shmuplations

Chaos Seed – 2010 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/chaosseed/

This interview with former Neverland developer Junichi Kashiwagi explores the inspirations of Chaos Seed, a little-known but critically acclaimed action/rpg/simulation genre hybrid from 1996. Kashiwagi (who today works for game developer Pyramid) goes into good detail about the mechanics and story of Chaos Seed, while the interviewer makes the case for Chaos Seed as a hidden gem t...

59 Developers, 20 Questions – 1985 Interview Special

http://shmuplations.com/20questions1985/

This week, I made a massive update to this classic 1985 survey-style interview feature from BEEP magazine. There's now an additional 47 (!) developers on display, from Nihon Falcom, Tehkan (Tecmo), Game Arts, System Sacom, Nichibutsu, Jaleco, Sunsoft, and more!

(scroll about 1/3 down to see the new interviews!) 

Fire Emblem – Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/fireemblem/

These two Fire Emblem interviews offer a good look at the early games in the series (particularly the original 1990 Famicom game and its 1994 Super Famicom remake). The first interview is a fun "Final Fantasy vs. Fire Emblem" chat between Hironobu Sakaguchi and Shouzou Kaga, in which both creators share their love for each other's work. The second interview with Kaga focuses pur...

Mega Man Legends – 1997 Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/megamanlegends/

Taken together, these two Mega Man Legends interviews—the first a pre-release talk with Keiji Inafune, and the second a post-release roundtable interview—show the challenges of adding a new genre entry to a long-running series, and bringing in new players without alienating old fans. I’ve also included scanlations of the various developer profiles, all veteran Capc...

The Story of Fumito Ueda

http://shmuplations.com/ueda/

This long and wonderful interview with ICO and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda first appeared in vol. 25 of the excellent CONTINUE magazine in 2005, and was later compiled in a book of interviews. It covers Ueda’s entire career up to that point: his childhood years, art school, working at WARP, and finally settling in at Sony as a full-fledge game creator. The discussion is ful...

The History of Sega Console Hardware

http://shmuplations.com/segahistory/

This wonderful retrospective of Sega console hardware was originally featured in the November 1998 issue of Famitsu DC, and later recompiled for the 2001 Sega Consumer History book. Narrated by Hideki Sato, a longtime company man who helmed Sega’s console R&D during the 16-bit era, and later became President in 2002.

The history is given in two parts: first, a gen...

Mega Man 9 and 10 – Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/mm9and10/

These two interviews with Mega Man 9&10 producer Hironobu Takeshita originally appeared in the excellent Japanese magazine Gameside. In constrast to the more detailed Inti Creates interview I previously translated, here Takeshita provides an overall view of the development goals of both games, sharing some light anecodtes and the challenges of developing a new “Famicom” game ...

The History of the PC Engine

http://shmuplations.com/pcengine/

These two interviews offer a look back at the history and development of NEC and Hudson’s seminal home console system the PC Engine, aka Turbo Grafx 16 in the US. The 1987 interview with Hudson veteran Shinichi Nakamoto comes from BEEP Magazine, while the 2003 interview is from the GSLA. The fact of Hudson’s close association with Nintendo and the market dominance of the Famicom ...

Parappa the Rapper – 1996 Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/parappa/

This humorous PaRappa the Rapper interview with developers Masaya Matsuura, Gabin Itou, and Ryu Watabe covers the origins of the project and its unique “live” development process. The first interview comes from Japanese magazine The Playstation, and the Ryu Watabe section comes from the official strategy guide. 

Dodonpachi – 1997 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/dodonpachi2/

This quick interview with Dodonpachi programmers Tsuneki Ikeda and Satoshi Kouyama is the second part of an interview originally featured in Gamest. The first part is well worth a read if you haven’t; this interview focuses on the surprisingly positive public response to an “extreme...

Yoshi’s Island – 1995 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/yoshi/

This short-but-sweet interview with producer Shigeru Miyamoto provides some rare insight into the development of Yoshi’s Island. I’m not sure why, but other than this interview, Nintendo never gave any developer interviews in either game magazines or strategy guides. My best guess is that Nintendo’s tightly controlled PR decided it was best to leave some room for the soon-to-be-relea...

Star Ocean 3 – 2003 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/starocean3/

This lengthy Star Ocean: Till the End of Time interview originally appeared in the official Japanese guidebook. It covers the creation and inspiration behind the game, character design, and how the battle system changed through the development. Perhaps the most enjoyable comments come from director Yoshiharu Gotanda, who waxes lyrical on the themes of fantasy and reality. Rea...

Battle Bird – 1987 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/battlebird/

Battle Bird was a stereoscopic 3D arcade game with a proprietary cabinet, developed by Irem with assistance from their sister/parent company Nanao. Its exact history is quite hazy, as it appears very few cabinets were produced, but this short interview helps shed some light. It doesn’t answer the mystery of “what happened?” (and even Japanese sites and msgboards are mos...

19XX – Developer Interviews and DevDiary

http://shmuplations.com/19xx/

These interviews with the composers and developers of Capcom’s famous arcade shmup 19XX were sourced from the liner notes of the official ost and the secret file. The interviews include a track-by-track commentary for the stage bgm, as well as design details and anecdotes from the other programmers and planners. Finally, I’ve also included a funny development diary, full of the usual...

Early Arcade Classics: 1985-1987 Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/earlyarcade/

This compilation of short interviews covers the arcade classics of Pac-Man, Galaxian, Pole Position, Track & Field, and Space Invaders. The 1985 interviews are taken from a special feature called “Video Game Graffiti” in the legendary BEEP! Magazine; the 1987 interviews come from the book TV Game: denshi yuugi taizen. Anecdotes of design and development abound, and ...

Pasokon History: from 8-bit to 16-bit

http://shmuplations.com/pasokon/

These interviews show a historical snapshot of the Japanese computer

industry in 1987. Although much of it reads rather quaint now, it was

an interesting time in Japan for the personal computer, or “pasokon”,

because home game consoles were enjoying unprecedented growth and sales

(the “Famicom boom”). At the same time, hardware te...

NiGHTS into dreams… – 1996 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/nights/

This NiGHTS interview is actually a compilation of several interviews originally featured in jp game magazines like Sega Saturn Magazine and Famitsu. It goes into some depth about the theme of dreams, character design, and the unique gameplay of NiGHTS. Particularly surprising is the team’s initial resistance to 3D and polygons. Naka also professes some Jim Henson-like aspirations for ...

The Birth of Mega Man – 2011 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/megaman

Although Keiji Inafune is often cited as the man who created Mega Man, planner Akira “A.K” Kitamura should probably be the one accorded that honor. Unfortunately, he’s been largely reclusive since leaving the game industry.

In this lengthy interview, illustrator Hitoshi Ariga talks to Akira Kitamura for the first time about his experiences with both the Mega Man and Mega Man...

Zone of Enders: The 2nd Runner – 2003 Developer Interviews

http://shmuplations.com/zoneofenders/

I've added two more interviews to this page: Kazuma Kaneko, the guest character designer responsible for the Inhert orbital frame's design, and Tsubasa Masao, the character designer responsible for all the other (non-mecha) characters. Both are sourced from the same Visual Works of Anubis artbook.  

Kasco and the Electro-Mechanical Golden Age

http://shmuplations.com/kasco/

Alongside Sega and Namco, Kasco was one of the first companies in Japan to make their own electro-mechanical games. Told through former employees anecdotes, this historically important interview examines an era of Japanese gaming history still mostly unknown to us: the pre-Invaders landscape of the 60s/70s.

Although an attachment to EM technology prevented Kasco from makin...

Radiata Stories – 2005 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/radiatastories/

This humorous interview with the main tri-Ace/Square-Enix production team of Radiata Stories was originally featured in the 2005 official strategy guide. They discuss the main design themes for the game, as well as individual character backstories and planned sub-scenarios that had to be cut. I’ve also included a small selection of concept art from ...

The Origins of SNK – 1996 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/snkorigins/

Toshiyuki Nakai was a planner and designer at SNK from 1983-1987. After that he switched to promotion and marketing, and helped design the look of the new Neo Geo hardware. In this interview from Neo Geo Freak magazine, Nakai looks back at some of the highlights of those early days, including anecdotes from the development of Athena, Psycho Soldier, and Beast Busters. He then tal...

Revenge of Shinobi – 2003 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/shinobi/

Noriyoshi Ohba was a Sega developer responsible for classics like Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Dark Wizard, and Clockwork Knight. In this fun interview from the Sega Meisaku series, Ohba reminisces on the creation and design of his favorite game, Revenge of Shinobi (aka The Super Shinobi in Japanese). I’ve also translated the short “replay comic” that features Ohba playin...

Treasure – 2001 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/treasure/

Conducted just before the arcade release of Ikaruga, this interview with Treasure’s founder/president Masato Maegawa discusses some of the challenges of designing that game, as well as industry trends and observations about the STG genre generally. Maegawa has some especially heartening (and pointed) words at the end; it’s not hard to see why Treasure is so beloved by gamers, wit...

King of Fighters ’94 – Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/kof94/

This developer interview with the KOF’94 development staff first appeared in the All About KOF’94 mook. It covers every character in the game, with humorous anecdotes about their design and backstories.

Midway into the translation, I realized that some of the information here had already been translated for SNK’s official2015-12-31 15:56:45 +0000 UTC View Post

Grandia II – 2000 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/grandia2/

In this Grandia II interview from the “Grandia II World Guidance” artbook, the developers explain the design and story behind each main character. In addition to filling in a few gaps in the narrative, there’s some fanservice-y questions about Elena and Millenia too. For variety, I’ve also added another Grandia II interview with Takeshi Miyaji from Dreamca...

New Forum for Voting/Questions!

http://shmuplations.proboards.com/

I've finally added a messageboard so patrons (and other site visitors) can know more details about the interviews in the master list. I held back from creating a forum for awhile because I enjoyed the idea of the interviews ...

600+ new interviews added for voting!

http://shmuplations.com/patreonlist/

Season's Greetings! As many of you know, I spent three and a half weeks in September researching game magazines in the Tokyo National Diet Library. I found over 600 new interviews there, which I then spent the following two months scanning, sorting, and organizing. That work is now complete, and I've added these interviews to the master list for voting! 

Ther...

Super Mario World – 1990 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/supermarioworld/

This delightful interview from 1990 with the Super Mario World development team was originally featured in the SMW official guidebook. Topics include the overall design, new features like the cape and dotted-line blocks, and the various challenges of working on the new Super Famicom hardware. Finally, there’s an individual Koji Kondo interview (included in ...

Twinkle Star Sprites – 1996 Developer Interview

http://shmuplations.com/twinklestarsprites/

This lengthy interview with the ADK developers behind “vs. shooting” classic Twinkle Star Sprites covers all aspects of its design, including the game mechanics, programming, and character/art design. I’ve also added some of the concept art that was featured in the interview, which contains extra commentary from designer Fujinomiya.