Famitsu has started its weekly spotlight series on Splatoon. This week, we learn more about the game’s inception, and why they picked squids.
Three of the key developers are younger staff, who helped on other Wii U games, but also have other games to their credit. Producer Hisashi Nogami was designer on Yoshi’s Island, and prior to this, director for every Animal Crossing game until City Folk. Director Yusuke Amano worked on Star Fox 64 3D, Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, and New Super Mario Bros. 2. Finally, Tsubasa Sakaguchi was art director forNintendoland and character designer for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Splatoon’s staff include other devs who worked on many of the console’s launch titles. Around this time, Sakaguchi just finished on Nintendoland, and Amano on New Super Mario Bros. 2.
They were thinking of completely original ideas for a new Wii U game when they were playing with the idea of a competitive four on four game, as well as the core idea of spreading ink across a playfield.
They experimented with tofu like square characters, as well as changing the number of playable characters. Eventually, they settled on four on four as the most balanced number.
So, how did they end up with squids? In the process of iteration, they found that they were trying too many things at the same time. To keep players from getting confused, they decided to stick to characters that had human forms and squid forms.
In human form, the Squidlings could walk and attack in conventional ways. In squid form, they could move around in all these different ways. Ultimately, EAD’s Splatoon team had different options, but found squids were the best way to highlight the different gameplay features.
Splatoon will be releasing May on Wii U.
