Miyamoto Interviews> November 2001, Pikmin Strategy Guide

NP: Did you have the idea for this "plant-type" of character from the beginning?

Miyamoto: No. It was completely different at the beginning of the testing stages. We called them Adam and Eve.

Hino: When the desingers had a discussion about the characters we thought it might be better to use a simple design so would could show a lot of them at once. So we created characters taht had a ball for a body and eyes and a nose. Maybe its difficult to imagine...

Miyamoto: Some toys have that kind of shape. A fuzzy ball...

NP: And their names were Adam and Eve. There are only two characters at the beginning, but their numbers increase gradually, right?

Miyamoto: Something like that.

NP: You're showing a lot of characters on the screen at the same time and they're all moving, so what would players make them do?

Miyamoto: At the beginning, the idea was just to look at their life. I thought it was an interesting idea from a producer's point of view. "Watch their life" was the theme. Give them love or make them fight. Act like God. Depending on the decisions, they could make a nest and have children. While we were moving toward that theme, we faced a problem: What is the goal? The process got me more involved in the game. There was a kind of desire to control a big group of characters by using the newly developed C Stick. After a while, that changed into the idea of grabbing and throwing characters. (Laughs.)

NP: The game plays out with action of all types. Did you intend to create an action game from the start?

Miyamoto: When you play this game, you control only Olimar, but you get the impression you're actually moving the Pikmin, don't you think? When you play Super Mario Bros., you control just Mario, but this game will leave you feeling like you're actually Olimar and you're controlling that Pikmin. I don't know any other game that can achieve such a feeling.

NP: Why did you choose a whistle sound for rounding up your Pikmin?

Miyamoto: That was my preference. I wanted the sound to be like a teacher at school. We took out the whistle for a while, but ended up bringing it back. I though, "This must be a universal sound!" (Laughs.)

NP: Do teachers use whistles in England, too?

Reed: Yes, they do. Even more so, I couldn't understand the significance of the chime sound that rings at sunset. That sound doesn't make sense to British people.

Miyamoto: In some rural areas of Japan, they use melodies to herald the coming of sunset.

NP: The first two stages of the game convey a strong, "backyard" feeling, but the next two stages have a grander atmosphere and don't feel like an adventure in a small world.

Miyamoto: Perhaps, because those two areas don't have objects like empty boxes or cans.

Hino: The Forest Navel was made for carrying parts across long distances. That's the reason for that type of setup.

NP: What was the inspiration for the enemy creatures?

Hino: We asked the designers to develop their concepts freely. We asked them to creat things outside of nature. There are several creatures inspired by real ones.

Abe: When this was the primitive man's story, the spotty bulborb had the role of a mammoth. The bulborb is the only enemy creature with kept from the beginning of development.

Miyamoto: The primitive people are after something, but they get attacked by a giant bulborb. That was the original thinking behind the game.

NP: Is the lady bug the model for the bulborb?

Reed: The bulborb is a bulborb. (Laughs.)

Miyamoto: The enemy creatures aren't frightening, but they became frightening once the programmers created creatures that can eat Pikmin.

Reed: The most frightening one was the creature that kept doing its own thing while keeping a Pikmin leg hanging out of the side of its mouth. (Laughs.) Of course, I removed it.

NP: This game seems to emphasize planning and arranging things so you can carry rocket parts, but it seems light on puzzle aspects. Was that your intention?

Miyamoto: We thought about including more puzzle elements, but I thought that would become too much of a "game" if we brought too much of that in. Actually, at one point, we were headed in that direction, but I adjusted it in later stages of development. I wanted to make an environment where the part locations seemed as natural as possible. If we developed a game like "The 500 Difficult Tasks of Pikmin," I could add more puzzles, but Pikmin is an "AI Action Space Fantasy" this time. (Laughs.)

NP: Pellets pop out once creatures are defeated. Isn't that forcing things a bit? (Laughs.)

Hino: The creatures ate theme. (Laughs.) The reason the pellet comes out is that the things the creatures eat turn into lumps of nutrients and they stay in their stomach.

NP: Are you thinking about a sequel?

Miyamoto: I have no idea what kind of sequel we could create. I would like to raise Pikmin to the same level of popularity as Mario. I will try many ideas. I have a lot of ideas that I couldn't use this time around.

NP: For example?

Miyamoto: It's a secret. (Laughs.) I think we'll see a lot of the same types of games around Christmas 2002. I am thinking of another idea that would be altogether different.

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