Just an aside, it’s still impressive to me with all the technical limitations they had, they were still able to make Mario feel so damn floaty swimming through the water levels.
I think modern developers are in some ways stifled by an aimless lack of limitations.
Creative constraints is the term you’re looking for
It’s absolutely a thing - they do it for creative writing and game jams, and it’s very effective.
Programming is inherently creative, even if we don’t think of it that way. You start learning the basic use, then you get into very rudimentary designs - at that stage, you transition from problem solving to creating a design that solves a problem.
Constraints help - if you pick what we call an opinionated framework, it limits and guides you. It tells you how pieces fit together, and ideally it doesn’t limit you, but it does make some things much easier and others harder.
Nintendo had an extremely opinionated engine in that time - they were still drawing the maps out on paper in a grid, then scanning it with custom hardware.
These days, you open up godot, and you get a blank screen. You could make anything, 2d or 3d, a game or a tool, and it just gives you the tools. You could build a tile map for a 2d game, or a terrain for 3d, you can set the camera wherever you want. You can have multiple cameras, multiple maps - you can do anything
Oh no goddammit, I hate those levels and you are telling me there will be more… Fuck! I was okay overheating, having to harvest moist like Star Wars and having the water wars but not that… That fucking sucks.
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