This took a while. Today, I look at Axiom Verge, a game based on 2D Metroid games.

The Mages of Mystralia team are looking for beta testers. @mystralia #pc #gamingnews

The team behind Mages of Mystralia, a game that we had the pleasure of checking out during PAX East 2016, is looking for beta testers. The game is nearly completed and is playable from start to finish. Now they want to toss in a few people to run through the game and see if everything works.

We just hit a major, major milestone this week. The game is fully playable beginning to end and content…

PAX Prime Impressions: Chasm

Today I got the chance to play one of my most anticipated games at PAX Prime, called Chasm. Made by Discord Games and Dan Adelman, it is a rogue-like metroidvania. That alone set me to drooling, and remarkably the game itself actually exceeded my expectations. First things first, the story. It revolves around a small mining community which has mysteriously gone silent. Enter our hero Daltyn, who…

But why was it so difficult to get things done at Nintendo?

Is there a lot of bureaucracy, additional layers of management, and red tape? 

Is it because NOA offices are not very autonomous, and you need to always report to Japan (NCL)? 

Adelman: Nintendo is not only a Japanese company, it is a Kyoto-based company. For people who aren’t familiar, Kyoto-based are to Japanese companies as Japanese companies are to US companies. They’re very traditional, and very focused on hierarchy and group decision making. Unfortunately, that creates a culture where everyone is an advisor and no one is a decision maker – but almost everyone has veto power.

Even Mr. Iwata is often loathe to make a decision that will alienate one of the executives in Japan, so to get anything done, it requires laying a lot of groundwork: talking to the different groups, securing their buy-in, and using that buy-in to get others on board. At the subsidiary level, this is even more pronounced, since people have to go through this process first at NOA or NOE (or sometimes both) and then all over again with headquarters. All of this is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can be very inefficient and time consuming. The biggest risk is that at any step in that process, if someone flat out says no, the proposal is as good as dead. So in general, bolder ideas don’t get through the process unless they originate at the top.

Indie Champion/Former Nintendo executive Dan Adelman has something to get off his chest.

Former Nintendo of America executive Dan Adelman has criticised Nintendo, saying that it does not understand modern gaming.

“The most senior executives at the company cut their teeth during [the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System] days and do not really understand modern gaming,” he told Dromble. “Adopting things like online gaming, account systems, friends…

Polygon: “Conservative, stuffy old Nintendo and its weird habit of wild radicalism” by Colin Campbell

Polygon’s Colin Campbell recently wrote an article that gives us some insight into the Willy Wonka like workplace that is Nintendo. By talking to Dan Adelman, a former employee who was responsible for bridging together Nintendo and many indie developers, Campbell reveals Nintendo’s traditional and conservative corporate culture, one that rewards longevity and doesn’t necessarily reward…