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A Look Back at Making Mario 64
Press the Buttons has commentary on a short, interesting piece at the Miyamoto Shrine site. There, they look back at the making of Mario 64. From the article: "Possibly the most important part of Mario 64 was making sure Mario was easy to control. Before any of the levels had been created Mr. Miyamoto had Mario running around and picking up objects in a small 'garden' which he uses in all his games to test gameplay elements. 'Alot of the animation was actually in there before any of the game' explains Goddard. 'The Mario that he had running around basically looked the same as he did in the final version. Mario's movement is based on good physics, but you have bits on top that you plug in so you can do things you shouldn't be able to do. They spent a lot of time working on the swimming, it's harder than running to get the feeling right, they didn't want you to avoid the water, the wanted to make it an advantage and fun to dive in.'"
From the article:
The camera became quite a problem for Takumi Kawagoe who was working on the Lakitu cam, Goddard recalls: "suddenly, halfway through the project, one of the people from downstairs came up and said 'Do you realise Sega has patent on being able to switch camera views?'" The team were devastated. "Half the patents that come out are for techniques people have used for years" says Goddard. "The software patents just don't work."
I don't really have anything more to add to that, just wanted to point it out....
(Yeah, and probably someone will reply and say, "But the other half of the time software patents ARE good!" Why you gotta be ignorant your whole life?)