Koichi Hayashida developed Joy Mecha Fight, his first game for Nintendo, as part of a game seminar taught by Shigeru Miyamoto in 1991. Being a programmer at heart, Hayashida went on to work on hardware-related tasks after Joy Mecha Fight, specifically programming tools for the Nintendo 64 console. During R&D for the Nintendo GameCube, Hayashida worked on the 3D libraries for the system before he wound up at EAD Tokyo as the main programmer for Super Mario Sunshine. He quickly graduated to assistant director for his next title, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, for which he also designed some of the levels.
After taking on the duties Level Design Director for Super Mario Galaxy, Hayashida took the directorial reigns for the sequel, Super Mario Galaxy 2 as well as the follow-ups Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World. During the development of Super Mario 3D World, Koichi felt nostalgic for Famicom games and was looking for an excuse to play them at work which lead to the development of NES Remix which he initially created all by himself as a side-project. Similarly, the unlockable Luigi Bros., a version of the arcade classic Mario Bros. exclusively themed around Luigi, was programmed by Hayashida alone in his off-time as a spontaneous idea.
Following the success of the latest 3D Mario games and the NES Remix series, Hayashida got promoted to producer of his own development group at EAD Tokyo where he oversaw the production of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Ultimate NES Remix.
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