NUK: It’s been a great reaction to watch. It really seems that gamers around the world can see what this means to you and are happy for you.

DS: I believe so, and I think it’s something I will never forget. I will probably create a still from that conference and frame it in my house. Because it doesn’t happen every day to have a legend on stage presenting a game you did using his characters. It’s more than honorary, it’s an occasion of a lifetime as they say.

Still today I cannot process it entirely. It’s happening but it’s so fast. I was not ready. People queued for three hours at E3 and then said they liked it even after three hours of queuing!

NUK: By creating a turn-based strategy game with Mario and Rabbids, you’ve done something completely unexpected when the obvious thing would have been to create a platform game. How did that come about?

DS: The first time I met Miyamoto he told me, “I’m impressed, but please don’t make a platform game out of this.” There is Mario jumping in our game, but it is translated in our game so it’s a Team Jump, it’s different, and he loved that. That was one of the first rules, to find new ideas.

If you’re curious about what inspired us, it was multiple games to be honest. Many tactical games, but even action games and racing games. You won’t believe me, but one of our references as a team was Mario Kart. We said, “How cool could combat be if it was like Mario Kart but without the kart, on foot?” That’s why, in our game, you have weapons that do not just deal damage but can also use a super effect that applies a special behaviour to the enemies, such as burning.

So you can burn the bottom of enemies that start to run on the battleground and there is propagation, so if an enemy on fire touches another unit or even a hero they will start to run with their bottom on fire too! This is something that we call, internally, the “domino effect.” So the intention was to create a tactical game with strategic decisions but also to make it new… Very dynamic, very action-oriented.