In a 1997 interview with Famimaga 64, Satoshi Tajiri said that the Pokémon Porygon was made due to people saying that he should develop a 3D game instead of a sprite-based game on the Game Boy:
"I wanted to add something real into the world of Pokémon, and thought it’d be interesting if the game had an artificial Pokémon. I made that decision specifically because it’s on Game Boy. Everyone kept telling me 'Tajiri, you need to start making polygon games for next generation consoles.' But I was designing Pokémon for Game Boy, where it’s impossible to use polygonal 3D graphics. But people kept hounding me about it, so I thought it would be ironic to include a Pokémon called Porygon."
In an interview with Polygon, the series lead Director, Katsuhiro Harada, confirmed that King's motion capture was performed by Japanese pro-wrestling star and MMA pioneer, Minoru Suzuki. The wrestling star made King's fighting style with a mix of Mexican lucha libre and Japanese puroresu. Harada also said that Suzuki also invented original moves for King and Michelle (as well as Julia in future games). Harada also says that Suzuki also offered to choke him out, to which he said "Yeah, of course dude, I want you to choke me out" and that "it felt like taking a refreshing nap."
King's backstory was inspired by Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez, a catholic priest who moonlit as the masked wrestler Fray Tormenta to raise funds for his orphanage, while the character's jaguar mask design was inspired by Tiger Mask, a recurring masked persona first portrayed in real-life by mixed martial artist Satoru Sayama, and a character licensed out to Japanese professional wrestling companies from the 1968 manga of the same name by Ikki Kajiwara.
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In a 2021 interview with The Washington Post, the game's director Neil Druckmann revealed that the scene where Abby murders Joel using a golf club was inspired by a real-life incident. When Druckmann was 16, he was accidentally hit in the head with a golf club by a friend at a driving range, which resulted in him needing 30 stitches and left him with a permanent dent in his skull. Druckmann initially planned for Abby to paralyze Joel with a knife, but feeling that this attack was more suited for Ellie than Abby, he decided to use a golf club instead, as he wanted something different and personal.
After the scene was discovered when hours of content from the game leaked online months before release, it became the subject of much controversy and criticism, with some fans of the game feeling that it was gratuitous and unnecessary, especially when the next gameplay segments after watching the "fan-favorite" main protagonist of the first game get murdered force the player to control the murderer as a new protagonist. Players also criticized the game's overall anti-violence and pro-forgiveness message as being "too on the nose". Druckmann responded to the controversy on Twitter by replying with various golf-related GIFs to specific tweets or by "making offhand golf club jokes". Later on when the golf club's real-life origin was revealed, he joked that the game's detractors were correct about him having "brain damage" from the incident.
He went into more detail about the character and players' reactions to her scenes in a 2020 interview with Eurogamer prior to release, stating that he wanted players to hate Abby and eventually empathize with and forgive her upon learning the rest of her backstory. He called the "dehumanis[ing]" and "horrifying" player reactions to Abby "completely human. It's what we do", and that his goal was to make players reflect on "the other perspective" when feeling intense emotions like wanting to take vengeance in real-life incidents. During development, Naughty Dog staff were similarly divided about the scene, with Druckmann commenting in 2024 that there were people who "got it" and a that there was a "minority" of people who were "stuck on how violent it is, and how dark and quite cynical it is about mankind."
Abby's actress, Laura Bailey, initially defended the character's choices before release, claiming she knew the scene would receive backlash and that the leak had caused players to form "barriers" without fully understanding the character. However, upon playing the game at release, she expressed more empathy towards players that hated Abby, questioning the way she portrayed the character and "why she was cast", before eventually going on to "acclimatize" to her. She also commented on negative emotions while filming Abby's scenes that were "very heavy on loss and grief", and how they were difficult to leave behind after filming. On the other hand, her favorite scenes to film as the character were more "joyful" moments including flashback scenes with Owen, or those that developed Abby’s relationship with Lev and Yara.
The racer Krunch wasn't originally designed as a Kremling. According to former Rare artist Kevin Bayliss (in a now defunct Facebook page for Rare alumni), the character predated the conversion from Pro-Am 64 to Diddy Kong Racing and was originally a generic crocodile character, brought in to introduce a "bad guy" into the game's roster.
When it was decided to incorporate Diddy Kong into the game and change the title to Diddy Kong Racing, it was also decided to turn the crocodile character into a Kremling named Krunch, perhaps to better tie it into the new Donkey Kong-infused lore. The decision to turn Krunch into a Kremling, a Nintendo-owned species, also automatically gave Nintendo the rights to the character as well, even retaining said rights after the Microsoft buyout in 2002, whereas all the other Diddy Kong Racing racers outside of obviously Diddy are now owned by Microsoft.
Some gameplay ideas used in Resident Evil - such as an action-puzzle-action-puzzle structure, and a restricted inventory system - were first explored in the very tonally opposite SNES cartoon adaptation Disney's Goof Troop, which was designed by Resident Evil's director Shinji Mikami. One rumor, originally claimed online in a Kotaku article by Tim Rogers, who claimed to have been informed of the connection by an unspecified "tech genius" friend, suggests that Resident Evil is built off of Goof Troop's source code.
The character Veigar seems to be based on the Black Mages from the Final Fantasy series. This connection is further backed by one of Veigar's skins, called White Mage Veigar, which has the white and red coloring of the White Mages from the Final Fantasy series.
The skin Dark Star Cho'Gath was made in collaboration with a critically ill League of Legends player named Bryan, who met Riot Games through a partnership with the non-profit charity the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Bryan wished to "meet the creators of Riot Games, and make a skin with them." Dark Star Cho'Gath was chosen between three skin designs and inspired by Bryan's love of outer space. The skin's theme music is based on a clarinet performance from Bryan. All profits collected from the skin until July 20, 2018 were donated to various non-profit organizations around the world.
Developers at Summitsphere are known to use Fixed Rilla Roo from Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled as a personal in-joke, referring to anything in an in-development game that is revised, even if it's simply an improvement and not a fix, as "FIXED (blank)". This is most likely the inspiration for Fixed Gold Evil Baby Paul (Shiny)'s name in Antonball Deluxe.
During Chapter 1's development, LINUJ debated between having either Spoiler:Shobai or Yuri be the first victim. For this, he had two ideas as to where the story would go: one was the story that was ultimately written, where Spoiler:Yuri is the victim, and the other (where Spoiler:Shobai is the victim) would have it so that Spoiler:only his avatar dies, and he would reappear in the real world during the last chapter. LINUJ compared the latter idea to a "dark side that pretends to leave and then reappears later," using Spoiler:Mukuro's death and reappearance in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc as an example. The idea was ultimately scrapped for a variety of reasons, namely due to personality changes between the two and the fact that Spoiler:Shobai needed to be alive in order to solve the Chapter 3 trial.
The development of DK: King of Swing began in the summer of 2003, with the development team at Paon exploring ideas for new control concepts. While experimenting with the Game Boy Advance's L and R buttons, they came up with the idea that pressing the L button will let the character grab with the left hand, and pressing the R button will do the same but with the right hand. The team was also influenced by free climbing becoming a popular sport around that time.
It was Toshiharu Izuno of Nintendo that proposed the team to utilize the Donkey Kong character license for the game. At first, it was originally planned to use original characters, but the decision to use the Donkey Kong IP was done to give the project more global appeal.
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In 2024, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, claimed that the reason why Peter Griffin looks buff in Fortnite is because Epic Games "didn’t have the budget to create his actual body". An accurate Peter Griffin would also have been too big a target and not be balanced for the PvP modes in Fortnite. MacFarlane also revealed how the character got into the game in the first place:
"I had to have somebody explain to me what the fuck Fortnite is, and I said, 'Well, that sounds kinda cool. Yeah, why not, let’s do it!'"
All of the enemies in Crash Bandicoot 99x were inspired by Looney Tunes side characters. Mr. Crumb was inspired by Count Bloodcount from Translyvania 6-5000, the mummy was inspired by Gossamer, the skeleton was inspired by Satan from Devil's Feud Cake, and while the developer George F. (last name unknown) did not recall the inspiration for the tree, he believed it may have been inspired by Tweety Bird's monster form from Hyde and Go Tweet.
The choice for a horror setting in the game was also inspired by Looney Tunes, particularly the compilation film Daffy Duck's Quackbusters.
The development for Kid Icarus: Uprising began with a vague concept of a game conceived by Masahiro Sakurai that would switch between aerial and land combat. At the recommendation of then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, it was decided to incorporate a pre-existing Nintendo IP onto the concept, and Sakurai would ultimately land on Kid Icarus, as he was aware of its endearing popularity in the west and a desire from fans for a new installment, especially with its protagonist, Pit, being included as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Another IP that was briefly considered was the Star Fox franchise. However, Sakurai ultimately felt that the character of Pit and his universe were more flexible and fitting for the type of game he was creating with Uprising.
Around 2007, Retro Studios designer Jason Behr pitched the idea of a new Kid Icarus title for the Wii to Nintendo, providing little more than an elevator pitch and some conceptual documents. When reached by Unseen64, Behr stated that the original NES title was a childhood favorite of his and a constant source of inspiration. However, Nintendo turned down the offer before it could proceed into creating test assets, as the pitch focused primarily on the idea of reviving Kid Icarus, which ran counter to Nintendo's approach of conceptualizing gameplay elements first and determining a suitable property for them second.
On December 11, 2023, Atlus's official Twitter account "Atlus_jp" posted a message about the game to address fan expectations stemming from the larger commercial and critical success of Persona 5, revealing that despite the fantasy RPG game being different from how Persona 5 works as a modern RPG, it would be made with the same mindset that resulted in that game. They stated that the game is a "commemorative title that marks the culmination of Atlus' policy of 'originality and empathy' through the fantasy RPG genre, and is not simply a nostalgic return to the roots of the past". The game's director Katsura Hashino previously described Metaphor as being a "third pillar" for Atlus, with the key themes for the game being "Facing your fear", because "If you stand still in fear of uncertainty, you will never be able to move forward".
The lyrics to Silver's theme, "Dreams of an Absolution", was based on songwriter Bentley Jones' relationship with his ex-boyfriend:
"Originally, I wrote "Dreams" about a bad ex-boyfriend who wanted to get back with me, and I couldn't shake off the past, and I was in this weird grey area that I didn't know if I wanted to move forward together anymore. Scandal! "Dreams" was written about a gay love story!"
The concept for Shipwrecked 64 first came about in 2016, when creator Squeaks D'Corgeh was making fangames based on Five Nights at Treasure Island, a Five Nights at Freddy's fangame featuring Disney characters. In 2020, he scrapped the Disney characters and replaced them with original characters, those being Bucky Beaver and his friends. He dropped the project for some time, but was reminded of it again after discovering a satirical Super Mario 64 Iceberg Tiers meme. The deepest fact below the iceberg, asserting that "every copy of Mario 64 is personalized", inspired the gameplay loop for Shipwrecked 64. He would restart development in 2021, which would ultimately lead to the version of the game released on Steam.
In a tweet by Dennis Opel (an uncredited animator for the game who mostly did fighting animations), he revealed that early in development he proposed the Boxing minigame to have more depth when it came to attacking and dodging, citing the Punch-Out!! series as an inspiration. This idea was rejected by Rockstar Vancouver.
The Breegull Bash move in the Japanese versions of Banjo-Tooie and as well as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is called ハリセンカズーイ(Harisen Kazui), which literally translated into English is "Slapping Fan Kazooie". A harisen is a giant paper fan that is typically used as part of a manzai act, where the straight man smacks the funny man in response to their jokes or foolishness. The "Fan" item that appeared in Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl is actually a harisen, and it's even called as such (はりせん) in the Japanese version of those games as well.
It's worth pointing out that in general, the Japanese localizations for the Banjo-Kazooie games seem to exclude any mention of the word "Breegull", the name of Kazooie's species. This is something Masahiro Sakurai made note of when showcasing Banjo & Kazooie's moveset in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
In a 2013 interview with GirlGamer.com, series co-creator Matt Bozon stated that the concept behind the title character came from his wife, Erin, who named her after a kid at a summer camp that she worked at. Matt and Erin then started bouncing ideas off of one another to develop the series' setting, lore, and other characters, with Erin particularly coming up with Shantae's signature transformation ability.
In the same interview, Bozon claimed that Shantae's hair-whip attack was his idea, and that he was inspired by Erin's own long hair, which he claimed would frequently swipe his face whenever she turned around. However, in another interview with The Mary Sue two years later, he stated that Erin came up with the concept, detailing it in her first sketches of the character.
The racer Krunch wasn't originally designed as a Kremling. According to former Rare artist Kevin Bayliss (in a now defunct Facebook page for Rare alumni), the character predated the conversion from Pro-Am 64 to Diddy Kong Racing and was originally a generic crocodile character, brought in to introduce a "bad guy" into the game's roster. 
The character Veigar seems to be based on the Black Mages from the Final Fantasy series. This connection is further backed by one of Veigar's skins, called White Mage Veigar, which has the white and red coloring of the White Mages from the Final Fantasy series.
The skin Dark Star Cho'Gath was made in collaboration with a critically ill League of Legends player named Bryan, who met Riot Games through a partnership with the non-profit charity the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Bryan wished to "meet the creators of Riot Games, and make a skin with them." Dark Star Cho'Gath was chosen between three skin designs and inspired by Bryan's love of outer space. The skin's theme music is based on a clarinet performance from Bryan. All profits collected from the skin until July 20, 2018 were donated to various non-profit organizations around the world.
The development of DK: King of Swing began in the summer of 2003, with the development team at Paon exploring ideas for new control concepts. While experimenting with the Game Boy Advance's L and R buttons, they came up with the idea that pressing the L button will let the character grab with the left hand, and pressing the R button will do the same but with the right hand. The team was also influenced by free climbing becoming a popular sport around that time. 
The Breegull Bash move in the Japanese versions of Banjo-Tooie and as well as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is called ハリセンカズーイ(Harisen Kazui), which literally translated into English is "Slapping Fan Kazooie". A harisen is a giant paper fan that is typically used as part of a manzai act, where the straight man smacks the funny man in response to their jokes or foolishness. The "Fan" item that appeared in Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl is actually a harisen, and it's even called as such (はりせん) in the Japanese version of those games as well.