Koichi Hayashida
林田 宏一
Hayashida in 2013
Born	1969 (age 55–56) Tokyo, Japan
Occupation(s)	Director, producer, game designer
Years active	1993–present
Employer	Nintendo

Koichi Hayashida is a Japanese video game developer who has worked as a director, producer, and programmer on multiple games fromNintendo, notably theSuper Mario series. He was the director ofSuper Mario Galaxy 2 (2010),Super Mario 3D Land (2011),Super Mario 3D World (2013, with Kenta Motokura),NES Remix (2013), andNES Remix 2 (2014). He was a producer ofCaptain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2014) andSuper Mario Odyssey (2017).

Hayashida began programming in fifth grade on theCommodore VIC-20. He began programming atNintendo while the company was developing for theNES. He notably programmed forSuper Mario Sunshine (2002). He was an assistant director onDonkey Kong: Jungle Beat (2004), and the level design director forSuper Mario Galaxy (2007).^[1]

Hayashida was the director ofSuper Mario Galaxy 2 (2010).^[2] Hayashida andShigeru Miyamoto developed a four-step process for the game's levels to teach a newgame mechanic, titledkishōtenketsu, which derives from Chinese and Japanese poetry andmanga writing. In the game version ofkishōtenketsu, a game mechanic is introduced in alevel, evolves to let players grow their skills, given a twist that makes the players think of the concept in a different way, and then concluded with a test that makes players use every concept they learned throughout the level. The technique has been used by Nintendo for numerous games since then.^[3][4][5]

Hayashida was then the director ofSuper Mario 3D Land (2011).^[6] To help his development team, he gave them "Miyamoto's Teachings": a book of quotations by Miyamoto, a more experienced designer who had begun to lessen his role at Nintendo.^[7] To make the game more approachable for less experienced players, Hayashida decided the game would technically end at its halfway point, when the story was over and the credits rolled, but there was a whole other half of more challenging levels. The game's development was delayed because of the2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.^[8] To motivate the game's developers, who were previously separated by their different trades, Hayashida moved everyone into a common area to work more collaboratively.^[9]

Hayashida was a co-director forSuper Mario 3D World (2013), directing alongside Kenta Motokura.^[10][11][12] He was the director ofNES Remix (2013) andNES Remix 2 (2014). These games were first made forWii U instead of the3DS, partially because Hayashida was more familiar with the Wii U's architecture.^[13][14] He was the producer ofCaptain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2014)^[15] andSuper Mario Odyssey (2017).^[16] He worked on the design ofSuper Mario Bros. Wonder (2023).^[17]

• Nintendo people
• Japanese video game designers
• Japanese video game directors
• Japanese video game producers
• Japanese video game programmers
• Living people
• 1969 births

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