Image: Nintendo
If you’re a Wii Sports veteran, one of the first things you’ll notice when you play Nintendo Switch Sports is the new avatars. While they seem like a natural evolution alongside Mii, during the development of Switch Sports, Nintendo experimented with all sorts of different character designs.
In the latest translation of Nintendo’s ‘Ask the Developer’ series, the Switch Sports team showed some other character concepts that didn’t make it to the cut. Some proposals included student and college characters, round-shaped characters, and even robots with an avatar controlling them from the inside!
Junji Morii (Art Director): “Even before we decided to start again, we had proposed different types of character illustrations. At first, we proposed round-shaped characters without arms or legs, similar to Mii characters. “We also created characters from college students who looked like that with an interuniversity sports theme.”
Takayuki Shimamura (Producer): I remember we had the weirdest characters that looked like robots. (River)
Morii: When we decided to restart the project from scratch and were told that we would start creating the world’s most inviting motion-based game again, I asked, “Are you sure we can’t go this far?” (River)
Image: Nintendo
The player is inside the robot, but it is the robot that moves when the Joy-Con controller moves. The robot is the one who does the bowling.
What? Do you control the robot?
Yoshikazu Yamashita (Director): Yes, you handle this robot and the robot throws the ball. I know it doesn’t make sense. You may also be wondering how big this bowling alley is. (River)
Image: Nintendo
Morii: At first, everyone was so excited about this robot idea that we all thought, “It could be fun!” We even made a prototype, but when we saw the robot on the screen and moved it, a blanket of silence fell on everyone.
All: (river)
Okane: That would make the gameplay about operating a robot.
Yamashita: The player controls the robot’s character to make it work. Then the robot throws the ball. There are too many steps in between.
In the end, the Nintendo Switch Sports development team decided to play it safe and go with a design that looked like a human being, also known as “Sportsmates.”
Image: Nintendo
What do you think of the final character designs at Nintendo Switch Sports? How about these conceptual ideas? Leave a comment below.