With each new trailer and demo, Super Mario 3D World looks better than ever. This week, Nintendo held a special roundtable presentation, where legendary Nintendo designer and producer Shigeru Miyamoto was joined by Super Mario 3D World producer Yoshiaki Koizumi and co-director Kenta Motokura to talk about the game’s development.

Yoshiaki Koizumi (left), Shigeru Miyamoto (center), and Kenta Motokura (right) are the masterminds behind Super Mario 3D World.

Where 3D and 2D Collide

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Cat Suits Involve More Skill Than You Think

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How Nintendo Makes Multiplayer a Little Different

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Miyamoto provided insight into the design of Super Mario 3D World and why the name felt significant to him. We all remember the trio of Mario games for the NES, but it was the SNES title Super Mario World that first used it in 1990. The ideas of the 2D side scroller Mario games were later inherited by the New Super Mario Bros. series. Meanwhile, the 3D Mario games continued to evolve as a separate series, from the memorable Mario 64 all the way to Super Mario Galaxy 2.“It was in following that game with Super Mario 3D Land that we tried to combine elements of those two series, the side-scroller and 3D, by incorporating the ease of play from one and the ability to explore and move freely in 3D from the other, ” Miyamoto explained.Taking ideas from Super Mario 3D Land and raising them to the highest level imaginable led to the creation of Super Mario 3D World. The change in title from Land to World was very significant to Miyamoto, and he also elaborated on why they chose to keep the word ‘3D’. "The inclusion of '3D' here, of course, is meant to mean that it’s still a 3D world, not that it’s a stereoscopic view like on 3DS, which I guess is a little funny for some people when you get tripped up on it," Miyamoto said. "But really, it just represents us taking ideas from these two series and raising them to this new level.""We're trying to take elements from a 2D Mario – which is easy to play, where you understand where the goal is, and there’s a certain simplicity there – as well as this other series, where you run around freely in 3D and have all these different fun actions. We’re trying to combine both of those together in a single game."Producer Yoshiaki Koizumi talked about a few interesting ideas the developers tried to implement into Super Mario 3D World. "You may have been able to gather this from our appearance at E3 with the paws and the ears, but the thing we’re trying to focus on with people the most is the element of the Cat Mario that you play in this game, " Koizumi said."The reason we decided incorporate the cat transformation in this game is not just because it’s cute – although of course that doesn’t hurt – but rather because when you’re trying to design a game that’s a combination of these 2D and 3D elements, you’re looking for something that’s easy for anyone to play, and also has a high degree of freedom, " Koizumi explained. "We felt like Cat Mario was especially well-suited to achieving both of those goals together."When people think about the classic gameplay of the Super Mario series, they think about the common actions like punching blocks, jumping over obstacles, or stomping on enemies. Naturally, all of these rely on the jump action. But in this case, Nintendo started thinking about it in a different way by letting players climb up walls. The developers hope this new element will be attractive to people experiencing this kind of game for the first time.Apparently, there's a lot more skill involved with the cat suits than we initially thought. According to Koizumi, players are not limited to simply stomping enemies. The cat suit also uses claws as a means to attack enemies in front of a player. He emphasized that even the developers believe these actions will be very comfortable for new players, they haven’t left veteran players out in the cold. "As you guys probably learned, you’re able to climb walls as Cat Mario, but you can also do this diagonal pounce from mid-air. There are all sorts of acrobatic actions that Cat Mario can perform. You can chase after enemies and slide into them, " Koizumi said.Koizumi pointed out there are also interesting, comical actions and slightly more challenging ones that players will have to use experimentation to figure out. He used transferring from wall to wall in the cat suit as just one example. "This means that even in the same course, you’ll be able to consider all sorts of different routes and find new shortcuts and have different ways of playing through, " Koizumi explained. "This kind of variety is really good for advanced players, people who are looking for a new challenge."Co-Director Kenta Motokura talked to us about the differences in character design and the advantages of giving unique abilities to each of the playable characters. The team set up Mario as the general, easy to use character. Peach has the ability to float in mid-air, which makes her easy to use for beginners. Toad is very fast, and Luigi has a really high jump."You can choose which one matches your own personal preference in play style, or the layout of the course you’re about to play. Cat Mario also makes an appearance very early on in the game, so we hope that stands out as something attractive that will bring people into the experience, " Motokura said. "Another way to think of it is that there’s a lot of replayability, when one course can offer four different experiences if you choose to play as each of the four playable characters.""I believe that Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Miyamoto discussed quite a bit about what sort of commonality this game should share with Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the other games that inspired it, " Motokura said. "In addition to all those shared elements, I think you can feel the sense of this common universe among all of them, with a couple of new ideas thrown in, like the clear pipes and Cat Mario.""And so when we were trying to think about how to create a fun gameplay experience, we came up with a few different things. For example, we ended up asking our team members, where do you guys go on dates? What sort of things do you like to do for fun? Just to come up with some real world implications for how to capture the same emotion, the same experience of having fun, in a game like this.""I hope that everyone, children and adults, sees this and feels attracted to having the ability to play in this catlike form, " Miyamoto said in conclusion. "I think you’ll see some returning elements from previous games, like the white tanuki suit, or even the regular tanuki suit, as well as the boomerang suit, as well as all sorts of new elements that you haven’t seen in any game like this before. So many that, sometimes, you’ll notice new ones that are specific to individual courses. You’re exploring all of this and experiencing it with four-player multiplayer. I hope you have a great time."

Jose Otero is an Associate Editor for IGN and host of the Nintendo Voice Chat podcast. Following him on twitter to read more musings about Nintendo.