Giles Goddard, an English programmer who joined Nintendo from Argonaut Games, created one of Super Mario 64's most memorable innovations: the interactive Mario face that greeted players when starting the game. According to his 2001 interview recently highlighted by the pixelatron blog and confirmed by his Wikipedia biography, Goddard developed this feature using real-time vertex calculations on SGI Indy workstations. He attached painted ping-pong balls to his face and used an Indy camera to track facial movements, translating them to the on-screen Mario avatar. This allowed players to manipulate Mario's face in real-time before even starting gameplay - an undocumented feature Goddard described as 'another Nintendo secret.'.
Despite its status as a landmark Nintendo 64 title, Super Mario 64 was developed by a remarkably small team. Goddard revealed in the same interview that the core development team consisted of only about 15 people, much smaller than many fans assumed for such a significant project. He explained that while the core group was small, additional contributors would join as needed based on project requirements. Development began years before hardware availability, starting with SGI Onyx emulators that replicated the N64's API. Due to extremely tight deadlines coinciding with the console's launch, there was little room for iteration - once character designs were finalized, they went straight into the game in a 'conveyor-belt' style as artists continuously supplied assets.
The development environment at Nintendo during this period contrasted sharply with typical Western game studios of the era. Goddard described Nintendo's offices as having an open-plan layout but maintaining an unusually quiet atmosphere where conversation was discouraged unless approved by senior staff, noting that 'particularly in Japanese companies, it's very very quiet' compared to English or US companies. Despite this structured environment, project management was flexible - directors organized work based on evolving needs rather than rigid schedules, allowing teams to request time extensions when necessary. Shigeru Miyamoto played a hands-on role, spending nearly all his time focused on Mario 64 during its development. Goddard explained that Miyamoto's primary contribution was his relentless focus on refining the game's 'feel' through extensive playtesting of controls and camera systems, with the camera system itself undergoing thousands of iterations as the team experimented to achieve the right balance.