A Trip Through Classic Game Production

Back in September 2024, I visited the Nintendo Museum before it opened to the public. Now, more than a year later, there are even more exhibits on display.

It was great to return to the Nintendo Museum again, especially now that it’s open to the public. Although busy, it was not crowded, the ticketing system may be the reason for this.

All of the exhibits I saw were still in place, but the main new attraction was the gallery of production art for various classic Nintendo games.

This included graph paper for planning levels and designing pixels, which makes perfect sense given the technology and tools at the time.

Check out original plans like this super metroid All of the artwork used to create the game is stunning. There are also many new elements related to the 40th anniversary super mario bros. game (shown below).

The 40th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. game is a major new event at the museum.

Ollie Budd

While there is now a guide to the Nintendo Museum (shown below), unfortunately only a small portion of it covers this new gallery.

Honestly, I hope Nintendo makes a proper art book based on all the elements of this new gallery. I feel like it’s too culturally important to be made more widely available.

Next, there are more items for sale in the museum store, such as giant mats for various Nintendo game consoles. So if you do go, I recommend leaving enough space in your luggage for when you get home.

There is also a new light show outside which comes alive in the evening and it is quite lovely to see all the children and their parents playing in the garden outside.

Honestly, it’s great to see the Nintendo Museum doing such a good job and expanding the already very comprehensive exhibit to show even more information about the making of Nintendo games.

You can reserve your tickets on the official Nintendo Museum website.

You can pick up a new official guide now at the museum.

Ollie Budd

follow me X, Facebook and Youtube. I also manage Mecha Soul Currently writing a regular column about mecha games and mecha anime in Japanese Game*Spark and Automata.