One of my favorite things Nintendo has done in recent years has been their “Ask the Developers” series. It’s always a great read to get some insight into the making of their games. I make sure to stop everything I’m doing to check them out whenever they drop. And of course, we get one for Donkey Kong Bananza, set for release on July 17th. This interview features Kenta Motokura, the producer of the game. Kazuya Takahashi and Wataru Tanaka who are directors of the game. Daisuke Watanabe, the art director and Naoto Kubo, the sound director.
Donkey Kong’s new design
One of the most noticeable things about Donkey Kong Bananza was first spotted in the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal. The big guy got a redesign. I loved it in the moment, but you know some didn’t. The interview gets into some of the process of recreating Donkey Kong’s character model.
Motokura mentions that “We also interviewed people who’d drawn illustrations of Donkey Kong from way back to preserve the image of Donkey Kong in the mind of his creator, Miyamoto-san”.
In addition to reaching out to the past, the developers wanted to make sure that they stayed true to the identity of the character. I never actually considered how goofy Donkey Kong really was outside of being naked with a tie, but this new design definitely brings out the personality way more than the old one. And given that we’d be treated to continuous view of a monkey’s ass, the developers were gracious enough to put him in some clothes.
Motokura said: “When controlling a character in a 3D world, the player often sees them from behind, so we were also conscious of how Donkey Kong would look from the back while he’s moving. The back view of Donkey Kong just looks like a mass of brown fur, which would make for a monotonous visual if we simply rendered him in 3D. That inspired us to make some creative adjustments to his outfit, such as giving him britches and suspenders”.
they stuck arms on a goomba at one point
That’s right, we have video of a Goomba with arms. It was done with an eye on nailing down some of the destruction mechanics with a boss in the game. Of course, we know that this is the team behind Super Mario Odyssey . And according to Tanaka, they started working on the idea of a game with destructible elements shortly after it released.
“In Super Mario Odyssey, there’s a boss called Knucklotec who attacks Mario with giant hands. The programmer who created him tried attaching those arms to a Goomba as an experiment. The Goomba could smash terrain, tear off pieces to use as weapons, and throw them”.
And yes, the video is on the website. Thank you for giving us that. But those tests eventually led to the team feeling like this game was possible. And they knew that Donkey Kong was the right character for this. I can’t wait to see what else that team did with DK. I loved Super Mario Odyssey. And I actually have every intention of running it back on Switch 2. But when Donkey Kong Bananza comes out, I’ll be bashing everything in sight.
The post The ‘Donkey Kong Bananza’ “Ask the Developers” Series is Here. I’ve Been Waiting for This appeared first on VICE.
