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is a Japanese
video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...
, director, and producer, and business executive. He is a senior executive officer at
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
, where he is known for his work within their ''
Mario is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his creat ...
'' and ''
The Legend of Zelda ''The Legend of Zelda'' is an action-adventure game franchise created by the Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, although some portable installments and re-rele ...
'' series. Since 2013, Koizumi is also part of the board of directors of Nintendo’s subsidiary 1-UP Studio as one of its representative directors, and since October 2022, Koizumi is part of the board of directors of Nintendo's subsidiary Nintendo Pictures as one of its directors.


Biography


Early life

Koizumi was born in
Mishima, Shizuoka Mishima City Hall is a city located in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 109,803 in 49,323 households, and a population density of 1800 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography ...
on April 29, 1968. He played his first video game, ''
Super Mario Bros. 2 ''Super Mario Bros. 2'' is a platform game, platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released in North America in October 1988, and in the PAL region in 1989. After the smash hi ...
'', at the age of 21 when he borrowed a friend's
Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...
console. A graduate from the Visual Concept Planning Department of
Osaka University of Arts is a private arts university located in Kanan, Osaka, Kanan, Minamikawachi District, Osaka, Minamikawachi District, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The university was founded in 1945 as , changing its name to in 1957, and then to in 1964. The univers ...
, Koizumi studied
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
,
drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
,
animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
and, to a lesser extent, storyboarding. He had originally intended to become a
film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
but applied at
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
instead to pursue his goal of creating a kind of drama only experienced in video games. The company's close proximity to his university also played a role in his career choice.


Nintendo

After Koizumi had joined Nintendo in April 1991, he was assigned to work on the manual for the
action-adventure The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyli ...
game, '' The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past'' for the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
, for which he did the art, layout and writing. In the process, he conceived the game's backstory and the designs of the three goddesses and the star sign associated with them. For the sequel, '' The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening'', he was again tasked with designing the manual. However, since work on the game had just begun, Koizumi wound up creating its entire story and came up with plot ideas such as the island in a dream. He also worked on the event design for the interactions with the villagers, wrote the owl's and the Wind Fish's lines and designed the bosses' behavioral patterns. Koizumi later experimented with a polygonal, side-scrolling remake of '' Zelda II: The Adventure of Link''. Developed for the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
, the prototype was based on ''
chanbara , also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of ' ...
'' action, a type of Japanese sword fighting. With ''
Super Mario 64 is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first ''Super Mario'' game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional ''Su ...
'', Koizumi became assistant director and animated the 3D models, among others working on Mario's swimming movements in cooperation with director
Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in the history of video games, he is ...
. While developing ''Super Mario 64'', Nintendo's employees devised rough concepts of a three-dimensional ''The Legend of Zelda'' game with a bigger focus on puzzles and less pronounced action elements. Koizumi wrote several notes on sword battles and combat with multiple opponents. When he joined Toru Osawa and Jin Ikeda, he was the third staff member to work on the game that would become '' The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time''. Koizumi consulted his earlier notes and tried to inject leftover ideas from ''Super Mario 64'' into this new ''Zelda'' installment. On the lookout for inspiration on ''chanbara'' action, Osawa suggested a visit to
Toei Kyoto Studio Park is a theme park and film set modeled after the Edo period located in Kyoto, Japan that opened its doors in 1975. It is situated in Toei Company's Kyoto Studio where movies have been produced. Projects filmed at the park include Sebastiano Sera ...
, a
film studio A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production ...
theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...
. There, Osawa, Koizumi and Ikeda entered a playhouse where several ninjas and a main samurai were staging a show. Koizumi observed how only one of the ninjas would attack the main samurai at a time while the others remained in a waiting pattern, which proved to be the solution to designing battles with multiple opponents. Osawa noticed how a ninja using a ''
kusarigama A is a traditional Japanese weapon that consists of a ''kama'' (the Japanese equivalent of a sickle or billhook) on a kusari-fundo – a type of metal chain (''kusari'') with a heavy iron weight (''fundo'') at the end. The ''kusarigama'' is said ...
'' weapon would move around the main samurai in circles and never lose track of his opponent. Both of these observations became the basis for the Z targeting system used in ''Ocarina of Time''. Koizumi replaced the simple triangle the team had implemented to mark the player's focus with a fairy that would change colors based on the friendly or hostile nature of the Z target. Furthermore, he was in charge of the
player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...
Link and designed other characters such as the horse Epona. He also worked on the 3D environments, the camera system, the items and some of the event design, such as the scenes where the player overhears the conversations of other characters. Following ''Ocarina of Time'', Koizumi was designing a " cops and robbers"-style board game that had the player catch a criminal over the course of a week in-game, or roughly equivalent to an hour in real time. However, he was pulled off the project and asked to help develop the sequel to ''Ocarina of Time'', '' The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask''. Koizumi carried over his "cops and robbers" idea with the time limit and expanded it into a world threatened by a falling moon after he had daydreamed about such a scenario. The concept was corroborated by Miyamoto's wish to have a "compact" ''Zelda'' that could be played over and over again, and the ideas eventually evolved into a system with a three-day
time loop The time loop or temporal loop is a plot device in fiction whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition. The term "time loop" is sometimes us ...
. Koizumi was again placed in charge of the game's player characters. He also wrote many of the scheduled events involving the villagers of Clock Town, for which he tried to depict the characters' lives as realistically as possible. Many of the serious elements in ''Majora's Mask'' came from Koizumi, which his coworker
Eiji Aonuma is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer. He works for Nintendo as the project manager of their ''The Legend of Zelda'' series. Aonuma is also one of the deputy general managers of Nintendo's Entertainment Planning & Development ...
countered by introducing more lighthearted portions in the areas he was in charge of. In 2003, Koizumi switched to Nintendo's Tokyo Software Development Department and directed the 2D platformer ''
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a 2004 platform and score-attack game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It follows the gorilla Donkey Kong as he sets out to defeat a series of evil kings and conquer the jungle. ''Jungle Beat'' is designed for use with ...
''. The game's side-scrolling nature sprang from Koizumi's attempt to overcome problems with complex camera controls in 3D titles. These efforts continued in his next title, ''
Super Mario Galaxy is a 2007 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii. It is the third 3D game in the '' Super Mario'' series. As Mario, the player embarks on a quest to rescue Princess Peach, save the universe from Bowser, and collect 120 ...
''. The game's spherical levels eliminated the possibility of the player getting lost or the need for adjusting the camera when reaching the end of a flat surface. Koizumi directed ''Super Mario Galaxy'' and was heavily involved in the creation of its story, deciding on the inclusion of the optional fairytale book that tells the characters' backstory. Following this, he was promoted to producer and was manager of Tokyo Software Development Group No. 2 within the company's Entertainment Analysis & Development Division. In September 2015, he became Deputy General Manager of the newly formed Entertainment Planning & Development Division. Koizumi also served as General Producer of Nintendo's 2017 video game console, the
Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...
. He also succeeded
Satoru Iwata was a Japanese businessman, video game programmer, video game designer, and producer. He was the fourth President (corporate title), president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nintendo from 2002 until his death in 2015. He was a major contr ...
as the international host of the
Nintendo Direct Nintendo Direct is a series of online presentation or live shows produced by Nintendo, where information regarding the company's upcoming content or franchises is presented, such as information about games and consoles. The presentations began i ...
video presentations in 2017, and has been doing so since the live streamed Nintendo Switch Presentation, which took place on January 12, 2017.


Game design

Koizumi is a protégé of
Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in the history of video games, he is ...
and often draws his ideas from real-world influences such as
hiking Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...
. When creating fictional worlds, he tries to surprise players with visually impressive environments and difficult gameplay mechanics while still ensuring "ease of use", that is effortless navigation and control. He said that most of his time on a video game is spent working on
player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...
s and their abilities in order to strike a balance between "fun and complexity" in control. Koizumi mentioned tempo and rhythm as some of the most important elements of a ''Mario'' game, whereas he gave anticipation of the awaiting challenges as a crucial factor in a ''Zelda'' title. Unlike Miyamoto, Koizumi often tries to introduce story elements to the video games he works on. He trains his staff by hinting at the direction they should take rather than just giving them the solution to a problem.


Works


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koizumi, Yoshiaki 1968 births Japanese video game businesspeople Japanese video game designers Japanese video game directors Japanese video game producers Living people Nintendo people Osaka University of Arts alumni People from Shizuoka Prefecture Video game artists