Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream has been in development for nearly a decade, and the game’s development team ran into its fair share of challenges throughout the process. But one challenge they ran into was seemingly smellier than the rest: fine-tuning the sound and appearance of Miis’ farts.
In a new Ask the Developer interview released by Nintendo on Tuesday, developers behind the upcoming installment in the quirky life sim series shared that the team had had its fair share of discourse about Miis’ ability to fart, which went through some pretty unfortunate phases.
Takahashi: Right. You can even make a Mii character that’s not human-like. Floating might not exactly be a quirk, but if it makes that Mii unique, why not? Speaking of little quirks, there was a big debate among the team about whether Miis should be able to…break wind. (Laughs)
I beg your pardon?
Takahashi: Some people found it hilarious, while others thought it was a bit vulgar. After talking it over, we ended up making it a little quirk. If it’s your kind of thing, you can bestow the trait on your Mii. If not, you’re under no obligation.
Minegishi: While we’re on the subject, we really obsessed over getting the sound just right…
Ueno: We did so many retakes. (Laughs)
Minegishi: Tell me about it. I got comments like, “That’s a bit too realistic for my liking.”
Kageyama: We tried out all sorts of visual effects, too. For a while, the fart effect looked like an explosion going off. (Laughs)
Everyone: (Laughs)
The game’s initial reveal trailer opens with a shot of a Mii relaxing by the beach who lets out a little fart, so it’s safe to say the developers landed on a fart they were happy with.
In the interview, the developers also mentioned that the game took nearly a decade to develop, and that making Miis, pets, buildings, and other items fully customizable took six or seven years alone. That’s pretty surprising considering the fact that quite a few fans of the series assumed it had been abandoned entirely.
Retaining Miis’ personalities was also a major goal. The developers initially sought to redesign the avatars and make them more realistic before (thankfully) deciding that realism made them less charming.
They also added that dragging and dropping Miis was added as a debug feature but was ultimately kept in the game after the developers “started to get greedy” and became attached to their newfound control. However, they made sure Miis are still in charge—dragging and dropping two Miis next to each other doesn’t ensure that they’ll get along with each other, which I’m relieved about. Basically, they’re just the same old independent Miis we know and love, but now they can be picked up and drawn on (and they can fart).
Now that I know how much effort was apparently put into farts alone, I’m going to have to do some serious brainstorming over which of my Miis will be able to fart when I get my hands on the game this Thursday.
