LudoScience

History of videogames (biography)

Author(s) : William Audureau
Editor : Editions Pix'n Love
Publication date : 01-01-2014
Language : french

The first part of a non-official biography of Shigeru Miyamoto, famous creator of Mario and Zelda. William Audureau, a keen expert of his works, invites us to a journey through his life, from his childhood to the release of the first Zelda episode in 1986. In the absence of a direct involvement from Miyamoto in the book, the author relies on more than 150 of his interviews published in press, alongside with a trip to Japan. Very easy and pleasant to read, this book manages to go beyond "instant genius" image usually associated to Shigeru Miyamoto. Instead of the myth, the book tries to present us the man he really is. Born in 1952, in a small country town, he grow up before the rise of video games. Failing to became a mangaka, he studies industrial design. Thanks to one of his father's connection, he gets hired at Nintendo, then a middle-sized toy company. His first tasks are far from extraordinary: he illustrates playing cards, he design the shells of Nintendo's Pong consoles, and create graphics for the first video game created by the company. Despite a heavy working capacity, his perfectionism and his great intellectual curiosity, he remains a simple illustrator. Luck finally offers him a real opportunity with the Donkey Kong project, for which he works under the direction of the wonderful Gunpei Yokoi. Miyamoto's ambition helps him to use this experience to show his outstanding skills at creating characters, while Nintendo is elaborating the NES. Miyamoto is then offered to co-run a game creation team for this new machine. Kung-Fu, Devil World and Excite Bike helps him to perfect his game design skills with his new colleague, Takashi Tezuka. The creative duo then proceed to create Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. The rich story of these two games is brilliantly told throughout the book. Overall, it's a captivating book about an equally captivating man.