29. Game 79: Kazuaki Morita produced and programmed "Ice Climber". Kazuaki Morita has later said he considered "Ice Climber" his "warm-up" for his next project, which was what?
From Quiz Let's Play 53: IGN's Best NES Games Ever: 80-71
Answer:
Super Mario Bros.
After developing "Ice Climber", Morita was assigned as one of the main programmers for the original "Super Mario Bros." The characters from "Ice Climber" would go on to feature in the "Super Smash Bros." series.
According to Morita, the famous turtle cheat where you can get unlimited lives in "Super Mario Bros." was actually an accident. He is also the principal reason why fishing was introduced into the "Zelda" series, as one of his passions is fishing.
Here is a portion of an interview with Morita from the official "Zelda" website from Nintendo:
"The programming behind Nintendo's games, and my own approach to it, has changed vastly since the mid 1980s. The first game that I programmed, Ice Climber, was my warm-up on the NES, then I dove into the fascinating task of working on the code for 'Super Mario Bros'. And I had a real scare related to that project, which really taught me the importance of flawless code. Ever hear of the "unlimited Mario" cheat? The exact way to do it is a little complicated, but it involved the player setting up a scenario that allows Mario to bounce up and down on the same Koopa shell again and again and again. Points go up and up, leading to a steady flow of 1-Ups. I remember when we first heard about that cheat. We got a phone call from some kid, and Mr. Miyamoto and I both thought the call was a hoax--that such a thing was impossible! The programming was perfect . . . wasn't it? Well, we verified that the cheat worked. Fortunately, very fortunately, the "unlimited Mario" cheat had a ton of PR value as word spread, because I sweated bullets over what might happen!"
"Speaking of other groundbreaking projects, I still fondly recall how games like 'Doki Doki Panic'--the foundation for 'Super Mario Bros. 2' in North America--really stimulated my imagination as a programmer. That game was released for the Famicon Disk System in Japan, which--back in the day--was a truly fascinating system from a programming point of view. Of course, disk systems are common now, but then we were just exploring how the disk worked as an immense memory reservoir, which let me toy with many programming methods that I couldn't do with ROM. Working with my design partner, and getting very little guidance from others, we developed 'Doki Doki Panic' in ways that really pushed my skills. I really matured as a programmer during that time. Very interesting work.
Looking back, I'm very fortunate to have been one of the main programmers working on almost every game in the 'Zelda' series since it first began, since my programming has helped make 'Zelda' such a part of history. Now it's interesting to see how things have changed. While I used to do all of the programming for NES games, now I supervise a whole programming team, though I still do code myself, too, since I believe that staying very close to the art of programming is extremely important. Sometimes I feel myself thinking--when I see what some of the newer faces around Nintendo are conceiving--that such-and-such concept isn't true 'Zelda'! Listen to me! I have 20 years of experience here! But, really, having the fresh thoughts of young talents working on 'Twilight Princess' has really opened my eyes, and that makes me remember those first days working with Mr. Miyamoto on the first 'Zelda'. It's always essential to keep your mind open and learn from new ideas. I've known Mr. Miyamoto for many, many years. It's fascinating to watch him work now. On the surface, he looks like a perfectly pleasant middle-aged guy. But watch him make decisions! His words are extremely precise. His explanations carry a lot of weight. I never fail to be impressed by how he helps people grow and learn about game development. Which brings us back to 'Twilight Princess'. As I prepare to cook in the kitchen, I'm seeing extraordinary ingredients coming my way. If our programming can bring all of these flavors together, and with our help also add a touch of light-world zest and dark-world grit as needed, you can bet that 'Twilight Princess' will be the kind of memorable dish that will live up to the entire history of 'Zelda'."
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