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.
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