Splatoon

Splatoon lets players choose gyro aiming or analogue stick aiming. Motion controls can be turned off in favour of traditional twin-stick aiming, so players who cannot shake a device, or cannot stop shaking it, can still play the same game.

Star Fox Zero uses a similar gyro system but removes the option, and expert players say they wish it had more control choices. Nintendo also forced motion in Twilight Princess, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Super Mario Odyssey.

A local option locks team colours to light orange and dark blue. Because team colour pairs change between matches, Splatoon lets players fix them to a readable pair. It applies only on the console of the player who chose it, so no one else's view changes.

"so players will never come across a colour combination they can't see."

The team with more ink naturally gets more cover and faster travel. Splatoon's feedback loop comes straight from its rules: ground covered in ink is where a team can hide and swim quickly, so the leading team gains an advantage without any added system.

Tekken is the contrast: losing a round gives no advantage or disadvantage in the next, so it has no loop.

Splatoon started from one fresh interaction: shooting ink. Nintendo often begins a game with a new way to play, and in Splatoon that was ink shooting. The gimmick became the core, and nearly everything else was built to support and frame it.

The same pattern shows up in Luigi's Mansion, which grew from the vacuum, and Super Mario Odyssey, which grew from the hat throw. "This gimmick then becomes the core of the game, with pretty much everything else being used to support and frame that delicious nugget of interactivity."

The graffiti feel of inking set Splatoon's punk, 90s art and music. Shooting ink felt like spraying graffiti, which gave the game its punky look, punk rock music and 90s aesthetic. The core mechanic is echoed in the style instead of a theme being picked first.

Super Mario Sunshine followed the same path: its water pistol made designers think of summer, so it is set on a tropical island.

Reloading and wall climbing were folded into the ink actions, with no extra buttons. Players shoot ink on a surface, then swim in it to refill their gun or scale a wall. New mechanics hang off the two main actions instead of getting their own inputs.

"No extra buttons required."

The prototype was a white block; the squid kids came later to fit the mechanics. Early Splatoon prototypes had players controlling a big white block. Squid kids were chosen afterwards as characters that could swim in ink and clearly separate inking from swimming.

Producer Hisashi Nogami: "we then conceived the characters and the world vision to match perfectly with the gameplay."

The graffiti feel of inking set Splatoon's punk, 90s art and music. Shooting ink felt like spraying graffiti, which gave the game its punky look, punk rock music and 90s aesthetic. The core mechanic is echoed in the style instead of a theme being picked first.

Super Mario Sunshine followed the same path: its water pistol made designers think of summer, so it is set on a tropical island.

Splatoon lets players choose gyro aiming or analogue stick aiming. Motion controls can be turned off in favour of traditional twin-stick aiming, so players who cannot shake a device, or cannot stop shaking it, can still play the same game.

Star Fox Zero uses a similar gyro system but removes the option, and expert players say they wish it had more control choices. Nintendo also forced motion in Twilight Princess, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Super Mario Odyssey.