mario 64 was the first to prove what was possible, it was inspiration for younger developers. The Naughty Dog guys actually believed that such a game was impossible to make until they saw it.

Can anyone explain the obsession with this game in particular? As a cultural phenomenon or how it stands the test of time or what that particular porting community thinks about anything...

siva7 5y ago

It was back then a memorable landmark game which set off the 3D Evolution in Nintendo Games

paulryanrogers 5y ago

Nostalgia and a game that did a lot right when 3D was becoming mainstream. Few if any of its features were firsts but they were polished and combined to make a package that played better than most other 3D platforms of the day.

Taywee 5y ago

It's a lot of factors. It was a lot of peoples' first 3D game experience, it's old enough that a lot of people who were enchanted by it in their childhood are old enough to dig into it now, it's an early 3D game with relatively simple and primitive techniques that were state of the art for the time, and it's had a ton of time put into decompilation, and a few major leaks to help understand how everything fits together. It's also a very good game, and the controls and mechanics are more responsive and smooth than you'd expect for such an early 3D game. Mario games have all had a lot of effort put into understanding the way the code works under the hood. The NES Mario games have also been heavily broken down and analyzed, but there's not as much stuff you can do that's as exciting as what you can with Mario 64.

codetrotter 5y ago

Nintendo 64 and the original PlayStation were a paradigm shift in home consoles, with their native support for 3D. At the time of the announcement of these platforms, Super Mario 64 became a symbol representing the Nintendo 64. Sony wanted a mascot to represent them, and Naughty Dog convinced Sony to pick Crash Bandicoot as the mascot for the original PlayStation. As such, the marketing material and the press coverage talked a lot not only about N64 vs PS, but also gave a lot of attention to Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot. And in turn this meant that those of us who were kids at the time ended up playing these games a lot on N64 and PS respectively. Is it just nostalgia, or is there something more? Hard to say, but either way I think both these games will forever hold a special place in the hearts of many. Beyond that, porting efforts in general are interesting for their own sake.

Larrikin 5y ago
Crash, Croft, and a couple other games I'm forgetting competed in mind share as the mascot of the original PlayStation, but there was never an official mascot. I used to love reading the gaming magazines while my parents shopped and it seemed like every other month there was an article asking why Sony doesn't have a mascot yet and who it should be.

mattbee 5y ago

My first memory was that it was the first 3D platform game that didn't suck - they designed platforming challenges that worked without the player feeling like they'd been screwed over by the camera. You barely needed to touch the camera, and the stick responded very intuitively to what's on the (very low res) screen. (In 1997, directly controlling a character with one stick was not an obviously correct choice - some games had "tank" controls where one stick rotated the character/camera and the other went forwards and backwards! Imagine how much that used to suck) Plus it was a huge game, full of secrets, without being overwhelming. The castle & level structure was easy to understand so you weren't lost. Also it was tremendously charming by itself, but nostalgic for the crowd who'd grown up on the NES and SNES, like suddenly this kids game we'd known for 14 years can be a whole 3D world - and no other game franchises had reinvented themselves so successfully over such a long period. Finally it came at a time when the PlayStation was so dominant, and asserted that grown up games didn't just want EDM & edgy violence (to parody Sony's 1997 marketing). In contrast Nintendo had produced a masterpiece through game design discipline, and without compromising this charming childlike aesthetic. I guess these days some views might look a bit flat but I'm not sure they've improved on the Mario formula since.

fho 5y ago
> I guess these days some views might look a bit flat but I'm not sure they've improved on the Mario formula since. ^ this It has been decades, but you can still put people in front of Mario 64 and they will still instantly have fun ... it's just a joy to move Mario around in that game.
monocasa 5y ago
They actually published papers in Game Programming Gems about how the camera works which was the real insight. To work right, it has to participate in the physics system, attached with a spring to the back of the character you're playing as. When you do that, the control coordinate system being relative to the camera rather than the player seems natural to the playter. You almost need tank controls when the camera can just jump willy nilly, as the remasters of the original Resident Evils have proved.
- 5y ago

kibwen 5y ago

Several reasons: 1) it's the ultimate codifier of the 3D platformer genre, 2) it pioneered the idea of a "camera" in third-person 3D games, 3) it was a cultural touchstone in its own day, and is still reaping the benefits of nostalgia, 4) like every physics-based third-person 3D game it has both a high skill ceiling and a bevy of exploitable bugs, making it excellent for speedruns (which are the primary means by which classic games remain in the limelight these days), 5) because of the prior point as well as its cultural impact it was a centralizing influence on the nascent speedrunning community in the mid-2000s, giving it outsized cultural importance in that context as well, 6) it's a Mario game, which remains a relevant brand to this day, 7) it's a pretty decent game (although, naturally, in many aspects it will compare unfavorably to its descendants).

bitwize 5y ago

Super Mario 64 was a legendary game that basically set the standard for 3D platforming and took a gaming icon from 2D into the 3D realm. It's also a very straightforward game with few "tricks" to get the most speed out of the hardware. (Matter of fact, it's suboptimal in some ways devs have improved on.) Meaning that decompiling it yields reasonable high-level code. Unlike NES or SNES games, all the graphics stuff was made via draw calls into an API in the console's ROM -- not by manipulating graphics hardware registers directly. So reimplementing that graphics API in terms of, say, OpenGL or Direct3D, automatically yields you high-performance native graphics without having to emulate a hardware part. So it really is an ideal game for this kind of work in multiple respects: it's familiar, has cross-generational appeal, easy to get high-level code for, and easy to make changes to.

deleted 5y ago

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tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

I believe it was "the" game that the platform was marketed with, just like the Switch got Zelda BOTW. Stores with a video games section often had a console available for kids to play in the store for marketing. I assume Nintendo was providing those, and as far as I remember, the N64 ones were always playing Mario 64.

bluedays 5y ago

Because even today the movement and agility is unparalleled. There is no other game that feels a fluid and solid when moving your character as Mario 64. At least in my opinion

Levitz 5y ago
There aren't many, but about every 3D mario has kept up with SM64 in that regard, the freedom in Odyssey might even be too much. Outside the series, A Hat in Time does it pretty well too.
- pjerem 5y ago
  In a well functioning game industry, A Hat in Time should be in top selling charts of every gaming platforms. I don’t know if negative reviews even exists for this game.

leepowers 5y ago

Super Mario 64 and The Ocarina of Time elevated open-world 3D game play. So much of gaming to this point, even 3D gaming, was dungeon crawling, or traversing linear paths and story lines, or killing opponents in a closed arena. SM64 and Ocarina really transported the player into a whole new world. The camera work was almost perfect, and the subtleties of the system were revolutionary. The Wikipedia article[1], and this picture in particular[2] provide a good description. 25 years later I think of SM64 as the Citizen Kane of video games. Citizen Kane provided a glimpse of what the medium was capable of; it changed peoples perception of what a movie could be. Virtually every movie since has either been directly inspired by CK or has internalized its zeitgeist. Super Mario 64 played the same role for video games. Or - it could that since I grew up playing SM64 I've anchored to it and feel it's influence more deeply than history warrants :D [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#Influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#Influence [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#/media/File:Super-mario-64-camera-system-ai.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64#/media/File:Sup...

DonHopkins 5y ago

It's one of the great masterpieces of Shigeru Miyamoto. Will Wright calls him the Stephen Spielberg of games. It was the flagship title of the N64, whose 3D graphics processor was designed by SGI. Shigeru Miyamoto GDC 1999 Keynote (Full) [@2:56]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI&t=2m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI&t=2m56s >In 1996, Nintendo shook the video game world with the breakthrough N64. Miyamoto's creativity now had free reign, and an exhilarating new era in interactive entertainment was born. N64's flagship game has been called his masterpiece. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918255 >I posted these earlier about Shigeru Miyamoto, and just transcribed a highlight from one of the videos of his two GDC keynotes (but watch both keynotes in full -- every word is profound, and they bracket an amazing time in game development history: 1999-2007!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626656 >I've seen some great talks by the amazing game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto >In an earlier talk, he explained that he designed his games starting with how you physically interact with the controls you're holding in your hand, and then inwards into the computer, instead of the other way around like so many other people tend to do. >In a later talk, about the Wii, he explained that now he designs his games starting with the facial expressions of the people playing them, then to the physical experience that could evoke such an expression, then on into the computer that could conduct such an experience. >As an example, he showed a picture of a grandfather with his granddaughter sitting in his lap, playing a game, looking totally entranced and delighted at the game, and her grandfather looking at her, with just as entranced and delighted an expression as on his granddaughter's face, even if he didn't necessarily understand what the game itself was about. He got so much enjoyment out of just watching his granddaughter enjoying the game, that it was fun for him, too. >The Wii was so successful as a social party game, because the players themselves were more fun to watch than the game on the screen, because they make spectacles of themselves, which is much more entertaining to watch than the computer graphics. And you don't get bored waiting for your turn to play, because it's fun watching other people play. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15486280 I wrote this earlier on another forum but I'll repost it here: I've seen Shigeru Miyamoto speak at several game developer conferences over the years. He's absolutely brilliant, a really nice guy, and there's so much to learn by studying his work and listening to him talk. Will Wright calls him the Stephen Spielberg of games. At one of his earlier talks, he explained that he starts designing games by thinking about how you touch, manipulate and interact with the input device in the real world, instead of thinking about the software and models inside the virtual world of the computer first. The instantaneous response of Mario 64 and how you can run and jump around is a great example of that. Shigeru Miyamoto GDC 1999 Keynote (Full): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC2Pf5F2acI At a later talk about how he designed the Wii, he said that he now starts designing games by thinking about what kind of expression he wants it to evoke on the player's faces, and how to make the players themselves entertain the other people in the room who aren't even playing the game themselves. That's why the Wii has so many great party games, like Wii Sports. Then he showed a video of a little girl sitting in her grandfather's lap playing a game -- http://youtu.be/SY3a4dCBQYs?t=12m29s http://youtu.be/SY3a4dCBQYs?t=12m29s , with a delighted expression on her face. The grandfather was delighted and entertained by watching his granddaughter enjoy the game. This photo -- https://i.imgur.com/zSbOYbk.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zSbOYbk.jpg -- perfectly illustrates exactly what he means! Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9OXg7lZoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En9OXg7lZoE Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jer1KCPTcdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jer1KCPTcdE Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3a4dCBQYs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY3a4dCBQYs >So let me move from the vision of Nintendo to the vision that I have always employed personally in my career as a game developer. >In interviews, I'm often asked about specific elements of my games. Where did you get the idea for that character or that hardware? Why did you design that level in that way? >And sometimes I can tell that the people who are asking these questions have spend a lot of time analyzing my games in very detailed fashion to search for the answers. >But the riddle here is the harder they look at the individual parts of the game itself, the further away they get from determining that answer. >The reason for this is that my initial focus and my primary focus throughout development is not these individual elements of the game. >When I'm creating a game, what I always try to envision, it's what I always think about, is the core element of fun within the game. >And to do that, I imagine one thing, and that's the face of the player, while he or she is experiencing the game. >Not any individual part of the game itself. >And what the players feel will be reflected on their faces. And as an entertainer, I want them to be entertained. >I was remind of this recently, when we launched Nintendo DS in Japan, and first put the system out in public, for people to start playing. >We asked some of those people if we could video tape them, and you can see some of these videos, the first time they're playing the DS, at a web site called MyFirstTouch.ds. >So let's take a look at two cuts that impressed me most. Let's take a look. >(Girl singing in joy.) So cute. That guy there is happy because his girlfriends are so excited. >And of course this grandfather's happy that his granddaughter's having so much fun as well. >And since this is a stylus, a touch pen, he's able to play the game too. >So as you can see, not only is the person who's playing the game being entertained, but the people standing around watching are getting caught up in the excitement, and they're being entertained as well. >And that made me very happy. That's the reaction that I always want. Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBee2YlDPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqBee2YlDPg Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3DB3tYiOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3DB3tYiOw Shigeru Miyamoto 2007 GDC Keynote - Part 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwYBSkzevw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwYBSkzevw Shigeru Miyamoto Keynote GDC 07 - Wife-o-meter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMybmWHzfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMybmWHzfU

derefr 5y ago

The general obsession is just that it was the game that came with the Nintendo 64, so everyone who owned an N64 has played it, so there's a lot of nostalgia to go around. The secondary obsession, particular to the speedgame community, is that it's one of the first games to have a formalized, worldwide competitive speedrunning scene develop around it; and there's a shocking level of depth-of-mastery to the SM64 speedgame (i.e. people have been trying to beat the game faster for years, and they're still discovering new ways of doing that.) For the rom-hacking community (to which the game reverse-engineering community is closely associated), I'd say it's a combination of two factors: 1. SM64 has received very little love from Nintendo since its release—many people were anticipating that Nintendo's (temporary) Switch port of the game would at least be modified to be playable in widescreen, but it wasn't. So the community has taken it upon itself to implement the QoL fixes that Nintendo doesn't seem willing to give them. 2. SM64 has many underutilized engine elements, similar to SMB3 or SMW; like those games, it's ripe for modding and further exploration. (It might be said that Nintendo "leaves a lot of level design opportunities on the table" with each of their games.) Games like SMB3 and SMW, which are easy enough to mod, have had heavily-active modding scenes for decades, with many level editors written, new engine plugins developed, etc. But SM64, and N64 games in general, are harder to mod as compiled objects; you really do have to decompile them to have any hope of doing something new or different with them.

pjerem 5y ago
> 1. SM64 has received very little love from Nintendo since its release Let’s not forget SM64DS which was a really interesting remake. A lot of welcomed additions to the original game while still respecting the original game. I’m sad because I believe this version will never have a remake and since it’s a Nintendo DS game, it started and will continue to age terribly badly.
flatiron 5y ago
FYI it didn’t come with n64. I had a n64 as a kid and rented Mario 64.

pjerem 5y ago

It’s the first real 3D platformer. It aged absolutely wonderfully. The controls, although less good than more recent 3D mario are better and more precise than most nowadays games. This game is an absolute masterpiece crafted with a lot of love more than two decades ago and this love can still be felt today. It’s really difficult to explain but, Mario 64 was the first but was also « perfect » as an artwork. There have since been a lot of better games in almost all criteria but never as a whole. I’m glad it’s now « open source » because I feel like it’s a really nice way to preserve it from the passing time. If you haven’t played it recently, just try it if you don’t believe me. It’ll feel like an old game for maybe 5 minutes. Then, chances are that you’ll be hooked until the final credits. But play a « modern » version of it, so either the upscale Switch version or the PC port.

bumbada 5y ago

It was never my thing, but it is a masterpiece like Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 or Hitchcock films. It was the first real 3d world game and went to innovate in so many things that we take for granted today. In an open world the number of possibilities and combinations grow enormously. They had to solve so many problems for the first time. Games like Crash Bandicoot are much more constrained and simple. Other companies(SEGA) tried to create their own and failed. Today it is trivial to make such a world with the great tools that we have, but Mario 64 was the first to prove what was possible, it was inspiration for younger developers. The Naughty Dog guys actually believed that such a game was impossible to make until they saw it.