What it’s like to make a video game with Nintendo

“They have their own...way of approaching things that completely blew my mind open.”

Yars Rising, a new game from WayForward, is directed by James Montagna, whose previous project was the Nintendo-published Advance Wars 1+2. Screenshot: WayForward, Atari

Veteran game designer James Montagna, a man credited on nearly 40 games across a two-decade career, was searching for the right words to tell me what it was like to finally make a game with Nintendo.

Nintendo’s game makers see things differently, he said. They are really, really good, he assured me. 

They flat-out changed the way he looks at making video games.

Montagna tried putting it this way: “It’s like seeing a color that doesn’t exist. Like, there's no name for that color. I couldn't have imagined it before. 

“But once you've been touched by that and you see that, it's like, you just can't see it another way.”