Star Fox’s Development Was Weird

GIF: People Make Games

Star Fox was made by a bunch of teens, and Shigeru Miyamoto used to smoke cigarettes.

I don’t know anything about the development of the game Star Fox, so the most recent episode of People Make Games was a real eye-opening when it comes to how the game came together.

In the video, Chris Bratt walks through how Argonaut Games went through a wild route to go from hardware experimenters to the critical hardware and programming backbone behind 1993’s Star Fox for the Super Nintendo.

It is a story that involves worldwide travel, boisterous calls to hardware developers from a Japanese meeting room, and Shigeru Miyamoto taking a smoke break.

That’s right. Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who has been the Cool Grandpa of Video Games since he was barely 30 years old, apparently did design work on Star Fox during smoke breaks.

And, like, that’s fine! He can smoke! I don’t have any judgement about it! But, in my mind, Miyamoto is the kind of guy who puts on a smiley face t-shirt and spends his free time in his own personal ball pit.

When I imagine him smoking, he’s got a leather jacket on. He’s sneering. He’s basically a Tunnel Snake.

It all worked out in the end, and apparently quitting smoking helped Miyamoto during the process of developing Wii Fit.

In any case, the video is informative if you, like me, don’t know much about Star Fox and the teens who helped make it. And, once again, Miyamoto smoking.