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News 
Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi on Monkey Ball
- Posted By Dan
Doll, 05.01.2002
Toshihiro Nagoshi, creator of Daytona USA, Virtua Striker, and now Super Monkey Ball had many things to say when questioned by the folks at Sega. For the full interview, click here.
Otherwise, read on for some Nagoshi goodness.
Sega.com: Going back to Super Monkey Ball, what was your approach to level design in that particular game?
Nagoshi: First of all, after you determine the rules of the game, you figure out the easiest and the hardest levels -- levels 1 and 130. Then you start subtracting from level 130, making it easier little by little. In doing this, you are reducing the number of features that change. So once you get the rough idea, you then expand each of the features and fill out the parts in between. Some features are very easy to expand, and some are more difficult. This also affects the number of levels.
Sega.com: In Super Monkey Ball, were there any particular themes that were more difficult to expand?
Nagoshi: Fundamentally, the game doesn't have an enemy. So we have bumpers. Usually, anything that prevents the character from going somewhere is the enemy. In a game without an enemy present, you need to come up with other enemy-like things. But having too many of these bumpers might detract from the game, because you might not be able to concentrate on finding the right path -- you may worry about the bumpers too much. So not overdoing it was a hard thing to do.
Sega.com: In the specific case of Super Monkey Ball, was level 130 really one of the first created?
Nagoshi: We start with a concept, and the order of how it becomes a finished product is really not related to that. But we do have levels that were impossible to finish. Those might have been the real level 130 that we thought about, but we had to detune it and make it a little easier. We also have these in-between points, and when you expand features there, it can change other features that come before it. The tuning part is difficult to do. We had to constantly play the game and reorder it bit by bit, and make it more contiguous.
Sega.com: How was the concept of Super Monkey Ball created?
Nagoshi: It started out with rolling a ball. A long time ago, we had an idea to do a platform game where you stand in the middle and lean while holding a handlebar, and move the screen that way. The idea [for Super Monkey Ball] also drew from there.
Source: Sega
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