Nintendo - Putting Play First
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN recommends it as a concise video essay on why Nintendo games feel good and how the company iterates.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 4 different months, 2017 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec dmitriid · 2018-04 · on “Nintendo's secretive creative process”
I highly recommend Mark Brown's video "Nintendo: Putting Play First, [this video] (and his other essays on Nintendo)
Strong rec ecliptik · 2025-01 · on “Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]”
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. [this video]
Recommends forkLding · 2017-08 · on “An Embarrassing Tale: Why my server could only handle 10 players”
Quick suggestions on usability, maybe start off the game with players on a slower speed so they get used to moving around first and then gradually speed up by accomplishing actions that you want them to do in a training sort of manner so that players start learning and don't get confused. Side note: I subscribe to Mark Brown's Game Maker's Toolkit on Game Design and Game progression, here is an example: [this video] I think it would definitely help
Recommends ecliptik · 2023-05 · on “Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days”
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. [this video]