While some gaming fans were not impressed with Splatoon when they first saw it, Nintendo has assured Kotaku that this game will not be a “dumbed-down” shooter like some think. There is also new information on the inspiration for the game and how the team created the prototype. 

“We didn’t make this game with the idea that we wanted to make a simplified shooter or a dumbed-down shooter or anything like that. This game has shooting elements, but the main part of this game is the idea of painting that ink… The game is built around the ink and how to use it.” – Sakaguchi

So that prototype was this game where you had four black blocks and four white blocks and they were shooting at each other and trying to control territory. Everyone played that prototype, and we all had a great reaction to it. Everyone thought it was fun, so we decided to present it to [senior Nintendo game designer] Mr. Miyamoto, Mr. Tezuka, Mr. Eguchi and kind of had a few back and forths with them a few times before we got to the point where, ‘Okay, we should make this into a game.

We definitely play those types of games (shooters). There’s definitely guys on our staff who are super into shooters. We definitely play other games and other company’s hardware. We do that as part of our jobs and we also do that because we’re gamers and love to play games.” – Nogami

“For me, what made me realize this could really be something was when we had that prototype and had that four on four with spraying the ink. I noticed the people playing would all take a different tactic. You might have some person who would just rush to the front and try and attack the other team as much as possible. You might have someone who would hang back and try to cover as much territory as possible. So, when I saw kind of people’s personalities and play styles were coming out in this game, even though it was a game built around very simple objectives, [that] made me feel like, ok, this could really be something.” – Sakaguchi

“We want to make sure that action of spraying the ink around feels really really good…Just that feeling of shooting some ink and having it splash on the ground and splatter everywhere and be shiny and be bubbling up, the sound of that the graphics of that—everyone on the team is working really, really hard to make sure that feels really great when you do it.

“If someone came into this room and had a paint can and they were like, ‘You can paint this room however you want,’ I think everyone kind of remembers being a kid and would be like, ‘Great, I’m just going to go crazy.’ I think if anyone has something like that still left in them, they’ll definitely be able to enjoy this game.” – Nogami

http://playeressence.com/splatoon-is-not-a-dumbed-down-shooter-staff-plays-shooters-on-sony-and-microsoft-systems/