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Gregg Mayles

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Gregg Mayles

Gregg Mayles is a British video game designer employed by Rare, and the brother of Steve Mayles. He is credited as a designer for several of the company's games, such as Battletoads Arcade, Viva Piñata and the Banjo-Kazooie series. Gregg Mayles is one of the longest-serving members of the company, having worked there since 1989.[1]

History

Mayles was the designer of Donkey Kong Country, deciding on elements like having a sparse HUD, designing the levels to allow a skilled a player to navigate smoothly without interruption and the presence of a "buddy" character to allow the player to take more than one hit.[2] He cites Super Mario Bros. 3 as a chief inspiration for Donkey Kong Country.[3]

Gregg Mayles was also the designer for Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, which he believes to be superior to its predecessor.[4] Gregg Mayles was not directly involved in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, as he was working on Dream: Land of Giants (which later became Banjo-Kazooie) at the time.

Gregg Mayles designed the final battle with King K. Rool on Donkey Kong 64.[5]

In 2006, Mayles started a new Banjo-Kazooie project with a new feature: car building. It was announced at X06, and was released in 2008 with the title, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.[6] Mayles did work on the Xbox 360 version of Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing and on Kinect Sports.

Gregg Mayles is the creative director of Sea of Thieves, released in 2018. One of the in-game songs is "Grogg Mayles", which is named after him.

Gregg Mayles is also known for his tweets regarding development and conceptual information of games he has worked on. This includes both Donkey Kong Country and its sequel Donkey Kong Country 2, where he would respectively use the hashtags #DKCrevealed, and #DKC2is20 in commemoration of each game's twentieth anniversary.

Games credited

Date Title Platform(s) Role(s) Notes
1990 Solar Jetman Nintendo Entertainment System Critical feedback
1991 Battletoads Designer
1994 Battletoads Arcade Arcade Lead designer
Donkey Kong Country Super Nintendo Entertainment System
1995 Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Producer, lead designer
1998 Banjo-Kazooie Nintendo 64 Director, lead designer
1999 Donkey Kong 64 Support
2000 Banjo-Tooie Director, lead designer
2001 Conker's Bad Fur Day Additional design
2002 Star Fox Adventures Nintendo GameCube Special thanks
2003 Grabbed by the Ghoulies Xbox Director, lead designer
2004 Sabre Wulf Game Boy Advance Original concept
2005 It's Mr. Pants! Credited for "We Dream of Pants"
Perfect Dark Zero Xbox 360 Rare management
Kameo
2006 Viva Piñata Lead designer
2007 Jetpac Refuelled Rare mangement
2008 Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise Additional design
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Director, designer Credited for "Daft Ideas and Vehicle Gluing"
2010 Kinect Sports Designer
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Special thanks
2012 Fable: The Journey
2014 Kinect Sports Rivals Xbox One Designer
2018 Sea of Thieves Xbox One, PC Creative director Credited as Grogg Mayles
2019 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Nintendo Switch Original Game Supervisors; Rare Ltd. Banjo-Kazooie Fighters Pass DLC
2020 Battletoads Xbox One, PC Special thanks

External links

References

  1. "CS Sessions – Gregg Mayles". Creative Social Blog (Wayback Machine). Published March 10, 2013.
  2. The Making Of Donkey Kong Country (accessed February 20 2012)
  3. In "The Making of Donkey Kong Country", Gregg Mayles is quoted as saying: "For me, Super Mario Bros. 3 was the ultimate pinnacle for 2D platform games. We wanted the same kind of structure, but we also wanted it to be extremely flowing – where a skilled player could move effortlessly through the levels at great speed,"
  4. In "The Making of Donkey Kong Country", Gregg Mayles is quoted as saying: "My personal opinion is that DKC2 was a better game than DKC as we tried to incorporate more of the intricacies that made Mario so compelling but at the same time retaining our desire for fast, fun gameplay."
  5. Mayles, Gregg (September 6, 2020). Tweet by Gregg Mayles. Twitter. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
  6. "Spiral Mountain talk to Gregg Mayles". Rareware Archives (Wayback Machine). Published April 15, 2010.