Paper Mario’s development team lays it all out

Paper Mario is a series that can’t stand still.

Flip through the adventure-meets-RPG series’ near-20-year history and you’ll discover a pattern of constant reinvention: One game involves switching between 2D and 3D planes, then another focusses on a totally different mechanic about collecting stickers or splashing paint, and now in Switch’s The Origami King, spraying confetti and rotating strange spherical arenas is at the core of the game’s design.

According to Paper Mario’s development team, the series’ affection for reinvention is partly driven by a desire to motivate its development staff – some of whom have been working on the series since it began in 2001 – but mostly it’s thanks to a piece of sage advice from Nintendo’s master creator.

“The philosophy of game creation that [producer] Mr Tanabe learned from Mr Miyamoto, and that in turn he’s imparted to me, is to challenge yourself to create new gameplay,” Nintendo EPD’s assistant producer, Risa Tabata tells VGC.

“Games are entertainment, so I want the people who play our games to say ‘Wow!’ My understanding is that if we want to give players these positive surprises, we can’t do exactly the same thing that’s been done before.”

The concept for the latest Paper Mario game was born from this process of challenging the development team to try something new, Tabata explains.

Working with Intelligent Systems, the partner studio behind the series, the two companies came up with the concept of origami and confetti, the core features of The Origami King.

According to game director Masahiko Nagaya the process of turning the iconic characters of the Super Mario series into three-dimensional papercraft required a surprising amount of work, including creating mock-ups of each character using actual paper.

“In the Paper Mario series, we put great emphasis on players being able to get a sense of texture from how things look, so of course we prepare actual materials for our reference,” he explained.

“Having said that though, we’re always trying new themes each time, so we don’t prepare a massive quantity of any particular material to keep. We aim to get just the right amount of material we need each time; no more, no less.”

During its decades of reinvention, the Paper Mario series has adopted and dropped not just mechanics, but many tenets of the very genre it was born in.

“The philosophy of game creation that [producer] Mr Tanabe learned from Mr [Shigeru] Miyamoto, and that in turn he’s imparted to me, is to challenge yourself to create new gameplay. Games are entertainment, so I want the people who play our games to say ‘Wow!’”

Compared to the halcyon days of Nintendo 64 and Gamecube’s The Thousand Year Door, the Paper Mario series has increasingly distanced itself from its RPG roots, instead favouring a more adventure-focused approach in its modern games, over the complex levelling and experience point mathematics craved by many veteran fans.

Kensuke Tanabe, a Nintendo veteran who oversees several franchises including Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong, tells VGC he does pay attention to feedback from Paper Mario fans and said he hopes they approach the latest game with an open mind.

“Nintendo’s philosophy on game creation is that we don’t ignore casual players in creating our games,” he says. “This is also true for games such as those in the Metroid Prime series; games that at first glance look like they are only aimed at core gamers.

“With that in mind, what we’ve done in the Paper Mario series is to put a lot of work particularly into the puzzle solving elements of the games, so that they can also be enjoyed by core users.

“So, for example, in Paper Mario: The Origami King, players need to guess the weak points of bosses based on their characteristics and search for the solution to defeat them, otherwise they won’t be able to win these battles. This is an adventure game after all, so it wouldn’t be right if the battles didn’t also have some kind of puzzle solving element!”

He adds: “However, I do think it’s difficult to satisfy certain fans with the adventure game direction if they think of Paper Mario games as simply being RPGs. I hope that everyone will play this game with an open mind.”

Paper Mario: The Origami King is available for Nintendo Switch from Friday, July 17. You can read VGC’s full interview with Kensuke Tanabe (EPD/Producer), Masahiko Nagaya (Intelligent Systems/Director) and Risa Tabata (EPD/Assistant Producer) below.

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Interview: Nintendo and Intelligent Systems on Paper Mario: The Origami King

This year marks 20 years of Paper Mario. Does it get easier to make games in a series you are so familiar with?

Kensuke Tanabe: I’ve already spent over thirty years in this industry. I’ve worked with many internal and external staff and it’s often the case that if they’ve been working on three consecutive titles in the same series, they want to work on something different for their next title. To be fair, the same is true for me too.

It’s sometimes hard to keep motivated if you’re producing titles in the same series back to back. What we do to get around this is, for example, to shift the staff around, or make a major change to a core system with the aim to create both a fresh team to tackle the title’s production, and to bring innovation to the series.

It’s very noticeable that each new Paper Mario basically starts from scratch: you’ve done 2D/3D flipping (Wii), stickers (3DS) and paint (Wii U), but you always move on to a new idea. Why do you never return to the same idea twice? And what led you to origami this time?

Risa Tabata: The philosophy of game creation that Mr Tanabe learned from Mr Miyamoto, and that in turn he’s imparted to me, is to challenge yourself to create new gameplay. Games are entertainment, so I want the people who play our games to say “Wow!” My understanding is that if we want to give players these positive surprises, we can’t do exactly the same thing that’s been done before.

The idea for origami came out of this process of challenging myself to try something new. The theme running through the Paper Mario series is paper, so I was working with Intelligent Systems to think up paper-based ideas that hadn’t yet been used. Intelligent Systems suggested the idea of confetti, and I suggested the idea of origami. The combination of these two ideas is what led to our new game, Paper Mario: The Origami King.

I had this image of Princess Peach suddenly appearing in front of Mario one day having been turned into origami. As soon as that idea popped into my head, I knew we were going to be able to create a Paper Mario game unlike any that came before.

“I do think it’s difficult to satisfy certain fans with the adventure game direction if they think of Paper Mario games as simply being RPGs. I hope that everyone will play this game with an open mind.”

The most recent Paper Mario games were criticised by some for a perceived simplification in both story and battles compared to past games. Were you aware of fan concern, and did you seek to address it with the Switch version?

Tanabe: I do look through the opinions of fans once a game is released. As there are cases where I can’t address those opinions exactly as fans want, I try to challenge myself to other new, fun ideas. What I always keep in mind though is to do as much as I can so that players can enjoy new and unique game experiences. I’m confident that if you play Paper Mario: The Origami King, you’ll understand just how many ideas we’ve managed to pack into one game.

Is it difficult to find a balance that pleases all Paper Mario fans? Particularly hardcore players who want more RPG elements such as experience points, versus more casual players looking for an approachable experience?

Tanabe: First, Nintendo’s philosophy on game creation is that we don’t ignore casual players in creating our games. This is also true for games such as those in the Metroid Prime series; games that at first glance look like they are only aimed at core gamers. With that in mind, what we’ve done in the Paper Mario series is to put a lot of work particularly into the puzzle solving elements of the games, so that they can also be enjoyed by core users.

So, for example, in Paper Mario: The Origami King, players need to guess the weak points of bosses based on their characteristics and search for the solution to defeat them, otherwise they won’t be able to win these battles.

This is an adventure game after all, so it wouldn’t be right if the battles didn’t also have some kind of puzzle solving element! (Of course, we’ve also added in a system for casual players where they can use coins in battles to get help from the spectating Toads.)

However, I do think it’s difficult to satisfy certain fans with the adventure game direction if they think of Paper Mario games as simply being RPGs. I hope that everyone will play this game with an open mind.

How hard was it to build these iconic heroes as origami models? Did you build them in real life to get to the final designs? Is the studio full of arts and crafts materials?

Masahiko Nagaya: Even though the characters have turned into origami, we had to ensure that you could clearly identify which characters the origami versions were based on. In turning them into origami, our character artists worked with each individual character to analyse whether a side-on or front-on view would be best to bring out their individuality.

After that, we created mockups of the characters using actual paper in order to draw out the elements that make the characters look origami-like and form rules that would be used as the foundation for all the origami characters. As we have the characters performing actions in-game, to a certain extent we also needed their models to take on unrealistic shapes and forms, but we did have our artists take care to find the right balance in that respect.

In the Paper Mario series, we put great emphasis on players being able to get a sense of texture from how things look, so of course we prepare actual materials for our reference. Having said that though, we’re always trying new themes each time, so we don’t prepare a massive quantity of any particular material to keep. We aim to get just the right amount of material we need each time; no more, no less.

Paper Mario is known as the ‘comedic Mario’ series. Comedy can be very difficult to get right – how do you decide what makes the cut?

Tanabe: First of all, I don’t use any ideas that go against what’s considered appropriate for the times. I also don’t use ideas that are too much of a twist and so are difficult to understand. Instead, I aim to pick ideas that are understandable all around the world. In Paper Mario: Sticker Star, we aimed for more of a surreal kind of humour, so we purposefully used things that would create an odd experience. This wasn’t just to get laughs though, it was also to make use of improvements in the hardware.

How do you make sure the story appeals to a broad audience? And what challenges does existing within the Mario franchise present to your writers?

Tanabe: In Super Paper Mario, the elaborate story led the game away from the Mario universe, so since Paper Mario: Sticker Star I’ve refrained from using stories that are too complicated. Personally, though, I like games with stories. During the production of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, we made use of a system for character settings and real conversations in order to build the story, which was a first for a game in a series. (I also wrote the text for this game.)

To go back to Mario, in Paper Mario: Color Splash, I avoided having a complicated story so as not to veer too far away from the Mario universe, and instead aimed for a game with more memorable events. To create even more memorable experiences for players, in Paper Mario: The Origami King we’ve established some characters other than the partner character who will also journey with players through the game. In particular, I think that Bobby (Bob-omb) has turned out to be just as memorable a character as Olivia.

Mario is famous for its iconic cast of villains. Can you talk about the new villain in this game and how you design a character to stand alongside all-time greats like Bowser and Kamek?

Tanabe: Since Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it’s no longer possible to modify Mario characters or to create original characters that touch on the Mario universe. That means that if we aren’t using Mario characters for bosses, we need to create original characters with designs that don’t involve the Mario universe at all, like we’ve done with Olly and the stationery bosses.

Whether a character becomes an all-time hit or not isn’t up to us on the development side; I think it’s more the case that characters that fans truly accept naturally end up that way. I hope that the origami siblings in Paper Mario: The Origami King will stay in players’ memories, even if they do only end up appearing in this title.

You’ve built Paper Mario games for home consoles and for portable consoles, but this is the first time where the game can be played on both, thanks to the Switch. Does this change your approach to design at all?

Tanabe: In designing a game for a home console compared to a handheld console (or vice versa), it’s important to be aware of what is and isn’t possible to do when you reach the hardware spec limits such as graphical speed and/or CPU processing speed. Most important of all is to be conscious to design your games with features that make use of the characteristics of the hardware.

In Paper Mario: The Origami King, the 1,000-Fold Arms and how it utilises the console’s HD rumble would be such a feature. That fact that the Nintendo Switch is a hybrid console didn’t really have any impact on our approach to game design.

That debut trailer ends with Mario in an origami Samus helmet. What can you tell us about that? Can we expect more cameos in the game?

Nagaya: In addition to the origami theme, in Paper Mario: The Origami King we also have characters and objects themed around papier-mâché. In creating some of the objects that look like dress-up masks for Mario to wear and disguise himself, we wanted to have more than just the correct mask for players to wear; we also wanted others that players, including Nintendo fans, would enjoy too. What came out of this sentiment was the Space Warrior Mask. Actually, this isn’t the only mask! I hope you’ll all try playing and seeing them for yourselves!