NBA Jam is very fondly remembered by an entire generation. Countless hours were spent in arcades and on gaming platforms dunking over the competition. At a GDC 2018 panel, developers Mark Turmell and Sal DiVita, along with the game’s announcer, Tim Kitzrow, sat down to discuss some details of how the project came together.
- the dev team didn't think they could get the NBA license, and didn't even consider it until halfway through development
- the NBA was against the idea at first, as they didn't want their logo in arcades due to their perceived seedy nature
- Midway produced a video showing the safe, fun, and carefree environments of arcades, and this won the NBA over
- the dev team filmed local basketball players performing moves in front of a blue screen for the characters
- the team had to remove the actor from the video by hand and spend time cleaning up the sprites
- they also created various skin tones to accommodate all the NBA players
- Midway would scour sports magazines and record footage of games hoping to find the right angles for players faces
- these were then scanned and put into the game
- the game has you miss more dunks when you’re way ahead to keep games close
from GoNintendo
0 comments: