Nintendo Revives Developer Interview Series - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 July 2021 / 1,363 Views

Nintendo has revived its developer interview series, now known as Ask the Developer, with an interview with the developers of Game Builder Garage. It was previously called Iwata Asks, where the late president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, would interview Nintendo developers about their games.

"To kick off this Ask the Developer series, in which Nintendo developers convey in their own words Nintendo’s thoughts about creating products and the specific points they are particular about, we are talking to two people who were involved in developing the Game Builder Garage game," said Nintendo in the first Ask the Developer interview.

Nintendo announced Game Builder Garage in May of this year. It launched for the Nintendo Switch on June 11 for $29.99. It is a game designed to teach people how to program their own game.

Nintendo EPD’s Kosuke Teshima and Naoki Masuda discuss Game Builder Garage in the first Ask the Developer.

"Game Builder Garage is software that makes designing your own games easy and fun simply by connecting mysterious creatures called Nodon." said Masuda. "Even if you find programming difficult, you will gradually understand it with easy-to-understand steps in the 'Interactive Lessons' and eventually can create your own games."

"After developing the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit, which was the fourth installment in the series, I wondered if we could draw inspiration from the Toy-Con Garage VR portion of that game to create a separate product," he added when asked about what motivated the design of Game Builder Garage.

"In the case of the Nintendo Labo: VR Kit, after the player had a general understanding of creating Toy-Con, they could enjoy making their own VR games with Toy-Con Garage VR. But I thought about making the applications more broad–not just for VR."

You can read the complete interview here.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.