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 ...

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), Gam...

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...

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 ent...

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�...

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 ...

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 translate...

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 Nak...

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 Jap...

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 2016-03-15 15:02:34 +0000 UTC View Post

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 interv...

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 sys...

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 cabi...

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 ...

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 “Vid...

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...

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, a...

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 ind...

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 ot...

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 J...

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 ...

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 ma...

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 creat...

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 observati...

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.

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 n...

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 2015-12-21 18:58:16 +0000 UTC View Post

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 ...

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...

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/ar...