Max Nichols

@maxnichols

He/him. Sr. Game Designer. Prev: Epic, Bungie, Turbine, more. I run @HyruleInterviews.bsky.social Blog: namelessquality.com Portfolio: maxnicholsdesign.com

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Max Nichols@maxnichols· 4d

The escapist is not so subservient to the whims of evanescent fashion as these opponents. He does not make things (which it may be quite rational to regard as bad) his masters or his gods by worshipping them as inevitable, even 'inexorable'. And his opponents, so easily contemptuous, have no guarantee that he will stop there: he might rouse men to pull down the street-lamps. Escapism has another and even wickeder face: Reaction.

Not long ago - incredible though it may seem - I heard a clerk of Oxenford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life'.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· 4d

JRR Tolkien, 1939, from his essay "On Fairy-Stories":

"Long ago Chesterton truly remarked that, as soon as he heard that anything 'had come to stay', he knew that it would be very soon replaced--indeed regarded as pitiably obsolete and shabby. 'The march of Science, its tempo quickened by the needs of war, goes inexorably on... making some things obsolete, and foreshadowing new developments in the utilization of electricity': an advertisement.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· 7d

Lmao, this is ridiculous Also, don’t forget, Link:

A screenshot of Zelda 1, of the old man telling Link “Dodongo dislikes smoke.”

Max Nichols@maxnichols· 7d

#66: Trails From Zero My fav Trails OST. Tends to be pretty energetic. Unusual time signatures. See: - ジオフロント (4) - Get Over the Barrier! - On the Green Road - クロスベルの午後 (15) - 忘れられし幻夢の狭間 (28) - 古の鼓動 (58) - Demonic Drive - A Light Illuminating the Depths www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSOF...

The PS4 cover of The Legend of Heroes: Trails From Zero. It shows a modern-looking city in the background, and in the foreground are four anime characters, wearing jackets and street clothes.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· Jun 22

This is how it feels to be competing with Michelle Flamm for a role on an RPG project, lol

The Hydrogen Bomb VS Coughing Baby meme, but with the text crossed out and replaced with "Michelle Flamm" vs "Anyone Else"

Max Nichols@maxnichols· Jun 12

Also worth noting that the concept art of Link's little sister from Breath of the Wild has some traits in common with Malon: historyofhyrule.blogspot.com/2025/03/miss...

A blown up scan of concept art of Link's pre-calamity family from Breath of hte Wild. His father looks like he could be a blacksmith of some sort, he's a very large man with a bandana. He's got a beard.

His little sister looks halfway between Aryll and Malon. She's got a headband and long bangs, and is holding a cucco.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· Jun 12

Love it. The character always had a special place in the canon of the series for me. And you found some interview content I hadn't read yet or had glossed over. The only thing I thought might be worth mentioning was this tidbit: (source: glitterberri.com/ocarina-of-t... )

PEOPLE:
- Shigeru Miyamoto, age 46. Producer of Ocarina of Time.

QUOTE:
Miyamoto: I’ve always been a fan of country music, including people like Emmylou Harris, so I insisted on having a songstress in the game [Ocarina of Time]. I changed the ranch girl Malon into a songstress, so the horses were attracted to her because of her song.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· Jun 3

Pretty much

Aonuma: We revealed where each Zelda game fell on a timeline and how their stories related, but we didn't do that for Breath of the Wild.

There is a reason for that. With this game, we saw just how many players were playing in their own way. … We realized that people were enjoying imagining the story that emerged from the fragmental imagery we were providing. If we defined a restricted timeline, then there would be a definitive story, and it would eliminate the room for imagination, which wouldn't be as fun. We want players to be able to continue having fun imagining this world even after they are finished with the game, so, this time, we decided that we would avoid making clarifications.

Q: Does the Hyrule we saw in the flashback scenes in Tears of the Kingdom predate Skyward Sword?

Fujibayashi: Obviously, there's something a little bit clearer in our minds, but of course, it could be that we're wrong as well! [Laughs]

I kind of want to pose the idea that, like in real-life history, you define by the artifacts and by the data that you currently have. So within what we have, there might be a correct answer, but it could be a different answer. …

Aonuma: I mean, The Legend of Zelda is a series of games that focus on puzzle solving, so this is just another sort of puzzle that the users will have to see if they can solve and think about. [Laughs]

Max Nichols@maxnichols· Jun 1

This guy was later one of the assistant directors of Super Mario Sunshine:

PEOPLE:
- Makoto Miyanaga. Ocarina of Time Field Designer.

QUOTE:
Miyanaga: I myself had the atmosphere in mind. When I joined the development team, the sky’s complete transformation from morning to afternoon, evening, and night was already finished. More and more, I found myself thinking ‘why can’t we do things like air and atmosphere and wind and smell and temperature?’ and ended up pouring all my energy into achieving that.

At least in that regard, I couldn’t let Ocarina of Time’s atmosphere be outdone by any other game. I made it with the thought ‘from now on, we won’t fail to our competitors.’ I’m kind of vain.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 30

I’m at Portland Indie Games Con today! If any mutuals are around say hi! I’m a freakishly tall 6’5” guy and I look like this today! (Though I’ll be masking)

A middle aged white dude, wearing a white flatcap hat and big glasses. Short-length beard and mustache. Yellow sweater with zipper at top. Pale green t-shirt.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 28

I've still got the MP3 from when it was for FFXIII Versus, hahah Been on my regular rotation for like 15 years xD

A screenshot from an iTunes library. Showing a song called "Somnus (FFXIII Versus" from the album "drammatica - The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura"

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 27

Knowing that they planned on letting the players place the train tracks totally changed how I looked at Spirit Tracks as a creative work I still hate the final result, lol, but they had a VERY different vision for half of development

Aonuma: “Let's make it so that you can lay the tracks yourself.” I brought it up, and we started [Spirit Tracks] from that experiment. ...

Iwamoto: We thought it would be a lot of fun to lay the tracks any way you liked, to be able to travel anywhere at will. ... But the problem is that, even if people can lay the tracks anywhere they like, they won't know where to lay them. Then, to make the story work, there are places where you absolutely mustn't go, and other places where you really can't be at certain points in time. …

We spent half of those two years [of development] on the railroad. And then, one day, Aonuma-san said, “Why don't we just drop the idea of laying the tracks?”

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 26

People always describe "Normal" as "press up to look up". Which, fair. But the problem is that both versions have a coherent mental model where "up" = "up", it just changes whether you're pointing the ANGLE up or pushing the CAMERA up So I made myself a diagram but it didn't help lol

An image showing two seesaws. One seesaw is labelling "Up with normal camera controls", and with an arrow on the left side of the seesaw pointing up. The other one is reversed: the arrow is on the right side instead.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 25

Shigefumi Hino is interesting--he's bounced back and forth between leadership and IC roles. Director for Pikmins 1-3! One of the directors for Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. But also stuff like... an artist for Pokemon Stadium. He's been back in design/planning roles for the last 13 years

A screenshot of the "Works" section of the wikipedia page for Shigefumi Hino.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigefumi_Hino#Works

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 24

To defeat this abstract NES map from 1987 they had to exhaustively sculpt a representative playable area the size of Kyoto

An image of the overworld from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 24

There WAS, actually, a way to dynamically instantiate them: using the procedural generation tech we had used to make the Infinite Forest And I was the _only_ one who knew how to set up content using that system, since the engineer who’d built it left the company

A screenshot of the Infinite Forest, showing a bunch of blocky stone islands floating in a nebulous space

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 24

In Destiny 2, one of the raid bosses is Riven, a wish dragon. On defeat you go down her throat to retrieve an object. There was just one problem: we had no way to dynamically instantiate baked details like decorators, decals, and high quality lighting So I did the hackiest, most overwrought thing

A screenshot of Riven’s Heart, nestled in a bunch of gross pustule decorators inside her stomach

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 24

I should actually add item #4- During the v500 Porting project I was the lead of a small team and I asked them to name themselves. They picked "Team Mutiny", and we made this flag for our standup area. The "skull" is the world editor icon and the blades are Hunter knives

A flag in the style of a pirate's skull-and-crossbones, but thhe skull is a cyclopean alien skull and the crossed swords are Destiny Hunter knives

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 23

And here I thought “affordance” was just a design term. Though this IS design so maybe it still is.

There is a concept in environmental psychology called the behavioral affordance — the idea that physical spaces don't just contain behavior, they shape it. A space with a comfortable chair near a window affords reading. A kitchen with a cluttered counter affords putting more things on the counter. A desk facing a wall of distractions affords distraction.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 22

Ah, they have AI products? Nevermind, they don't deserve my money either

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 22

Reading a book on ADHD—this list of the conditions that create motivation for people with ADHD looks like it could just as easily be a taxonomy of player motivations for game design

Dr. William Dodson, a psychiatrist who has spent decades working with ADHD adults, identified what he calls the interest-based nervous system - the specific conditions under which the ADHD brain produces sufficient motivational fuel to function. They are: interest, challenge, novelty, urgency, and passion. When one or more of these is present, the ADHD brain can perform at extraordinary levels. When none of them is present — when a task is routine, familiar, low-stakes, and boring — the brain is working with a motivational deficit that is neurological, not volitional.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 20

#65: Persona Q Same style as P4's soundtrack. New music. For when you want more Persona but you've heard the OST 1000x. See: Best Friend Maze of Life It's Show Time Like A Dream Come True -In the Labyrinth- Inaba Pride Exhibit Time's Footsteps Confronting the Past www.youtube.com/watch?v=imtO...

The boxart for Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. It shows the casts of Persona 3 and 4 in a halfway chibi-fied style, looking at the camera through basically a fisheye distortion.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 20

This is sacrilege! There is only one crucifixion in Hyrule's history:

A screenshot of Ganondorf from Twilight Princess, with his arms outstretched and tied to a rock, while the Sage's Sword stabs through his belly and into the rock behind him

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 20

Colorgrave consistently has some of the best-ever pixel art character portraits. I wonder who does them They go so well with the in-game art for the games; the studio specializes in Gameboy Color-inspired top-down pixel styles. They do a great job of making the pixel density and palettes match.

A set of 8 character portraits from Prodigal. They're all 16-bit pixel art fidelity, but use muted, limited Gameboy Color-style color palettes.

A set of character portraits from Veritus. They're all 16-bit pixel art fidelity, a but more colorful then the ones from Prodigal.

A screenshot from Prodigal. it looks like a GBC game. Even the playable area is 4:3, with the sides of the widescreen display taken up by inventory and other UI info.

A screenshot from Veritus. It also looks like a GBC game. Even the playable area is 4:3, with the sides of the widescreen display taken up by inventory and other UI info.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 20

It’s all about Monster Mule, which they tragically discontinued

A can of Monster Mule, a ginger beer flavored Monster energy drink.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 20

I keep like 200 of these around at all times for when I have a low blood sugar (which is dangerous and could, untreated, kill or maim me). Also, my blood sugar is displayed in real time on my smart watch

A photo of some Welch’s Fruit Snacks artfully placed in a small bowl

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 19

Reading Dungeon Crawler Carl— Kobolds in most western games are lizards, but in Japanese RPGs they’re dogs. This is because in Wizardry, the RPG dungeon crawler series that took off big time in Japan and basically birthed all their D&D-esque tropes, they were depicted as dogs

A photo of a page from a book.

“The last time I'd played Dungeons and Dragons had been aboard the USCGC Stratton. I remembered kobolds as little lizard-like mon-sters. In the game I'd played, the dungeon master had them as minions of a small dragon. Here, they were different. They, indeed, looked like goddamned armored chihuahuas. They were about the same size as the barking little dogs, but they stood upright and wore chain mail armor that seemed to be made out of beer can tabs. Each wore tiny metal caps with a spike on them.”

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 18

Huh, never realized how much the El Shaddai guy looks like Heath Ledger

A close-up of Heath Ledger's character from A Knight's Tale. He is scowling. His face is framed by luscious golden-brown curls of hair.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 17

SOMEbody learned how to open the back door

A close-up of the face of a tabby cat, sitting in a sphinx pose. He has a contented expression on his face, and his eyes are closed.

Max Nichols@maxnichols· May 15

Anyways yes, it's a terrible term, I refuse to ever use it. It's completely synonymous with "landmarks" and there is no need for a separate word, especially not one that makes me vaguely uncomfortable saying it in a workplace, lol