#Animal crossing logo leaf software
#Animal crossing logo leaf series

'Because Animal Crossing encourages communication, it might have helped the team.' They enjoyed celebrating holidays and birthdays together, and during development they would chat about turnip prices, visit each other's towns when bell payouts were high and leave presents for their hosts. 'It might have had something to do with the subdued mood in the game,' she said. In-game interactions that foster real world conversations were beneficial to New Leaf's development team as well, Kyogoku said. 'Our team was told that we didn't have sense of tension that was so common ,' she said. 'Because Animal Crossing encourages communication, it might have helped the team.' Animal Crossing players talk about their experiences, share holidays, give each other presents and visit each other virtually in the game, often bypassing the obstacles that would prevent them from doing the same thing in real life. 'Through shared interest in a video game, an opportunity to speak in real life is ,' she said. Kyogoku said she sees Animal Crossing as a 'communication tool.' You talk to animals, talk to other players in the game and talk to other people about your experiences in real life. 'Because you can do so much and there isn't a clear goal,' she said, 'this is a tough question for us to answer, even though we develop the game.'

That also meant answering a difficult question: What do you do in Animal Crossing? Rather than just adding new animals, new furniture and other new content, Nintendo EAD needed to rethink the core of Animal Crossing and 'what players found enjoyment in and kept them coming back for long stretches of time.'

#Animal crossing logo leaf series

They looked closely at series fatigue and long-held gameplay conventions that the team felt reluctant to change after the success of Animal Crossing: Wild World for Nintendo DS. 'With Animal Crossing: City Folk, it was clear the series had challenges we needed to overcome,' she said. While diversity on the development team was important to New Leaf's wide acceptance and financial success, communication was also an important factor in the design of the fourth Animal Crossing game, Kyogoku said.Īfter the release of Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii in 2008, a game not as warmly received as its predecessors, Kyogoku said the team aimed to get back to the roots of what makes Animal Crossing fun and get back to the series' roots.

#Animal crossing logo leaf software

(Eguchi also lamented how hard it was to get a limited edition New Leaf Nintendo 3DS for his daughter, as the game's popularity lead to hardware and software shortages in Japan upon release.) It has also driven hardware sales, helping push Nintendo 3DS sales to more than 42.7 million. The latest game for Nintendo 3DS, Eguchi said, has sole more than 7.3 million copies worldwide. Since launching on Nintendo 64, Animal Crossing has evolved from a franchise that sold in the hundreds of thousands of copies to the millions. That diversity was ultimately not limited to the content of one title, he explained, and expanded to other titles that Nintendo develops. 'In hindsight, I feel as though we might have taken the correct approach,' Eguchi said. In order to view the project from a variety of perspectives, he said, they brought on team members of varying backgrounds with varying life experiences. 'We are still in the minority,' she said, but the ratio between men and women is evening out.Įguchi said that when he began working working on Animal Crossing as its lead designer, 'we wanted to ensure it would be something that men and women of all ages would have fun playing.' Kyogoku said that when she started at Nintendo EAD, the group that makes Mario, Zelda and Animal Crossing games, she was the division's first female game designer. 'When there are women in a variety of roles on the project, you get a wider of ideas' 'So when you are trying to create something that will appeal to many types of people, I have experienced how beneficial it is to have diversity on your team.' In my years at Nintendo, I have come to discover that when there are women in a variety of roles on the project, you get a wider of ideas. 'I always felt welcome and I never felt awkward. 'When I was starting in the game industry, it wasn't uncommon to be the only woman on the entire team,' Kyogoku said. Her colleague at Nintendo, Animal Crossing producer Katsuya Eguchi, echoed that opinion, saying diversity on the New Leaf team contributed not only to the diversity of content in the game, it better represented the game's target audience. Diversity on the development team behind Animal Crossing: New Leaf - and drawing upon the ideas of men and women from a variety of ages and backgrounds - was important to the game's appeal to a broad range of players, New Leaf project leader Aya Kyogoku said at her GDC panel today.