NUK: What was it about combining Mario with the world of Rabbids that you thought could work so well?

DS: The answer is the contrast. Mario is a well known hero. Rabbids are well known chaotic creatures. So we said, “If we combine the humour of that contrast and the gameplay mechanics that we can invent because of this contrast, we can bring something new." I love the idea of the Rabbids, throughout the game, learning how to become heroes from Mario, and Mario learning how to crack a joke.

NUK: There must have been many pitch meetings between Ubisoft and Nintendo. How did they go?

DS: After we felt as a team that we had something solid, Ubisoft contacted Nintendo and said, “We want to propose the idea.” We were not expecting to meet Nintendo super soon, but the meeting was about three weeks later and we said, “Oh my God, it’s super early!”

We felt that we had to do something special for this pitch. We wanted to avoid any Powerpoint presentation or any design document that would have been boring and ineffective. So we said, “We should work like crazy and go there with a playable prototype.”

When I arrived in front of Miyamoto-san, who is the creator of the games I prefer the most, who inspired my whole career as a games designer, I felt split in two between the urgency to ask for an autograph and at the same time the responsibility to present the idea in the most professional way.

But he loved it! He said, “I’m impressed!” I was not expecting such a reaction. Then he asked me, “Where did you get the Mario and Luigi from, because they look identical to the Nintendo versions?” The truth is that we were so crazy, we wanted this game to happen so much, that even with only three weeks we recreated Mario and Luigi from scratch in order to bring the essence of those two characters to our prototype. I think that this was the moment where we convinced Nintendo of our passion and commitment.