Prerelease:Splatoon/Later Development

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Splatoon.

To do: Here's some video footage of the 2019 V&A exhibition featuring additional playtest footage, and more things possibly not seen anywhere else.

Experimenting with Bunnies

Tofu blocks didn't seem to be a good idea with developers, so they wanted to go for a more humanoid character which were experimented using a basic polygonal base. The transition to humanoid characters caused a bit of a stir within the team, because it destroyed the point of the "hiding" concept due to the tofu being able to blend in with the environment in comparison to human figures. They went with a top-down view in the end, where inking walls would not count towards the amount of turf inked unlike the tech demo.

From the several pieces of concept art below, it came down to bunnies and human-like characters. It also showed early elements of what would form the basis of the game, such as how weapons are operated and how they..."hid" under the ink.

Implementing the Idea

At this point in development, they went with a completely new character which were internally bunnies. They were chosen due to their black-and-white color scheme so it would be easy to see if they were inked and ears so they could be seen facing direction they moved when viewed from top-down. They thought it was a better option than tofu blocks. Interestingly, the prototype rabbit in the blue image is wearing a shirt that says "Udon" (うどん) in Japanese, where Splatfests may have been considered early in development.

Polygonal human figures were created as a base....	...before they settled on bunnies first.

Conceptualizing Bunnies

The developers wanted to go for a world based on street culture, due to its contemporary design and due to its derivation from counterculture, acting as a rebellion against the mainstream. Thus, the bunnies were apparently designed to be like that.

Concept art of the bunnies, in a newer style.	Tests of the new bunny model.

They also did concept art of the hub world and what would eventually be Splatfests.

The hub world shows many unseen concepts that would be changed or reworked in the final;

• Judd appears to look more like a rakugo-styled judge rather than a regular instructor. It's the only design that made it to the final.
• The bluebird holding a t-shirt on the left was likely reworked into Jelenzo.
• The tanuki wearing a wielding mask next to the bluebird is probably an early version of Sheldon, except with a motif of forging weapons rather than running an army surplus in the final.
• The alligator on the right is either an early version of Crusty Sean or Annie.
• The old dog-like creature is likely Cap'n Cuttlefish.
• Interestingly on the television screen is a frog as a news anchor, rather than the Squid Sisters in the final. It's possible that they weren't completely conceptualized yet.
• The tanuki and kitsune statues remained in the final game.

Developmental Test Images

A collection of screenshots from a slideshow on display at the London V&A Museum, described as an evolution of level and environment design. The layout appears to bear resemblance to that of the Urchin Underpass.

Earlier Build

The build that shows the placeholder bunny models.

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(Source: https://youtu.be/Kqh4Fa28fr0)

Later Build

The build that shows the finalized bunny models.

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Conceptual Art

	More concept art of a location is shown, where the Wii U's logo can be seen. The bottom image interestingly resembles that of the night levels of Octo Valley.

Some concept art was drawn up for the general idea of the setting, which were shown in Famitsu.

The developers wanted to go for a world based on street culture, due to its contemporary design and due to its derivation from counterculture, acting as a rebellion against the mainstream.

Designing The UI

In order to go with the game's refined urban worldview, the font had to be designed specifically for that setting.

Though two images show examples of font tests before the finalized one was used, the images have notable differences in them.

• The overall "splat" aesthetic of the graphic design was more "clay-like".
• SpotPass is mentioned as a way to receive ranking data despite it only being used to receive stage data in the final game.
• The second image shows yet another unfinished testing area.
• The first image appears to be a modified version of the "test battlefield" in an earlier screenshot.

Sketch drafts of the font.	Finalized draft.

Early drafts of the iconic Splatoon font were designed. Tachibana couldn't find a font that matched the aesthetic of the game, so he designed his own. He described the English font as "thick like a sports brand", while the Japanese font was described as "organic lines flowing like liquid".

Next up was the UI, which took inspiration from the font. He used keywords like "squids" and "sports", which gave way to certain keywords of designing the menus.

A comparison of the HUD.	The HUD in game.

Notably, the second image appears to show the "orange vs. blue" Turf War which would be used during this development phase.

Choosing Other Characters

Around early 2014, when a build of the game with bunnies was shown internally to sales and advertising staff within the company, the overall reception was mixed. One notable question was why bunnies used ink, which didn't add to the appeal of the character.

It was also because developers noticed that it would be easier to see ink on bunnies, due to their colors contrasting a bit too much with the ink so they decided to change up the character as of a result.

The following two images appear to be from the final bunny builds, as the graphics seem to be finalized, and the bunnies were developed to wear Gear.

The holding animation for the brush is reused from the Splattershot, likely as a placeholder.

Playtest Footage

A recording was made during development at Nintendo that involved Shigeru Miyamoto playtesting the game. A brief clip of the footage was shown in an official video promoting the V&A Museum. It was recorded in 2014, and approximately 20 minutes of footage was shown at the exhibition.

That's Super Bell Hill...	This screenshot with Mario seems to be from the video.	Video footage at 3:58

Character Options

Panel de Pon wasn't enough.

At one point, it was considered at Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion to make the game a Mario spinoff, with various colors of Yoshi and Mario appearing as playable characters. The developmental team thought that the idea would be a rather radical departure from the series' usual gameplay style, and would be better off making it into a new IP.

The developers focused on a character design idea that would logically dive into the ink and swim, so they went with some other choices like spacesuits (matching one of the earliest game concepts) and generic humans, until they settled onto squids, and eventually human-squid hybrids.

Spacesuits, which seemed to be another try at the idea.	Squids	Humans

Eventually, the developers decided to go with two completely different forms for each mode of gameplay - a squid for swimming in ink, and a humanoid for shooting ink, as seen in the completed game.

(Source: Iwata Asks)

Pre E3-2014

Early Icons

Early icons were showcased in a presentation.

Many of the icons appear to be in a rough state.

• One removed ability is shown before the question mark.