Giles Goddard (born 30 March 1971) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

video game programmer A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall ...

. He was one of the first Western employees at

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

, programming the

Mario Mario (; ) is a Character (arts), character created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the ''Mario (franchise), Mario'' franchise, a recurring character in the ''Donkey Kong'' franchise, and the mascot of the Ja ...

face in ''

Super Mario 64 ''Super Mario 64'' is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first ''Super Mario'' game to feature 3D gameplay, combini ...

'', and working on titles such as ''

Star Fox ''Star Fox'' is a rail shooter, space flight simulator, and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto and developed and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic a ...

'', ''

1080° Snowboarding is a snowboarding video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. In the game, players control one of five snowboarders from a Third-person (video games), third-person perspective, using a combination of buttons to ...

'', and ''

Steel Diver ''Steel Diver'' is a submarine simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo, with assistance by Vitei, for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was released in March 2011 as a launch title for the 3DS in North America, with releases in Europe ...

''. In 2002, he founded Vitei, a video game developer based in

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, Japan, and is

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

Career

Argonaut Games

Giles Goddard's interest in computers began when he was a teenager, when he used his

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

, and later

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

, to create

demoscene The demoscene () is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off computer programmi ...

works in his spare time. In his Amiga demos, he experimented with 3D wireframe graphics with filled

polygons In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon' ...

. During this time,

Argonaut Software Argonaut Games is a British video game developer founded in 1982. It was known for the Super NES video game '' Star Fox'' and its supporting Super FX chip, and for '' Croc: Legend of the Gobbos'' and the ''Starglider'' series. The company was ...

released ''

Starglider 2 ''Starglider 2'' is a 3D space combat simulator published in 1988 by Rainbird as the sequel to 1986's ''Starglider''. It was released for the Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and ZX Spectrum. Instead of the wireframe graphics of the origina ...

'', one of the first computer games to use filled polygons. Goddard soon left school before finishing his

A-level The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational ...

s and joined Argonaut Games, where his first task was porting ''Starglider 2'' to the

Macintosh SE The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the ...

. Argonaut would develop a reputation for creating cutting-edge, 3D games. They produced a 3D graphics demo for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the ...

and collaborated with

to produce the

Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...

title '' X'', one of the few Game Boy games with 3D graphics.

Nintendo

When Goddard was 18 or 19, he moved to

to work for Nintendo, where he, alongside fellow Argonaut employee

Dylan Cuthbert Q-Games, Limited is a video game developer based in Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan. It was founded by Argonaut Games alumnus Dylan Cuthbert and was closely affiliated with Nintendo and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Foundation Q-Games was founded b ...

, helped develop ''

'' and '' Stunt Race FX''. Goddard remained with Nintendo during the

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

era. He assisted with the demo of Link fighting an enemy, which would be shown at the Shoshinkai 1995 trade show. To show off

skinning Skinning is the act of skin removal. The process is done by humans to animals, mainly as a means to prepare the meat beneath for cooking and consumption, or to harvest the skin for making fur clothing or tanning it to make leather. The sk ...

, he programmed the interactive Mario face in ''

'' by attaching painted ping-pong balls to his face and using an

Indy Indy may refer to: Computing and technology *Indy (software), used for Internet access to music *Internet Direct, or "Indy", a software library * SGI Indy, a computer workstation Periodicals *''The Indy'', shorthand for newspapers that include ...

camera to track movement. His next project, ''

'', saw him as one of the two lead programmers, alongside fellow Argonaut colleague Collin Reed. This game used frame interpolation and

inverse kinematics In computer animation and robotics, inverse kinematics is the mathematical process of calculating the variable joint parameters needed to place the end of a kinematic chain, such as a robot manipulator or animation character's skeleton, in a g ...

to make character movement feel more realistic.

VITEI BACKROOM, Inc / Chuhai Labs

Afterwards, Goddard left Nintendo and became a freelancer, porting ''

Doshin the Giant ''Doshin the Giant'' is a god simulation game developed by Param and published by RandnetDD for the 64DD. It was originally released in Japan on December 1, 1999, as a launch title for the peripheral. A soundtrack by Tatsuhiko Asano was released ...

'' from the

Nintendo 64DD The is a peripheral developed by Nintendo to expand the capabilities of the Nintendo 64 with floppy disk, rewritable magnetic disks and online connectivity. Announced in 1995 before the Nintendo 64's 1996 launch, it faced multiple delays before ...

to the

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

. In 2002, Goddard founded the Japanese video game developer Vitei, Inc. as a Nintendo second party studio. Vitei produced its first game, the Japan-exclusive

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

title ''Theta'', in 2007, and the

WiiWare WiiWare was a digital media entertainment service operated by Nintendo that allowed the download of games and applications developed for the Wii video game console. These games and applications could only be purchased and downloaded from the W ...

title ''Rock N' Roll Climber'' in 2009. He was the head programmer for ''

'', and Vitei would also develop its sequel, '' Steel Diver: Sub Wars'', as well as '' Tank Troopers.'' In 2020, Vitei Backroom was rebranded as Chuhai Labs to expand into micro-publishing and to position the company to be more forward facing. Chuhai Labs developed ''Carve Snowboarding'', which launched on 27 May 2021. ''Carve Snowboarding'' is a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

-focused spiritual successor to ''1080° Snowboarding'' for

Oculus Quest The first-generation Oculus Quest is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed by Oculus (now Reality Labs), a brand of Meta Platforms, and released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device, tha ...

References

External links

Twitter profileVitei official websiteChuhai Labs official websiteReddit AMAEntry
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controlle ...

N-Sider profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goddard, Giles 1971 births Living people British video game programmers Amiga people Nintendo people