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Nintendo - Putting Play First

Game Maker's Toolkit · 997.1K views · 2016-11-11 · 12:02

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Overview

Game Maker's Toolkit examines Nintendo's design approach of starting from a core play mechanic, making it fun, and building around it. Examples include Mario's jump and Luigi's Mansion's vacuum.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a concise video essay on why Nintendo games feel good and how the company iterates.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2017–2025

Topics

Game design
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nintendomarioiterationvideo essay

What people said

ecliptik · 2025-01 · Strong recommendation

One of my favorite video essay's on this is "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by Game Makers Toolkit [1]. It goes into when making a game, Nintendo first determines the mechanic they want to focus on; jumping, throwing a hat, shooting paint, etc and finding out how to make it fun, then building and iterating on the idea. It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different. 1. [VIDEO]

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dmitriid · 2018-04 · Strong recommendation

I highly recommend Mark Brown's video "Nintendo: Putting Play First, [VIDEO] (and his other essays on Nintendo)

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ecliptik · 2023-05 · Recommendation

There's a Game Maker's Toolkit video [1] that does a good job explaining how Nintendo focuses on play first. "That's how we make games at Nintendo, though: we get the fundamentals solid first, then do as much with that core concept as our time and ambition will allow" - Shigeru Miyamoto 1. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Game Maker's Toolkit, played through YouTube.

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