One Man s Quest To Catalogue Every Moai In Video Games Feature
One Man's Quest To Catalogue Every Moai In Video Games - Feature Nintendo Life "Why do this? It's the thrill of the chase!" by Share: Video games of all flavours are filled with real-world items that pop up time and again all over the place. Coins, rings, stars - these things are part of the vocabulary of games to the point that we don't really notice them any more, and it's usually the same with level furniture and background features. Occasionally though, a real-world object will really catch your eye and make you wonder why it's there. Case in point: Moai. Pronounced moe-eye, the large monolithic statues from Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean can be found in a surprising number of games on all platforms, including Nintendo's. The most recent example is probably the Moe-Eye statue that Mario can take over with Cappy in , but there are countless others to be found in games from the past 35 years or so, and one person has taken it upon themselves to catalogue the lot on a website called (appropriately) . To find out more about these mysterious monoliths and the reasons behind this endeavour, we spoke to Matt Sephton to ask him about the project and... well, why Moai? Nintendo Life: Firstly, tell us a little about yourself and what it is about Moai that you like so much. Have you seen one in real life? Matt Sephton: I'm a professional programmer and lifelong gamer. I started out programming with 8-bit home computers and progressed from there, whilst my gaming started with the SNES, through my favourites the DS and Wii, all the way to the Switch, and most other platforms in between. As for my fascination with Moai, I'm interested in the unexplainable things that have been left behind by previous civilisations: the Pyramids, Nazca Lines and stuff like that. I think Moai are the coolest of the bunch. To see them crop up in video games in odd ways is just an extra bonus that ties together two of my interests quite nicely. In terms of real Moai I've seen the one at The British Museum in London, and have a small Moai that I bought from a garden centre sitting on my window ledge at home. I imagine my little one is much easier to dust than the one at The British Museum! Moai have a long history in video games, featuring prominently in Konami’s library, for example. Can you remember the first game you spotted a Moai in? We, too, have a Moai in our garden. This was him this morning. You're absolutely right that Konami pretty much own, or maybe that should be owned, the idea of putting Moai in games. You can see on that they have by far the most games featuring Moai. In fact, you could argue that Moai was almost a Konami mascot to rival Mario and Sonic as they even had its own game Moai-kun. I read that during Konami's golden period (80s/90s) one of their staff, , had the nickname "Moai Sasaki". Perhaps that was the reason they featured them in most of their games? A bit like how Nintendo have "Totaka's Song" in so many of their games. The first game I ever saw a Moai in was Pang (aka ) on the Atari ST. I loved that game beause it showed so many cool and interesting places from around the world in the background of each stage. For me the backgrounds provided the incentive to progress through the game rather than any sorts of achievements. Spoiler: Pang's final stage is set on Easter Island and you see a row of Moai in the background. As an aside, my favourite version of Pang is the amazing dual screen , which is a phenomenal game. But sadly there are no Moai in it! Whilst the game features UNESCO World Heritage sites, they didn't feel the need to include Easter Island. Shame! What was the genesis of this heady project? How many of these have you seen first-hand? Nice pun! Well, back in 2013 I saw a thread on a gaming forum (NeoGAF) that served as a place for people to post screenshots of Moai in games as and when they encountered them. I submitted a few and so did many others, and the thread would come and go over time. Since then I've become aware of other places that had similar small lists of Moai: books, video game databases, tumblr blogs, other forums, and I was still keeping a small list of my own. So I thought it would be worthwhile to put together a dedicated site to act as the master list. One weekend last month the stars aligned - so I bought a domain name, installed WordPress, and entered the first 40-or-so games in an evening. A month later - far more than I would have ever imagined! I've seen a large majority of the featured Moai myself, and for many of the games on the site I captured the screenshots myself. Emulation and cheat codes help a great deal. For some games I have to use Let's Play videos. For others that are lost to time, magazine screenshots are all I can feasibly use. I've gone to some lengths, such as searching many vintage magazines on archive.org, and even reconstructing screenshot that I only have in an incomplete or partial state. Why do this? It's the thrill of the chase! There is a queue of games that are awaiting screenshots. One I'll get to soon is for 3DS which has a QR code that should unlock some Moai-related content. Of all the examples submitted to your site, do you have any favourites? I'm eager to figure out which game was the first to feature Moai. Right now there are 3 games that were released in 1983, one is American and two are Japanese. In 1982 one of the real Moai from Easter Island was shipped to Japan to be displayed in an exhibition in Osaka. That cultural event could explain their sudden appearance in Japanese video games so soon after. I'm hoping to speak to the creator of the American game to figure out what inspired them. My favourite of those three is an obscure Japanese adventure game about the lost continent of Mu (also known as Atlantis) which was released on some Japanese 8-bit home computers. That one is extra mysterious, so is my favourite to date. I also like the stranger appearances. The "Moai on the beach" in Second Life has a real sense of humour. And of course the "Moai in shades" from Super Mario Odyssey is cool because you can play part of the game as it. They're all Moai, but they're all different and that's what I love about this project. Is the intention to make it a comprehensive catalogue? My main intention it's just to have a bit of fun and see how far this thing can go. It provides a talking point and provides a common thread through our wonderful hobby of video games. If somebody visits the site and also discovers a new game, or rediscovers an old game, then that is enough of a reward for me. As long as people keep submitting Moai, or I continue to find them myself, then I'll continue to update and expand the site with relevant information. Are there any other objects that pop up in video games that you think might be worthy of a similar list? There sure are! There's site called the that catalogues appearances of soda machines in video games. In fact I've submitted many soda machines to that site so you could say it is a major influence for the Moai Games site. Personally, I'm also planning another site listing every Hanafuda video game that has ever been made. (Hanafuda are the flower cards that ). I've been collecting the data on those games for years as a big spreadsheet, so just need to find another free weekend to turn it into a website. There won't be as many entries as there are on Moai Games — currently I know of around 150 Hanafuda games — but each will be packed with much more individual detail. You can check out the project for yourselves and contribute via and . Our thanks to Matt for his time and graciously complimenting our pun. It was tough, but we limited ourselves to just the one - you've got to keep a Moai on these things. Share: About Gavin loves a bit of couch co-op, especially when he gets to delegate roles, bark instructions and give much-appreciated performance feedback at the end. He lives in Spain (the plain-y bit where the rain mainly falls) and his love for Banjo-Kazooie borders on the unhealthy. Comments ) I completely agree! What game is that final image from? How delightfully random Fortnite This is like an episode of my strange addiction Surprised the dogu statue didn’t come up. There should be a where’s Waldo for that one too makes me happy to read that! cheers Interesting, but I think some of them look more like they could be based off of other things. Particular, the Kirby enemies more resemble the Japanese Haniwa figures found in tombs (for those who don't know what I'm talking about, Animal Crossing's Gyroids are based off of the same thing). They should try the best NES puzzle game no one played, Moai Kun. I loved that game, one of these days I'm going to put it in my NES Classic so I can play it on TV easily. It's a promotional shot from Fortnite. I wish the actual game looked that good! I mean, I'm the guy who spent much of his high school years writing down and studying entire credit rolls of every animated movie in his collection (yes, that was before I ever experienced the internet, let alone IMDBs and such), and who has yet to regret that pastime in the slightest. There's no way I can look down on an endeavor like this. The image from Gradius is from the Famicom/NES for which is by no means the one people remember. Please use the arcade version or even the Gradius III Moai’s from the SFC/SNES conversion instead! Yeah, I mean that pic is when you take a warp. Not many people did that. The NES version even has a proper stage where they are statues shooting rings at you. Use that pic! Must resist emoji meme... the Kirby appearances of Kabu I sometimes want to delete, and sometimes don't. In some Kirby games they look very Moai, so should only some Kirby games be included if it's the same character in all of the games? I don't know. It's tricky! For now I have left them in. Maybe I'll contact Masahiro Sakurai about it? there probably is an element of that though let's not forget this list is the result of many people over many years. I consciously try to mix up the Gradius images to feauture all types of appearances because having the same style Moai in all Gradius screenshots would be... less interesting? because you have immediate contact with sakurai we all do - he's on Twitter. Though I don't expect he will reply. "Me no dumdum you are dumdum! Did you bring me gumgum?" -Moai statue from Night at the Museum Seriously, who cares?! Review one of the many games that came out this week rather than this randomness. It looked interesting, until I learned it was Fortnite. lol Thanks, this shot piqued my interest, but if it’s Fortnite, I just lost interest. Ha Question regarding the layout of the article: why not include pictures according to the games mentioned in the article? It's kind of annoying reading an article about screenshots, then getting screenshots, but they don't match... Beside that a very interesting read Eh, kinda need them. The irreverence does wonders for our Statist tendencies and the childlike honesty helps keep egos in check. As long as it's not outright bullying or anti-facts, it's surprisingly healthy free speech (because the truth of our sociological workings is stranger than fiction). I'm sure I saw one in super Mario Odyssey if that helps I wanted to show as many different Moai as possible! If you're curious about ones in Pang and Second Life, they're searchable on the Moai Games site via Title (or developer, platform or year) Best game with Moai for me : Parodius ! I'm surprised no one mentionned this one here. I guess it's a sign Parodius is slowly slipping into forgetfulness Its weird how many of these I am familiar with. Its kind of creepy knowing the Moai has just been in the background of all those games lurking and I only barely took notice Every Pokémon game after gen 3 for nosepass and probopass He forgot about the Horizon Chase Turbo having Moai... I mean they have a literal Easter Island stage. I think Gradius 1 or 3 is the best Moai for me. They're really how I learned about them. Gradius is such an educational video game. I sent em a headsup about the one in DJMAX Series and both now added! i'd not played either series Leave A Comment Hold on there, you need to to post a comment...