HOSHINO

People could play the demo of Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke at Tokyo Game Show. Did you get any feedbacks from people who played the demo?

WATANABE

Yes. We got a lot of favorable comments. Some comments said "it was fun to play. Please build the quality into the game". We were very happy to hear those comments.

HOSHINO

What was playable in the demo?

WATANABE

The demo only had a tutorial stage which was very similar to the one in Cursor*10. We made a lot of gimmicks to put in the demo, but we didn't use them after all.

HOSHINO

Can I ask the reason?

WATANABE

It was already difficult indeed. It could be too difficult for the players who have never seen the game before.

ISHII

I saw the gameplay video, but even I couldn't understand what was going on there. (laugh)

WATANABE

I had many people test-play the demo and adjusted the difficulties and the balance. After all, I found that the same setup used in Cursor*10 was the best for the Tokyo Game Show demo version. That setup is ideal for the beginners in terms of difficulty.

HOSHINO

The game difficulties often raise while we are developing it. However, Ishii-san, you once told me you are very sensitive about the difficulties.

ISHII

Yes. Games are there to entertain people who play it.

HOSHINO

I knew you would say so! It is a great thing that Cursor*10 has a perfect difficulty for the beginners. Is it necessary to make it a little easy to play especially for web games?

ISHII

People would stop playing if the game is too difficult. Cursor*10 has only 1 stage and it's not too easy but not too hard either. I would say the difficulty is average.

HOSHINO

Do you have any interesting stories about the development of Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke?

WATANABE

I spent a lot of time wondering about the situation where you are waiting for a time limit in the game. For example, when you just want to press and hold a button, you have to wait for the rest of the time. It's very annoying when you have many levels to go through, and I couldn't ignore it. So, I added a short-cut function to skip the time until the time limit, but I was always thinking back. Was it really correct to add a "short-cut" function?

HOSHINO

That is a problem unique to retail games. By the way, I think Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke is similar to Cursor*10 in terms of directions, not idea-wise. Are there any particular reasons?

WATANABE

In terms of directions? What do you mean?

HOSHINO

It's like "Zoo Keeper" to "Diamond Mine." On the other hand, I think "Chronotron" to "Cursor*10" is more about sharing ideas. Well, I'm not sure whether Chronotron is actually borrowing the idea from Cursor*10 or not though.

WATANABE

Ah, I see. The game's potential greatly increases when you focus only on the concept of "replaying what you have done." The ghost feature in some racing games are one of the potentials, you know. When we started develping this game, we considered other potentials but we finally found that the basic concept of the game should not change.

HOSHINO

Why?

WATANABE

There were some reasons, for exapmle, we would not have enough time. The biggest reason was that Cursor*10 already had a very nice gameplay. We thought we should leave it as it was.

HOSHINO

I see. By the way, Ishii-san, if Watanabe-san develops and releases Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke without contacting you at all, do you think you would feel disgusted?

ISHII

Hmm, maybe no, I don't think I would feel like that.

HOSHINO

Really?

ISHII

Because I don't have any special feeling toward Cursor*10, but if someone exactly copies it, it would be a different story. I would be disgusted if someone copies my Flash file and upload it on other servers or someone modifies the program.

HOSHINO

I see, it's understandable when I remember what you said a while ago.

WATANABE

What do you think, Hoshino-san? I thought you would tell us a lot today, but you are not speaking very much.

HOSHINO

You know, this is an interview with you guys and I should not speak often. (laugh)
I have some stories about the rights but this is not the time to tell. Well, what I am thinking recently is that talking to each other is reaimportant. For example, you should talk to the original creator if you are borrowing an idea from his game. Some situations may not be favorable to you even if you talk, but talking is always the very first thing to do. On this point, I think the flow of developing Onore no Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke is very nice.

(Interviewer: 0stage, HOSHINO Ken'ichi)

links
- NEKOGAMES
- NEKOGAMES : Cursor*10
- NEKOGAMES : Hoshisaga
- FromSoftware
- FromSoftware : Onore No Shinzuru Michi wo Yuke
- Silicon Studio
- okama
- 0stage interview : vol.1 ISHII Yoshio