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Franchise: Animal Crossing

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K.K. Slider is based on the game's sound designer Kazumi Totaka. K.K. Slider's Japanese name "Totakeke" is taken from the fact that in Japan, last names are written first, so it would be Totaka Kazumi. That can be shortened to "Totaka K" very similar to "Totakeke". Totaka has also hidden music in every Animal Crossing game, and at least twelve other games. People now search for the hidden music in his games, which is known as "Totaka's Song".

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 28, 2013

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Franchise: Animal Crossing

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The Gyroids bear a strong resemblance to Haniwa; clay figures made for ritual use and buried with the dead. This explains why Gyroids can only be obtained by digging, and also implies that you have just dug up someone's grave. This likeness is referenced in the Japanese version of Animal Crossing: City Folk, where the auction house owner Lloid is named "Haniwa-Kun".

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 27, 2013

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Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat (1992)

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Johnny Cage is based on Jean-Claude Van Damme. The creators wanted Van Damme to be in the first Mortal Kombat, but Van Damme was unable to due to his busy work schedule. Johnny Cage's clothes in this game are almost identical to the clothes Van Damme wore in the last match in the movie "Bloodsport", and his Split Punch is taken directly from a move done by Van Damme in Bloodsport. Cage's Nutcracker Split Punch was also inspired by Bloodsport.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 26, 2013

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Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man (1982)

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Ms. Pac-Man originally started out as an unlawfully modified version of the Pac-Man arcade game called "Crazy Otto". Crazy Otto was bought by Pac-Man's North American distributor Midway, and rebranded as Ms. Pac-Man.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 26, 2013

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Metroid

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Yoshio Sakamoto, co-creator of the Metroid series, has stated that Metroid was influenced by the 1979 sci-fi movie "Alien". This is evident when considering the following:
• Both Metroid and Alien feature a female lead protagonist.
• The Nostromo's computer is referred to as "Mother" and the antagonist of Metroid is Mother Brain.
• The Xenomorph aliens and Metroids both have multiple stages of development, and the first stage of both species latch on to other creatures.
• The boss "Ridley" is likely named after Alien's director Ridley Scott.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 25, 2013

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Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)

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The character portraits were copied from famous films and icons.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 25, 2013

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Angry Birds

Angry Birds (2009)

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During development, Rovio got the idea to make the enemies pigs because of the Swine Flu epidemic. The pig's sickly green color is a reference to this.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 25, 2013

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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995)

subdirectory_arrow_right Donkey Kong Country (Game)

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In May 1995, an interview with series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Rare co-founder Tim Stamper about the development of Donkey Kong Country (DKC) was published in the magazine Electronic Games, conducted by game journalist Steven L. Kent. Kent later claimed on an episode of G4's docuseries "Icons" that Miyamoto was angry during this interview, channelling it into bitter criticisms of DKC's gameplay and the Western market's praise of its pre-rendered graphics, and that Stamper "sat there and took it, even though really the anger wasn't meant to be at Stamper". Miyamoto clarified in a 2010 interview with IGN that he did like the game despite these rumored criticisms, and that he worked closely with Rare and Stamper during development.

Years after the interview's publication, Kent would print an alleged portion of a later interview with Miyamoto in his 2001 book "The Ultimate History of Video Games", claiming that the anger had stemmed from "touchy" internal discussions regarding Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. The hand-drawn crayon art style of that game was said to be a result of the alleged anger over DKC's graphics causing him to rebel against Nintendo's internal evaluation committee, who wanted Yoshi's Island to use pre-rendered graphics. Part of the Miyamoto quote reads:

"In comparison with the graphics of [DKC], there was not enough punch to Yoshi's Island. That was what I was told by the marketing people. I intensified my hand-drawn touch on Yoshi's Island from the initial part of the program. Everybody else was saying that they wanted better hardware and more beautiful graphics instead of this art."

Yoshi's Island director Takashi Tezuka would deliver a less angered statement that may be related to these claims in a September 1995 interview with the magazine Dengeki Super Famicom. He claimed that the choice in art style was done for sentimental reasons, as the developers believed that all video games from that point on would likely utilize 3D graphics, and wanted Yoshi's Island to be a bow-out for 2D graphics:

"We deliberately chose not to go for realistic graphics like [DKC]: we wanted take a chance and do the opposite. Probably every game from here on out is going to look more like [DKC]… that being the case, we decided to go against the trend one last time and make something with a heartwarming, handmade visual style."

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 25, 2013

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Electronic Games Issue #32 (Volume 3, Issue #8) - May 1995 (pages 48-52 in the magazine):
https://archive.org/details/electronic-games-1995-05/page/48/mode/1up

G4 "Icons" (Season 3, Episode 8) on Donkey Kong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2EOpDWKOrI#t=819s

"The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon–The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World" by Steven L. Kent (page 518 in the book):
https://retrocdn.net/images/9/9c/UltimateHistoryofVideoGames_Book_US.pdf

Dengeki Super Famicom 09/1995 developer interview [link and info provided by Rocko & Heffer]:
https://shmuplations.com/yoshi/

Original DidYouKnowGaming blog post:
http://didyouknowgaming.com/post/41895525229/yoshis-island-and-donkey-kong-country-source

Company: Capcom

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The word "Capcom" was created from taking the first 3 letters from each word in "Capsule Computers" (from the subsidiary Japan Capsule Computer Co).

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 24, 2013

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Company: Sega

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The word "SEGA" was created by taking the first two letters from each word in "Service Games", SEGA's original name.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 24, 2013

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Franchise: The Legend of Zelda

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Princess Zelda was named after Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

When asked about the name, Miyamoto said, "Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist Francis Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."

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person Petie calendar_month February 24, 2013

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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

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Throughout Old Snake's character development, Hideo Kojima and his crew did extensive research to find out which mustache would work best for Old Snake. They settled for the mustache of Lee Van Cleef from the 1966 film "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". Additionally, ever since Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the team played around with the idea of Snake's facial hair growing in real time.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 24, 2013

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Company: Nintendo

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HAL Laboratory, Inc. (a second-party developer known for creating Nintendo's Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series) named themselves "HAL" because each letter in "HAL" is one place ahead of each letter in "IBM", as if to say HAL were one step ahead of their competition.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 24, 2013

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Super Metroid

Super Metroid (1994)

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Samus Aran's appearance in Super Metroid was based on the actress Kim Basinger.

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person DidYouKnowGaming calendar_month February 24, 2013

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L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire (2011)

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Many of the cases in the game are inspired by real-life crimes that occurred in L.A. around 1947.

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person Dazz calendar_month February 22, 2013

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L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire (2011)

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To create a realistic post-war Los Angeles, the developers of the game studied photographs taken from a biplane by Robert Spence in the 1920s.
The developers used the photographs to create traffic patterns and public transport routes in the game, as well as the location and condition of buildings

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person Dazz calendar_month February 22, 2013

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Platform: Nintendo DS

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The white Nintendo DS Lite bears a striking resemblance to the Zelda Game & Watch released by Nintendo in 1989.

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person Dazz calendar_month February 13, 2013

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