Jane Doe's name has two different references in it. The first and most obvious one is a reference to the term "Jane Doe", a placeholder name used in cases where a female individual's real name is either unknown or intentionally concealed (ironically, her Spoiler:New Eridu Public Security (NEPS) Consultant Card implies that her name really is Jane Doe rather than an alias). The second reference is found in her last name "Doe", which is what female fancy mice (domesticated breeds of common house mice) are often referred to as. Both of these references are fitting for Jane's character as she is a mouse Thiren with prominent ears and a tail, and because Spoiler:she works for NEPS as a consultant, specializing in criminal psychology and infiltrating dangerous groups.
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
In a 2002 staff interview with Nintendo Dream, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that FLUDD was inspired by his memories of playing with water guns as a kid, an image that he recalled upon first using the analog L & R triggers on the GameCube's controller. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto further explained that the concept behind FLUDD was controversial among Nintendo's staff due to Mario not being widely associated with these kinds of tools, though Luigi's use of the Poltergust in Luigi's Mansion ultimately served as a precedent in the concept's favor.
In the same interview, Takashi Tezuka stated that Nintendo went to great lengths to keep FLUDD from resembling a firearm, both due to Koizumi finding a water gun "too simple" and due to concerns that guns (or anything that audiences may interpret as such) would be inappropriate for the franchise's public image. The "weird backpack thing" that FLUDD ultimately ended up as addressed both concerns at once, with Koizumi likening it to firefighting equipment and "a [plastic] bottle water rocket toy."
The New World script seen throughout the game is a cipher for the Latin alphabet. While this is most visible with the subtitles for "Welcome to the New World", which are provided in both scripts, all other instances are just as easily translatable, producing coherent English-language messages.
In an interview for Nintendo's "Ask the Developers" column, series director Shinya Kumazaki and associate producer Kei Ninomiya revealed that they deliberately designed and utilized the New World script in a way that would allow players to translate it themselves, with Kumazaki describing it as a way to make the game more immersive for curious audiences.
While Grimace's Birthday seems to be a web-browser game mimicking the "retro" graphics of the Game Boy Color, it is actually a real Game Boy Color ROM being run in an emulator, and it's possible to extract the ROM and play it on a Game Boy Color or hardware that is compatible with its cartridges. Because the game was designed specifically for the system, its data includes an error screen typical of those found on other Game Boy Color titles that are incompatible with the original Game Boy. However, because Grimace's Birthday is intended to be played on McDonald's official website (which does not allow the player to switch between Game Boy and Game Boy Color mode), this screen is not viewable.
The title "Caladrius" was lifted from a legendary bird prominent in medieval European and Roman mythology that was thought to be a divine messenger of God. Caladrius would appear before those who were ill, and if there was a chance for recovery, it would fly away, carrying the illness with it. In a 2013 interview with the game's director Hitoshi Hoshino published in Shooting Gameside #7, he compared the design of the character ships to the bird's appearance, and added, "the title conveys that question: will there be any salvation or not?"
According to an Electronic Gaming Magazine interview (published in Issue #224, January 2008) with Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells and the game's director Amy Hennig, they were asked if they ever had plans for a different final boss battle after the interviewer expressed disappointment with it. Wells stated that the boss battle was designed to fit within the confines of the island and world they created, and that they could have made it more elaborate if they had a few extra weeks, but the overall direction remained consistent with their original plan. Hennig added that many games face the issue of jumping-the-shark at the end, as they need to escalate to a climax. She contrasted this with movies, which "get away with less" as they focus more on narrative and emotional experiences, and suggested that game design might benefit from shifting away from traditional boss battles to creating peaks in the overall experience.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit was originally going to be a novelty 16-bit SNES-style cartridge game before slowly venturing out into a full-fledged modern PC and console game. Many of the early 16-bit sprites and animations can still be found in the game files.
According to a 2018 Rely on Horror interview with the game's producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, they decided to streamline the game's narrative by merging the A and B scenarios when playing as Leon or Claire in the original game (which was four scenarios total played in a dual perspective) into a single, cohesive story for each character. This was meant to remove the repetition from that approach while ensuring that players can still enjoy the depth and intensity of the narrative without having to play through multiple scenarios to see everything.
In a 2018 VG247 interview with the game's producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, he revealed that the approach to audio and music in the game focused on trying to create immersion in a third-person perspective during combat with zombies through carefully designed audio elements. This is in contrast to the approach taken in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, where the first-person perspective required a focus on environmental sounds to build tension and immersion by using real-world audio cues and sometimes muting them to increase suspense. He also commented that they tried to ensure the audio remained true to the original game's vision by bringing on the original composer, Shusamu Uchiyama.
According to former series planner Atsushi "Tomichin" Tomita, the reason why earlier games were lacking when it came to alternate color palette variety was due to each palette needing Marvel's approval. During the development of X-Men: Children of the Atom, the only alternate palettes approved were minor variations of the 1P palette. Marvel loosened their restrictions over time however, and by the time X-Men vs. Street Fighter released, the team at Capcom were allowed to use completely different colors.
In a 1997 Dengeki PlayStation interview with the game's director Kunihiko Nakata, he mentioned that while they had a partial idea of what they wanted for the graphics, specific elements like the castle ruins map were conceptualized during the development process, and that the details of the world were worked out while they made it rather than being planned from the start.
In a 1997 Dengeki PlayStation interview with the game's director Kunihiko Nakata, he explained that the core idea was to create a weapon-based fighting game centered around the concept of "ichigeki hissatsu" (one-hit takedowns) that would still feel fun. The goal was to make each hit feel decisive and impactful, giving players a sense of immediate victory when they land a strike that wins the match. This direction also influenced the choice to use swords as the primary means of battle in the game as they felt it made it easier for players to understand ichigeki hissatsu:
"I like fighting games with bare fists and staves and all, but I always felt it was weird when you'd take a bunch of damage in a match, and despite only having a sliver of life left, you could still fight with the same vigor. And that's why we wanted this to be a "one-hit kill" game. We could have accomplished that with just punching, but a cutting weapon is more visually convincing."
In an October 2003 interview with Artematica's founder Riccardo Cangini, he revealed that a port for Xbox was in development, but it was never completed. Additionally, a PlayStation 2 port was being considered, but it was cancelled.
In a September 2003 interview with Artematica's founder Riccardo Cangini, he revealed that a Mac port was being considered for the game. It was cancelled during the evaluation stage, however.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit was originally supposed to release on August 8, 2024, the day of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise's 10th anniversary. However, an error caused the game to be released one day early in Japan. As such, it was decided to release the game worldwide a day early as well, with the series' official Twitter account noting "It actually feels very fitting for a FNaF game to release EARLY!".
Drill Dozer marked the first time Ken Sugimori directed a game since Pulseman eleven years earlier in 1994. In a 2005 Nintendo Dream interview, he revealed that due to the increasing amount of content and collaboration required in making modern games and much of Game Freak's newer staff only having experience in the Pokémon series, he was prompted to place his full trust in the younger staff for most of the gameplay development as he realized he was not as young as he used to be. Sugimori scaled back his efforts to focus on drawing art for the game while character designs were done by Hironobu Yoshida. He also noted that Drill Dozer gave him an opportunity incorporate ten years worth of ideas from previous games that went unused due to memory constraints or deadlines, and felt they succeeded, which gave him a sense of relief.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
The E3 2007 build of the Xbox 360 release revealed that the home console versions were originally meant to have cutscenes fully animated in 3D. A workprint containing these cutscenes shows a mix of finished and unfinished 3D renders and storyboards with placeholder voice acting, with the final game having cutscenes primarily animated in the same 2D digital animation as the show. The Nintendo DS version of the game is the only version that exclusively uses 3D cutscenes.
This build also reveals that the identity of the "sleazy video game producer" featured in Level 5: Mob Rules is Larry Probst, the former CEO of Electronic Arts from 1991-2007 whose name was censored from the script in the final game.
According to former Rare developer Kevin Bayliss, Jago's ripped trousers were inspired by those worn by Def Leppard's lead singer Joe Elliot, particularly those seen in the 1989 concert film Live: In the Round, in Your Face.
In a 2002 developer interview archived by the now-defunct blog GSLA, director Yoshiaki Koizumi revealed that the game's staff originally came up with ten different nozzles for FLUDD, devising new ones for each possible situation Mario might encounter. However, this was reduced to three to avoid similarities to the gameplay style of The Legend of Zelda series. Some remnants of this larger quantity can be found in the final game's data, which includes an unused model for a Yoshi head nozzle and parameters for a sniper nozzle. While the former's properties are unknown beyond its appearance (with its model lacking any associated animations), the latter would have been 100 times more powerful than the Squirt Nozzle and would've had a significantly larger hitbox. However, it also would've required Mario to charge it like the Rocket Nozzle and Turbo Nozzle.
The New World script seen throughout the game is a cipher for the Latin alphabet. While this is most visible with the subtitles for "Welcome to the New World", which are provided in both scripts, all other instances are just as easily translatable, producing coherent English-language messages.
While Grimace's Birthday seems to be a web-browser game mimicking the "retro" graphics of the Game Boy Color, it is actually a real Game Boy Color ROM being run in an emulator, and it's possible to extract the ROM and play it on a Game Boy Color or hardware that is compatible with its cartridges. Because the game was designed specifically for the system, its data includes an error screen typical of those found on other Game Boy Color titles that are incompatible with the original Game Boy. However, because Grimace's Birthday is intended to be played on McDonald's official website (which does not allow the player to switch between Game Boy and Game Boy Color mode), this screen is not viewable.
The game's data contains unused sprites for Faraway Town's enemies depicting them with various emotional effects. As Faraway Town characters can't be made to feel emotions in-battle in the final game, this implies that the restriction was implemented relatively late into development.
According to former Rare developer Kevin Bayliss, Jago's ripped trousers were inspired by those worn by Def Leppard's lead singer Joe Elliot, particularly those seen in the 1989 concert film Live: In the Round, in Your Face.