Uncovering Marionette
At E3 2001 a mysterious title appeared on the GameCube release list. As Nintendo enthusiasts from all over the globe checked the release list they saw a game called Marionette. Not too long after Miyamoto told the press that this game is about using puppets (or marionettes) on screen. So what exactly is behind this title? Let us interject with some speculation.
In 2000 Nintendo released three pieces of software on the 64DD under the Mario Artist series. One of these titles, Talent Studio, was a step towards making animation easy. Its biggest selling point was a feature that allowed the user to make a movie using three different characters and even add props. With Shigeru Miyamoto as producer, the game had a great deal of potential but sadly was released on the ill-fated 64DD add-on device. So what does this have to do with Marionette? Lets look closer.
One of Nintendos biggest pushes is to think of easy solutions for difficult problems. For years now developers have been shaking their heads on how to make a creative animation program for the masses. Mario Artist: Talent Studio made a good start by letting the user choose preset animations to try and string together a movie, but we feel Nintendo has found a better solution. This time the solution comes from an age old tradition that is both intuitive and efficient. Its called a marionette. its essentially a puppet that is controlled by a cross with strings hanging from it. The puppeteer would normally tilt and move the cross to make the marionette move in a life-like movement.
Once you have learned how to use your marionette, the sky is the limit. This is exactly where Marionette comes in. My hypothesis is that Nintendo EAD (the same team behind the original Talent Studio) is creating a Talent Studio Plus with the new Marionette. While moving your character around just like a puppet, you could learn to make life-like movements. The most important part would be that the game could save your movie in the same way that a racing game saves your ghost data. Basically if this were the truth it would solve the problem about how to give creative control to the user without difficulty.
This is where it gets really juicy though; When Nintendo originally showcased the GameCube at SpaceWorld 2000, Miyamoto openly stated that he was coming up with ideas that are really great but you would never think of them. We just proposed the brilliant marionette idea already, but it gets better. Instead of using the standard controller to simulate the movements of the puppets cross, we believe that Nintendo is using the GBA tilt cartridge. This spring Nintendo R&D2 is releasing the tilt-cartridge compatible Kirby's Tilt N Tumble 2 for GameCube. Using a GameBoy Advance hooked into the GameCube, you tilt the unit to move action on screen. By this same setup you could use the GameCube/GameBoy Advance link-up to control your marionette. Essentially by tilting your GBA you can create an unlimited amount of animation.
There is a hitch though, and it deals with memory. There is no possible way that the GameCube standard memory cards could hold this amount of data. This would then probably require the use of the long awaited SD Adapter and SD card. When originally announced, Nintendo was showing the use of a standard 64 MB SD card. The question is: if this all becomes true, will the SD cards be cheap enough by then? Or even worse, has the idea for an SD setup been scrapped entirely? As with many things we do not know the answer to these questions yet.
In all, the idea of being able to actually create a movie much more expansive than anything Mario Artist or Mario Paint provided is soothing. Whether or not this idea becomes a reality will be seen in the not so distant future though. It really does pose solutions to some of the hardest problems in application development, as well as making a fun game. Lets hope we can all see for ourselves what is under the hood with Marionette this E3.
Jason Nuyens