With Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club being Nintendo’s big August release for this year, Nintendo has opted to make Emio – The Smiling Man their next covered game, as part of their “Ask the Developer” interview series. Across three chapters, many questions were asked of Producer, Yoshio Sakamoto and Assistant Producer, Kaori Miyachi.
When talking about gameplay, Kaori Miyachi discussed the inclusion of giving players hints:
Miyachi on Giving Hints in Emio – The Smiling Man:
Kaori Miyachi: In command-based adventure games like Famicom Detective Club, when you get stuck, you tend to resort to brute force, trying out all the commands from top to bottom. When this happens, players who were immersed in the game world up until that point can become disengaged or lose track of the story. As we didn’t want that to be the case in this game, we highlighted certain words that would give players hints in a different colour to help them progress through the story.
We also paid close attention to how conversations were phrased so that players could understand what was happening even if the words were not emphasised. That said, some people might think that too many hints take away some of the fun of a traditional command-based adventure game. So we included the option to turn off the highlights.
For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 12, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club – Chapter 3.
Ask the Developer | Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Participating Developers)
- Yoshio Sakamoto | Producer
- Kaori Miyachi | Assistant Producer
