Like a solitary spacecraft

Japanese shoot ‘em ups have always had a special place in gamers’ hearts worldwide.The difficulty of ‘bullet hell’ games are legendary, even dreaded. Creators – professionals and enthusiasts – are respected.This month we feature one of them: Kenta Cho. He is a freeware game maker with a day job, guest lecturer, arcade goer. He works alone.

: First please introduce yourself

Kenta Cho: I produce mainly 2D shoot ‘em up games alone and make them available on ABA Games. Being open source development, the source code is also accessible. Thanks to this, there are some iPhone ports of my games, for instance of Noiz2sa, rRootage and Tumiki Fighters. I make games on weekends and holidays. As I do not have much free time they are mostly “small”, short ones. It is fair to say they are like old arcade stuff.

: Do you remember the first shoot ‘em up you played?

KC: I can’t remember exactly, it happened so long time ago.
Maybe Space Invaders or Galaxian…? When I was a child I had the opportunity to play games when we were on a family trip. In hotels, department stores there were “game corners” often with Space Invaders, Galaxian or Galaga cabinets. What I can clearly recall are the strong impressions Xevious made on me. Vivid graphics, memorable enemies like “Bacura” or “Andor Genesis”. It seemed like another world in the game when I saw the Nazca line-like figures. It was a very emotional experience.

: You develop games outside the industry. How did you come to the decision not to work there? Have you ever felt regret?

KC: It is because I always preferred to make “small” games on my own. I figured that there has been no need to work at a game company to do that. I do not feel regret. I mean as I do not have actual, first-hand experience I do not even know what I miss.

: Were there any shoot ‘em ups that you wanted to take part in the development?

KC: Ikaruga. I think it is one of the best quality 2D shoot ‘em up ever with its original concept – the black and white combat/dodge system -, thorough level design to match novice and veteran players’ skills, beautiful visuals, at a very high overall production level. It must have been great to be on the development team. However, I am not quite sure how could I have contributed to the process.

: 2D shoot ‘em ups were more popular in the past (in Japan). They are still around in arcades, but undeniably for genre aficionados. What do you think the reason of this transition can be?

KC: I think it is true not only about 2D shoot ‘em up games but old fashioned arcade games in general. Beat ‘em ups, music games too are targeted on those who have been long-time followers, they hardly reach out for fresh audience. I guess because most of the developers’ priority is to prevent dedicated fans from giving up on those games instead of attracting new gamers. Shoot ‘em up games changed at one stage, ‘bullet hell’ games became more represented and that led to a drop in popularity. Once you get used to ‘bullet hell’ games it is a lot of fun but many people give up because those games seem to be extremely difficult at first look. Actually, on this account they are not so different from old games. The topic of the declining popularity of the genre is very often discussed within the local shoot ‘em up games fan community too. However, nobody has come up with a solution yet. Does anyone have a good idea out there?

: In Arcade Mania! the author states: “Arcades in Japan? Evolving.” Do you agree? Any comment on the current Japanese arcade scene?

KC: Of course it is evolving. But I am not sure whether or not towards the right direction.
In Japanese arcades card-based games are rapidly gaining followers. There has been a shift to real-time battle card games, driving games (with upgradeable vehicles by each play), 3D shooter games, and games like downloadable extra content to home console games. It feels like old school games are driven away. I prefer to play with one coin in ‘proceed as far, score as much as you can’ style to continue with a card-game where I left off. I feel a little sad that old-fashioned games are loosing ground. I am also aware that arcade (game center) operators can make little income of them. Recently digital currency has been introduced in arcades at last. As digital currency allows flexible pricing for one play, perhaps arcade operators and game developers could become profitable with old school arcade games.

: In the US Majesco released BlastWorks (Wii) based on Tumiki Fighters. Why do you think they picked that game?

KC: Maybe they liked that in Tumiki Fighters the destroyed enemy fuses with the player’s ship. At the end it might grow even bigger than the level Boss. I like this feature a lot.   Besides, quite exceptionally the level design in Tumiki Fighters is not random. I prefer random level generator, usually I apply the technique in shoot ‘em up games. Through the procedure however, level balance tuning and debugging become complicated. I do not see it suitable for home console game development.

: Did you have any influence on the development of BlastWorks beyond the original concept?

KC: No. They took it from there.

: BlastWorks was received well overseas in general. You must be satisfied with it.

KC: Yes, I am very pleased.
But as BlastWorks has a high quality stage editor and various new elements I consider it as a different game. I cannot know how much the concept of Tumiki Fighters has to do with the favorable reception.

: On Blastworksdepot.com there are many user made stages. Do you have a favorite one?

KC: Yes, I checked the stages, characters, barrage patterns on the site.
Unfortunately, I do not own a North-American Wii so I cannot form an opinion. It would be nice if BlastWorks were released here in Japan too, though.

: You were on the screening committee of SOWN (Sense of Wonder Night, GDC’s Experimental Gameplay Sessions) last year. How was it? How do you see the potential of the event?

KC: Oh, it was a lot of fun!
I love experimental games. It does not matter if the game itself is not good overall when the concept backing it up is fresh, something new. I think about games this way, so SOWN was one of the best events for me. The variety of experimental games was wide: from those that have the potential to become commercial products to the “fifteen minutes of fame” type. The screening of these very different games, to decide what to show to the public was a completely new experience to me. It was also great to chat with the creators there. There are not too many opportunities to ask them about how the concept was born.

: What was your favorite presentation? Why?

KC: ‘You Only Live Once‘ was interesting.
Because of the literally “one shot” concept, for the first time I did not understand what happened. “Was it a game?” was my first impression. Then little by little the concept became clearer, but it was funny that the audience that day had a similar reaction.

: What was your favorite concept of all the submitted works?

KC: ‘para rail‘. In this metagame the player can not control the spaceship, but can play the game by increasing/decreasing the number of simultaneous games on-screen (for instance, in a dangerous situation the player can close the window). This concept is highly individual. I can imagine it could be applied to all kinds of games.

: You are member of some fangames developer groups. What do you think of them?
How are they different from foreign indie developers like Ace Team?

KC: I have the feeling that the older generation makes up the most of these groups, there are only a few young members. But I cannot say this is true for all, as each has its own character. If we compare the Japanese fangames and foreign indie games, local developers of the kind pay a lot of attention to completeness and packaging. That is the impression they made on me. The game might serve as blueprint to another game in the future, that’s why the content is produced with thoroughness. The way I see it, the effort to create something different from a previous game is not enough.

: Please recommend indie developers supporting organizations, associations.

KC: I recommend IGDA and SIG-Indie, where I have had the opportunity to give lectures. Japanese independent developers give lectures on themes at the SIG-Indie forums. So far I have talked about action games, visual novels, XNA among other things.