Interview of Fumito Ueda on TRICO

This is an interview that was published in the Famitsu of June 12th, 2009, shortly after the unveiling of Trico, the new project of the developers behind "Ico" and "Wanda and the Colossi". He talks about the background of the game.



Representing an animal with profound cuteness

Famitsu: Was it an idea from the beginning to focus on giant creatures ?

Ueda : In the team, we had the idea at the start of this huge creature called Ohwashi. From "Wanda and the giants", we were thinking if we could not push further the kind of couple-like relationship with Agro. Because recent video games out in Japan along with PS3 are not doing too well, we chose the theme of the strength of a big creature. The character that the player handles is a young boy. The basis of the game design is that the kid is so young, therefore his physical strength and abilities are weak. We thought about adding the Ohwashi part to balance the game design. There are scenes were the boy hides from enemies, as he is young and therefore is not good at solving things by mere strength. But in the places where he can bring the Ohwashi with him, he can catch the enemies at once. That way we keep the balance between oppression and liberation, between silence and movement.

Famitsu : The design of the Ohwashi is very particular.

Ueda : Its a being between a cat and a dog. For example, the mucous membrane around its mouth is not completely impossible. Actually, from the point of view of someone who breeds dogs or cats, its more the unnatural things than stand out than the natural ones, I think. Again, thinking about the elements and consistency involved with the game design, we are seeking to be just at the line where you would not find things to be unnatural. We mixed elements from a number of different animals, however even when I look at it by myself, it feels incompatible. But at the same time, that's what we were aiming at. It's important to get "what a strange creature" kind of feeling, we did not want make it too balanced in particular.
There are many games with lovable characters, but most of the time it is a distorted kind of love. The reason why real animals are attractive is because they are more complex. So, we were thinking that on the Playstation 3, we could make this kind of video game. Representing animals, for example the movement of a pupil, the way they open their eyes, the way they move, how their hair bristles, in other words, being able to represent a creature with emotions, is certainly a challenge.

Famitsu: The behavior of the Ohwashi seems very natural…

Ueda: Since my childhood, I have been taking care of cats and dogs of course, as well as monkeys, ducks, and a variety of animals, therefore unconsciously, I registered animals’ movements and behaviors. “ico” and “Wanda and the colossi” were games of a few words, but because animals cannot speak, I wanted to make it more alive compared to what we achieved before.

Famitsu: How about the encounter between the kid and the Ohwashi ?

Ueda: How they got to know each other is still a secret…

Famitsu: there were pictures of the kid giving food to the Ohwashi…

Ueda: Apart from giving food, it is also possible to pierce the Ohwashi’s body with a spear, or extract a lance from its flesh. At all times you can touch it freely, however taking care of it can become cumbersome from start to end, that is why we balanced this aspect. Feeding and solving puzzles in the stages are both important elements, but if the Ohwashi is only looking, it’s wasting time. It can be capricious, and somehow it has this mysterious part where you do not really understand what it is thinking. We chose an animal theme for this game for one reason. Not matter how much you dare doing new things, by being persistant, you can progressively see more and more.



THE MEANING OF TRICO

Famitsu: Grasping, hanging, climbing – are these elements literally in the game ?

Ueda: They are. Besides, you can caress and pet the Ohwashi, but depending on where you grab it, it may have a negative reaction. Differently from the titles made until now, it introduces a full calculated physics system, but it’s not only about introducing a new technology, the more important is to make the technology match the theme to create. For example, it’s not about recreating the motion of the scene where the Ohwashi eats a barrel and swallows it, actually the barrel directly touches the inside of the mouth, then there is the inertia when chewing, and then it goes to the throat… that is honestly what we are doing. In “Ico” we developed the AI handling, in “Wanda and the colossi”, we developed the collision transformation. The Playstation 3 fuses these two technologies and re-creates them on a new level. Moreover, just like what you could feel at the time of “Ico” and “Wanda and the colossi”, we want to create a space where you would say “this world is comfortable, I want to dive more in this world”.

Famitsu : Even the title is defiant !

Ueda: Trico comes from “To-Ri-Co” in Japanese, which means becoming prisoner, being in captivity, as well as other meanings such as “Tori no Ko” (egg), “Tori to Neko” (bird and cat). We chose the title to reflect the realistic aspect of the animal, not only the cute part, but also including the proper representation of the physiological condition of the animal nature and its wildness.

Famitsu: Is is still seamless to move through the stages ? Since the Ohwashi, compared to the size of the kid, is a powerful character, was it difficult to design the stages ?

Ueda: You can move in the stages without loading, in that sense this is seamless, however there is a order to visit the different places. Regarding the level design, as always it is indeed painful. Also, the Ohwashi does not always follow orders obediently, he moves by tossing things on his own will. Whatever the order you give him, more than simply collaborating, you can feel that he is behaving like a creature. If the Ohwashi is standing still, he can do it clearly, but he ends up moving nonetheless. The Ohwashi’s intelligence being not that great, he would not always move at the player’s convenience.

Famitsu : I see. The wind, the direction of the atmosphere opening the eyes there is.

Ueda: The representation of the environment is on of my favorite subjects. Depending on the wind, the wings of the Ohwashi would wave in a different way. The movement of each wing is calculated individually. Using the most of the Playstation 3 capability to process lots of information, graphically the density of information is increasing and the realism goes up as well. Even if until now, with the previous hardware, we could not do so because of the technical constraints, with the Playstation 3 it becomes possible, therefore we are able to render more atmospheric and more realistic stages than before.

Famitsu : the silhouette in armor, is it a human ?

Ueda : Looks like one, humanoid… It’s because we could not render the enemies in smoke. The details are still secret (laughs).

Famitsu: how about the online potential, and the release date ?

Ueda: At the moment I cannot declare whether or not we will do it, but I want to use the online capability. Similarly for the release date, I cannot say it cleary yet, but there was a reason to show this game at that timing. For the everyday lives of the people who liked “Ico” and “wanda and the colossi”, of those who expect new games from us, of those who have a Playstation 3, having one more new thing to enjoy isn’t bad. That’s why “Human-eater Ohwashi Trico” came to existence. Please look forward to it.

Interview of Sakuguchi-san, marketing head at Microsoft Japan

Sakaguchi Joji is a marketing head at Microsoft Japan. He answered the following questions following the recent 1 million sales milestone for the Xbox360, in the 1067th issue of Famitsu Weekly.



Famitsu : Sensui-san has already shown it, but inside Japan, the Xbox 360 has reached the breakthrough number of 1 million sales. Congratulations !

Sakaguchi Joji : Thank you very much. That is also due to the support of everyone.

Famitsu : Was 1 million an objective of yours ?

Sakaguchi Joji : It is, in a way, just a checkpoint, however it was a big aim as well. Our objective from the beginning was to sell more than the first Xbox. For the first iteration, we can't say we were successful. In the meantime, a fair preparation was needed to make the next iteration come out. In Japan, there are really no examples of failed brands which try again and succeed.

Famitsu : The brand positionning is indeed strong in japan.Do the headquarters in American realise it ?

Sakaguchi Joji : That has been discussed many times. We even talked about not using the Xbox brand name, only in Japan. However, for Microsoft, Xbox is a gaming brand, and since we also had a passion for it, we were very much decided to "definitely make it succeed", and we launched it under the Xbox 360 name just like outside of Japan.

Famitsu : So there was a possibility to have a different name for the hardware in Japan ?

Sakaguchi Joji : We did different tests and had one option in the end, so there was a chance it happened.

Famitsu : I see.

Sakaguchi Joji : When we overtook the sales number of the first Xbox, we were very happy. And deeply moved.

Famitsu : So, you achieved a breakthrough with 1 million sales. Now lets look back a little. First at the time when the Xbox 360 launched. The first numbers were not really satisfying, right ?

Sakaguchi Joji : That's right. Right at launch it wasn't good. At the same time, I was representing the first party titles. "At the launch of the new hardware, there are very few first party titles, what should we do?" was a widespread comment.

Famitsu : If we compare the numbers of first party titles available at time of launch with the first Xbox launch, it was fairly less for the Xbox 360.

Sakaguchi Joji : Truly, from the launch timing, it would have been ideal to give a good impression to consumers by having a abondant number of softs. Anyway, because of the new hardware, the development did not go smoothly. On the other hand, a fairly good number of softs were already moving forward, and we entered the situation where we had to choose which softs to use to plan the come-back.

Famitsu : The RPG line-up was massive. On the first Xbox there was almost nothing of the kind. "Blue Dragon" was a big title used to show the power of the Xbox 360.

Sakaguchi Joji : I still cannot forget the time when we were shown "Blue Dragon" . The first time I saw it, I thought it was a prerender. But Sakaguchi-san told me it ran in real-time. Without thinking. I told him "are you kidding me ??" (laugh).

Famitsu : (laughs)

Sakaguchi Joji : I asked many things, and I did not know that they did technological exchanges with the team behind "ages of empires". "Blue Dragon" used and optimised the water algorythm from "ages of empires". I was really surprised to hear that.

Famitsu : The success of "Blue Dragon" had an influence on the other companies, right ?

Sakaguchi Joji : To be able to get the support from big japanese soft makers was a important Keyword for us. We were working with the mindset of how much we would be successful in Japan, I talked about that for a long time, and finally the flower bloomed last year.

Famitsu : Last year, since the launch of "Tales of Vesperia", many RPGs came out.

Sakaguchi Joji : The level of perfection of Japanese RPGs being high, I sensed that gamers were very excited about them, and longed for information about these titles. It was like they wanted to enjoy them as much as possible. The Xbox 360 gamers are not simply playing, they are honestly happy.

Interview on Gunshot and Diamonds

This is an interview published in Famitsu Weekly 1061 of Asano-san, working as a producer on the upcoming game “Gunshot and Diamonds”. I thought the concept of the game was interesting enough to translate that interview.

Famitsu: How did you become engaged on ”Gunshot and diamonds”

Kazuya Asano: In the beginning, I worked on the AQ interactive’s “I do not forgive you” title. At that time, this staff, very dear to me, asked “let’s do something else together!”. That was the trigger.

Famitsu: What kind of game is it ?

Kazuya Asano: There is a criminal that you cannot capture by strong means. He has hostages, a bomb, and there is a negociator, who negiotiates with him and find its weak point. The main character of this adventure game is the still-learning Japanese negociator.

Famitsu: Why did you chose to do a game about a negociator ?

Kazuya Asano: At the beginning, Koyabashi-san, responsible for the scenario, told me he had a strong passion about “the game theory”.　The kind of “No concession to each other”. “For your request, you have to accept my request as well.” elements a negociator can deal with ease. If we could do that, that would be interesting. Now, looking at the results, I wonder where the game theory went (laughs).

Famitsu: Games with negociators are quite rare.

Kazuya Asano: True, but there are lots of movies are dramas with such characters. For games, you can’t go with only one direction just like in dramas. If you fail negociations, it would become a bad ending and the story would change, therefore in “gunshot and diamonds” it’s a tale about a different kind of negociator than in dramas and movies.

Famitsu: Asano-san, how was your involvement in this game ?

Kazuya Asano: Producer and superviser. To the story writer, Koyabashi-san and the director Sasaki-kun, I would advise “ If you do this here this way, it would be interesting”, “let’s change a little the direction of the story” as we progress.

Famitsu: When you read the final scenario, what did you think ?

Kazuya Asano: “where did they check these stuffs ?”. There are a lot of details in the game about the major in languages of the negociator, the structure of the American police, conditions where military forces are involved, I was very impressed. The story is separated into many parts, but the basis for all those is a long flowing storyline, and at the end as you play everything blends together.

Famitsu: As a producer what kind of things do you get conscious of ?

Kazuya Asano: At SoundNobel, to create games with compelling stories, a producer is an important element. When you go for a new attempt like “Gunshots and diamonds”, a producer involves himself fully. When I see the things prepared by the graphics team, I say “if you did that scene that way, it would be better”, about dialogs I would say “If you cut the dialog here a bit, the tempo would become better”. In order to show on one screen events at the scene and at the investigation headquarters which occur at the same time, we implemented a visual technique.

Famitsu: Do you keep the experience built on past projects alive ?

Kazuya Asano: Sure. The scene is changing. My experience as a producer and the complementary experience on “I will not forgive you” has helped me. In the past at SoundNobel, the sequence remained pretty much the same, and the mostly there were no breakthroughs in the scene. The “village” became what is is now, however as a writer from the old days, I still put in some things I cherish.

Famitsu: What would like to say about the game in a few terms ?

Kazuya Asano: The negociator is in situations more profond than just a fight between justice and evil. On top of negociations, you are binded in a trusting relationship with a daring criminal, and in order to find out a weak point, you satisfy each other, trespassing the official code of morals. However, isn’t that already what is happening in our modern society ? Our sense of values become diversified and the right and wrong cannot be simply divided. In that sense I think this matches well with our time.

Famitsu: It sets up quite the expectations…

Kazuya Asano: I wanted many different things in there. But for now, just buy it and have fun with it, and feel free to complain (laughs). I wanted to let people enjoy the interesting difficulty of negociating between right and wrong, between dark and light. Do not expect at 100% a game that you have never seen before, but in the graphics, the music, the scenes, all over the place I did put “a little touch”. Please go ahead and try it out.