• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

StarTopic Nintendo First Party Software Development |ST| Nintendo Party Superstars

Wasn't it actually said or at least speculated that ModuleSystem was a merger of LunchPack and ActionLibrary? Makes a fuckton of sense to me if so.
No. It's likely ModuleSystem is a combination of Lunchpack and KingSystem (the engine created for Breath of the Wild). Both engines were designed at EAD/EPD during Nintendo's first HD generation, so it makes sense they've amalgamated them. Lunchpack first appeared with Nintendo Land and a more developed version was used for most of EPD's Switch titles up until and including 2021 (bar ARMS, Mario Kart 8 DX, BotW, and 3D Mario), before ModuleSystem appeared in 2022 with Switch Sports and Splatoon 3 (and again last year for SMBW and TotK).

ActionLibrary was first used for Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS so predates both Lunchpack and KingSystem; it has roots right back through the Mario Galaxy games on Wii to GameCube titles like DK Jungle Beat and originally Super Mario Sunshine. It's most recently been used for Bowser's Fury and F ZERO 99, so we don't yet know if it'll be retired in favour of ModuleSystem (or combined with that) or if the latest version of ActionLibrary will be used for the next 3D Mario. NST might have used ActionLibrary for F ZERO 99 simply because it's an engine their staff are familiar with; we know NST can also now use ModuleSystem given that's what Mario vs DK was made with.
 
Monolith was invovled with the programming for the BotW DLC and TotK, but I doubt they’ll move over to ModuleSystems for their internal games.
 
What's the difference between the two? Are there any major differences in how they deliver the final product or is it more about better tools for developers? I don't really know that much about game engines.
The choice of engine matters a lot more to developers than players. Most engines have some visible quirks if you know where to look, but it generally shouldn't hugely matter to anyone outside of the devs unless something goes wrong or you're modding/datamining.
 
Unless Nintendo openly talks about it during a developer conference such as GDC we'll never truly know what are the differences between their internal engines tho it's rarely a case of one modern engine being objectively better than another since not every game has the same needs, at least when we're talking a same generation of hardware (so for example if an engine introduces things such as PBR rendering you could consider it "better").

Like mentionned in another thread, EPD might decide to shift in its entirety to Modulesystem to facilitate assets sharing (3d models, textures, materials, animations, rigs, scripts, etc) accross multiple projects as well as guaranteeing a smooth transition from one game to another for artists, progammers, etc.

This obviously doesn't prevent the use of engines like unreal 4 or unity if there is a significant involvment from third party devs that goes beyond assets creation.
It'll be interesting to see if EPD Tokyo next project is also on Modulesystem since they used to have their own engine up to Odyssey according to datamining (and I can't recall what was the deal with 3D World on Switch)
in regards to Nintendo using Module Systems on it next console, i believe Nintendo will use Module System in most of it projects, with the exceptions of Retro Studios, Next Level Games that use it own engines and some games like Pikmin 4-Princess Peach Showtime that use engines such as UE4, Pikmin 5 will problaby use UE5( if the game is also co-developed by Eightining)
 
The choice of engine matters a lot more to developers than players. Most engines have some visible quirks if you know where to look, but it generally shouldn't hugely matter to anyone outside of the devs unless something goes wrong or you're modding/datamining.
This so much. The average gamer talks way too much about video game engines (while understanding almost nothing about what they are or how they work).

The best engine is always the one that lets you do exactly what you need to achieve the goals with the least amount of headache.
 
I find it hard to understand what distinguishes a "new engine" from a succession of updates and iterations. In some cases, like Zelda, it seems quite clear, because you can actually see the paradigm shift, the central importance of physics management in contrast to previous games, etc.

But if we take Retro studios' RUDE engine as an example, the boundary becomes blurred. In the 22 years since the first Metroid Prime, Retro has developed games on 4 different consoles (NGC, Wii, Wii U, Switch), moved to HD, worked on both 3D first-person games and 2D platformers. But they're still using RUDE. So I wonder what distinguishes the many successive improvements and modernizations of Retro's proprietary technology from that of EPD. Is talking about a new engine or a new version of an engine just semantics? Shouldn't we speak of "new engine" and not iteration only when we start from scratch to build and code it?

I mean, to think that Prime 4 will use tools and lines of code that for some were created by people who left the company before Retro even knew it was going to work on Metroid, it's impressive and a little giddy, but it makes me wonder how it's possible that it's not a bit of a mess to keep updating RUDE.
 
I find it hard to understand what distinguishes a "new engine" from a succession of updates and iterations. In some cases, like Zelda, it seems quite clear, because you can actually see the paradigm shift, the central importance of physics management in contrast to previous games, etc.

But if we take Retro studios' RUDE engine as an example, the boundary becomes blurred. In the 22 years since the first Metroid Prime, Retro has developed games on 4 different consoles (NGC, Wii, Wii U, Switch), moved to HD, worked on both 3D first-person games and 2D platformers. But they're still using RUDE. So I wonder what distinguishes the many successive improvements and modernizations of Retro's proprietary technology from that of EPD. Is talking about a new engine or a new version of an engine just semantics? Shouldn't we speak of "new engine" and not iteration only when we start from scratch to build and code it?

I mean, to think that Prime 4 will use tools and lines of code that for some were created by people who left the company before Retro even knew it was going to work on Metroid, it's impressive and a little giddy, but it makes me wonder how it's possible that it's not a bit of a mess to keep updating RUDE.
Game engines are embodiments of the ship of theseus thought experiment. We are never going to know unless we're outright told. But there are some logical break points, like thr move to HD development, the move to 3D, etc.

There's no definition, just vibes
 
Same engine

171026-maniac-mansion-spot1.png


ss_919f791ec4acd24b1c9626f1a6ebeca197239bb3.1920x1080.jpg
 
it's like software version'ing. what distinguishes a 1.5 from a 1.7. from a 1.7.1 from a 1.7.1.1a from a 2.0 is entirely up to anyone's whim and their personal philosophy in this regard. there's no science, no official ruleset behind this. common sense also has little place there. if you want to just keep calling your engine the same name then that's your prerogative, I guess (see that Retro example).
 
This so much. The average gamer talks way too much about video game engines (while understanding almost nothing about what they are or how they work).

The best engine is always the one that lets you do exactly what you need to achieve the goals with the least amount of headache.
The number of people I've seen talk about wanting to see games (re-)made in, like, "the Octopath engine" or "the Dragon Ball FighterZ engine" not realizing it's all just Unreal Engine
 
The number of people I've seen talk about wanting to see games (re-)made in, like, "the Octopath engine" or "the Dragon Ball FighterZ engine" not realizing it's all just Unreal Engine
yea, it's all tied to the general lack of understanding of how a game is made from scratch and the resulting "why don't they just"-line of thought that always follows.
 
Metroid Prime 1 (2002) and Metroid Prime 1 Remastered (2023) run on the same engine.

... Just with two decades of new programming techniques and millions of lines of code added.
 
The number of people I've seen talk about wanting to see games (re-)made in, like, "the Octopath engine" or "the Dragon Ball FighterZ engine" not realizing it's all just Unreal Engine
People saying the inverse "Imagine X in Unreal" as if the engine dictates the artstyle always grinds my gears.
 
I find it hard to understand what distinguishes a "new engine" from a succession of updates and iterations.
The developer's decision to call it a new engine. That's why we call "ModuleSystem" a new engine - it has a new name when datamined. Ship of Theseus is one way to describe it - constantly updating something, and renaming it based on "feel."

Another way would be to think of game engines as Ikea furniture - this seems to have been the EPD strategy. Lots of EPD games are datamined to show a "new" engine, but clearly share significant code with other EPD games, like data loaders. It seems like internally EPD had multiple well maintained pieces of code, and engines are assembled by taking these off the shelf bits (the Ikea bed slats of code), then adding whatever specific bits the game needs.

ModuleSystem, going by datamining, seems to be Nintendo's attempt to invert that. Instead of having a bunch of stock libraries, and teams build their own engine, there is a stock engine, that can be customized with multiple libraries. This is like Unreal, which has a "out of the box, get to work" config, but lets you do things like swap the physics engine if you need to.
 
Peach Showtime credits are already up on YouTube. Only click if you don't mind the spoilers, the video thumbnail shows most of the game's bosses and the credits roll itself shows screens from across the game:



Developer shouldn't be a shock anymore but if anyone was truly still doubtful:

0jXcifu.png


Produced and Directed by Etsunobu Ebisu himself; I don't believe he's directed a game since Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon until now.


I’ll continue wishing Nintendo wouldn’t make these developers so secret until the day of release, but still nice to see Good Feel continue working with them.

Feels wild that this is the first time in about 25 years since Ebisu’s been in the director’s seat; I really wish we could get an interview confirming how that return came about.
 
0
After playing the new Peach game for a while, doesn't it give you the feeling that it was a 3DS game that at some point it was decided to move it to switch? I say this because of the camera position, the fact that it's fixed and the design of the stages.

I don't know why but it reminded me of Luigi Mansion 2.
 
After playing the new Peach game for a while, doesn't it give you the feeling that it was a 3DS game that at some point it was decided to move it to switch? I say this because of the camera position, the fact that it's fixed and the design of the stages.

I don't know why but it reminded me of Luigi Mansion 2.
Not really. The camera is fixed where it is because basically the whole game is framed as a series of stage plays. Within that aesthetic, it makes sense that the camera would stick mostly to a very specific angle.
 
Not really. The camera is fixed where it is because basically the whole game is framed as a series of stage plays. Within that aesthetic, it makes sense that the camera would stick mostly to a very specific angle.
Yes, you may be right. I am enjoying the game anyways. Music is (surprisingly) good.
 
Yes, you may be right. I am enjoying the game anyways. Music is (surprisingly) good.
Also in a meta sense, fixed cameras are very helpful to simplify controls. Free camera control is one of the biggest barriers for completely new gamers.

On top of that, fixed cameras also allow you to better optimize games to look even better than normal. You only need to look at Super Mario RPG remake and Luigi's Mansion 3 for that.

There's still a lot of good reasons to use fixed cameras that almost every other developer has completely forgotten about.
 
Had another thing I was curious about and had the time to take a look at the credits for, this time SMO. Its been awhile for EPD8 so I was curious what it look like: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6eG9ZpT0FL74CyoB_yxgesVH2bD62S5uKsh7CXJ9gs/edit?usp=sharing

I use * as a way to note they worked on stuff non-Nintendo stuff after SMO, but do not write in the games, and this doc as of now is only from SMO onwards for credits. It looks like the field and character modeling were outsourced mostly? (using the credits of what else the staff worked on before and after)

And since 1-Up works on both this and RFA/ACNH, it means they share a lot of staff. I counted a few games for fun.

SM3DWBF- 33 shared (43 with special thanks)
RFA- 40 shared (41 with special thanks)
ACNH- 17 shared (23 with special thanks)
TOTK- 16 shared (20 with special thanks)
27 people have no credits after SMO

Some random trivia is the technical director and programming lead of TOTK worked as advisers on SMO. Also more were on the Nintendo side of things for Age of Calamity and SMO than I expected. SM3DWBF shared not that much, but makes sense since NST was involved there. Since they are all listed as staff for that game, I simply left position blank. Its also cool to see how diverse the games worked on by the VFX artists were.

I didn't fill out everything for the three on technical support and Koji Kondo due how long their post SMO credits were, but everything else Nintendo should be accounted for.

I don't much to say otherwise or any point, just think I should share these kind of things here.

Edit: whoops, I didn't realize that since I only used Mobygames, they don't have Booster Pass or Side Order there. So I looked at them a bit. I only looked at the people last seen since either SMO or SM3DWBF, but will probably check all of it out eventually.

So three people last seen on SMO were on MK8DBP, which means now its 24 staff not seen since SMO. For BF, one person was on Side Order among what I checked.
I guess I should check what is available for mobile games post SMO as well. But anyways, the document is already updated with BP/Side Order.
 
Last edited:
I mean, to think that Prime 4 will use tools and lines of code that for some were created by people who left the company before Retro even knew it was going to work on Metroid, it's impressive and a little giddy, but it makes me wonder how it's possible that it's not a bit of a mess to keep updating RUDE.

It helps that Retro still has two engineers that worked on the original Prime, at least as of Remastered's completion. They would know the ins and outs of the engine and be able to mentor the newer members of the team.

Also, it was extremely advantageous that the Prime series already had all that tech to allow for third person elements, as it must have made it easier for them to iterate on when they moved onto Donkey Kong.
 
After playing the new Peach game for a while, doesn't it give you the feeling that it was a 3DS game that at some point it was decided to move it to switch? I say this because of the camera position, the fact that it's fixed and the design of the stages.

I don't know why but it reminded me of Luigi Mansion 2.
Nope
 
Side Order famitsu interview
 
I don’t know what to think about arms. On the one hand, I really like the visual and musical world, and I am always delighted when Nintendo takes the risk of launching new licenses. On the other hand, the game seemed to me to lack content, like splatoon at the beginning but which corrected this problem afterwards.

A part of me also wants that after focusing on multiplayer, the people who take care of Mario kart try to use their know-how to invent a completely unexpected solo game.
 
On the other hand, the game seemed to me to lack content, like splatoon at the beginning but which corrected this problem afterwards.
If there’s one major criticism of Nintendo this generation, it’s drip feeding content for barebones multiplayer games to try and keep attention on the game. It just backfires and causes people to lose interest.
 
If there’s one major criticism of Nintendo this generation, it’s drip feeding content for barebones multiplayer games to try and keep attention on the game. It just backfires and causes people to lose interest.
I’m not so sure that holds true for most people. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo has data that says the opposite, especially considering it’s something they keep doing. Personally, even if I don’t always necessarily prefer this approach (though in most cases I don’t really mind it at all), I can’t deny that it absolutely has kept me playing these type of games longer. I was consistently playing ARMS (and other games with similar content rollouts like Splatoon 2, Nintendo Switch Sports, etc.) throughout the life of its content updates…and then pretty much dropped it entirely once that was done. But I would have dropped it to focus on other games much sooner if it didn’t have regular updates and Party Crash events. It being “barebones” at launch was never really an issue for me because, again, the content updates gave me reason to stick with it. I think the alternative—holding the game back to release later but with all the content included at launch—would have honestly been much worse for the game’s longevity.
 
Had another thing I was curious about and had the time to take a look at the credits for, this time SMO. Its been awhile for EPD8 so I was curious what it look like: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6eG9ZpT0FL74CyoB_yxgesVH2bD62S5uKsh7CXJ9gs/edit?usp=sharing

I use * as a way to note they worked on stuff non-Nintendo stuff after SMO, but do not write in the games, and this doc as of now is only from SMO onwards for credits. It looks like the field and character modeling were outsourced mostly? (using the credits of what else the staff worked on before and after)

And since 1-Up works on both this and RFA/ACNH, it means they share a lot of staff. I counted a few games for fun.

SM3DWBF- 33 shared (43 with special thanks)
RFA- 40 shared (41 with special thanks)
ACNH- 17 shared (23 with special thanks)
TOTK- 16 shared (20 with special thanks)
27 people have no credits after SMO

Some random trivia is the technical director and programming lead of TOTK worked as advisers on SMO. Also more were on the Nintendo side of things for Age of Calamity and SMO than I expected. SM3DWBF shared not that much, but makes sense since NST was involved there. Since they are all listed as staff for that game, I simply left position blank. Its also cool to see how diverse the games worked on by the VFX artists were.

I didn't fill out everything for the three on technical support and Koji Kondo due how long their post SMO credits were, but everything else Nintendo should be accounted for.

I don't much to say otherwise or any point, just think I should share these kind of things here.

Edit: whoops, I didn't realize that since I only used Mobygames, they don't have Booster Pass or Side Order there. So I looked at them a bit. I only looked at the people last seen since either SMO or SM3DWBF, but will probably check all of it out eventually.

So three people last seen on SMO were on MK8DBP, which means now its 24 staff not seen since SMO. For BF, one person was on Side Order among what I checked.
I guess I should check what is available for mobile games post SMO as well. But anyways, the document is already updated with BP/Side Order.
EPD8 barely existing on this gen is certainly one of the biggest mystery to me. I wonder what happened for only Odyssey to exist, even Koizumi barely has been in any credits
 
EPD8 barely existing on this gen is certainly one of the biggest mystery to me. I wonder what happened for only Odyssey to exist, even Koizumi barely has been in any credits
I'm guessing their knee deep, when it comes to making games for the switch 2 and the only game they've created was an add on which was bowser fury.
 
EPD8 barely existing on this gen is certainly one of the biggest mystery to me. I wonder what happened for only Odyssey to exist, even Koizumi barely has been in any credits
Eh, I don't think it's that weird. 3D Mario has always been a one game per generation anyway. (obviously Galaxy 2 and Bowser's Fury being the exceptions)

And with Koizumi moving up to executive-level position. It's likely his day job as a developer is gone now.
 
One of the many reasons why I'm very, very hopeful for a new DK for EPD 8 is that it will put an end to this conversation. We'd go from "they haven't done anything since Odyssey" to "wow, they've got both a new Mario and a new DK".
 
Eh, I don't think it's that weird. 3D Mario has always been a one game per generation anyway. (obviously Galaxy 2 and Bowser's Fury being the exceptions)
That was really only true during for the N64 and Gamecube generations tbh

Wii/DS generation had the two Galaxy games (and 64DS), WiiU/3DS generation had 3D Land and World. They've been doing pairs of new 3D Mario games in a single generation for a while at this point
 
MonolithSoft uses their own custom engine for every game they've made since Torna, right? Do we have any other specifics about it?
Forgive my ignorance, especially if it's been covered here before, but can I ask for some more information on this?

What engines did MonolithSoft use up until Torna? Do we know?

Is this inclusive of Torna, but not 2 somehow?
 
Forgive my ignorance, especially if it's been covered here before, but can I ask for some more information on this?

What engines did MonolithSoft use up until Torna? Do we know?

Is this inclusive of Torna, but not 2 somehow?
They were using custom engines before Torna. I think the user is perhaps referencing Takahashi's comments that Torna used a new rendering engine which was different to XBC2, so not an entirely new game engine. But as far as I know they'd been using custom engines before that including for XBC2 itself.
 
They were using custom engines before Torna. I think the user is perhaps referencing Takahashi's comments that Torna used a new rendering engine which was different to XBC2, so not an entirely new game engine. But as far as I know they'd been using custom engines before that including for XBC2 itself.
Thanks! I guess their situation is similar to EPD as is being discussed, iterating on a custom engine and updating it over time as needed.

It's really interesting to me how engines can and do change significantly from base game to DLC.

If I'm not mistaken, Splatoon 2 and Octo Expansion have some significant differences under the hood, do we know anything about that? (Maybe I'm misremembering though.)
 
Last edited:
No. It's likely ModuleSystem is a combination of Lunchpack and KingSystem (the engine created for Breath of the Wild). Both engines were designed at EAD/EPD during Nintendo's first HD generation, so it makes sense they've amalgamated them. Lunchpack first appeared with Nintendo Land and a more developed version was used for most of EPD's Switch titles up until and including 2021 (bar ARMS, Mario Kart 8 DX, BotW, and 3D Mario), before ModuleSystem appeared in 2022 with Switch Sports and Splatoon 3 (and again last year for SMBW and TotK).

ActionLibrary was first used for Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS so predates both Lunchpack and KingSystem; it has roots right back through the Mario Galaxy games on Wii to GameCube titles like DK Jungle Beat and originally Super Mario Sunshine. It's most recently been used for Bowser's Fury and F ZERO 99, so we don't yet know if it'll be retired in favour of ModuleSystem (or combined with that) or if the latest version of ActionLibrary will be used for the next 3D Mario. NST might have used ActionLibrary for F ZERO 99 simply because it's an engine their staff are familiar with; we know NST can also now use ModuleSystem given that's what Mario vs DK was made with.
I always thought 3D Land kinda resembled Mario galaxy Somehow in how it felt. I guess the same engine makes sense. IV played hundreds of hours of both games lol
 
That was really only true during for the N64 and Gamecube generations tbh

Wii/DS generation had the two Galaxy games (and 64DS), WiiU/3DS generation had 3D Land and World. They've been doing pairs of new 3D Mario games in a single generation for a while at this point
I wish we got another 3d mario game on switch. But it is nice to have all stars and 3d world to jump between when im not playing odyssey.
 
That was really only true during for the N64 and Gamecube generations tbh

Wii/DS generation had the two Galaxy games (and 64DS), WiiU/3DS generation had 3D Land and World. They've been doing pairs of new 3D Mario games in a single generation for a while at this point
While I did forgot about 3D Land, both 3DS and Wii U still only had one 3D Mario game to claim. But I see your point.
 
While I did forgot about 3D Land, both 3DS and Wii U still only had one 3D Mario game to claim. But I see your point.
I think the idea is that both go together as the pair of 3D Marios for that generation. It's less about per-platform and more per hardware generation. Which is now moot with Switch being both and thus there being two original Marios on the platform (Odyssey and Bowser's Fury) in addition to a bunch of updated re-releases.
 
Remember that Omega 6 game for Switch created by Takara Imamura, creator of Star Fox and F-Zero? Doubt it as it was shockingly muted. Anyway the silence will finally be broken on April 2nd and he even brought long time ago Nintendo composer Shinobu Amayake, who did Stunt Race FX, Wario's Woods NES, and a couple others but had been quiet for many years it seemed.


It's actually been stealth announced for the west already funny enough:

 
Eh, I don't think it's that weird. 3D Mario has always been a one game per generation anyway. (obviously Galaxy 2 and Bowser's Fury being the exceptions)

And with Koizumi moving up to executive-level position. It's likely his day job as a developer is gone now.
I don't mean another big AAA of course, I dont expect a new mario. But not even a smaller title surprised me, after Odyssey I definitely expected more. As for Koizumi, it just feels weird to me because Takahashi and Tezuka are also on the board and on the leadership of EPD and you see them in credits all the time, but koizumi is barely existent in the gen. Its funny because in the beginning a lot of us thought he would be a lot active but as far as development in the era, he has been distant and honestly i only remember of him when he appears in the directs.
 
That was really only true during for the N64 and Gamecube generations tbh

Wii/DS generation had the two Galaxy games (and 64DS), WiiU/3DS generation had 3D Land and World. They've been doing pairs of new 3D Mario games in a single generation for a while at this point
I think for 64 it wouldn't be a thing, unless they had the same staff. iirc tokyo began in the beginning of the 2000s with some staff of kyoto going to tokyo including koizumi so unless it was the same people, it would be a first with sunshine.
 


Back
Top Bottom