Part Four - Decisions
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"We wanted to make the users not regret a moment of their time, no matter what."
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Editor |
Are there any policies you follow when making games that you feel are absolute?
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Nasu |
Well...for starters, it isn't like writing a novel. When someone plays a game, they have to sit in front of a monitor for hours at a time, which is pretty tough. Gamers live in a world where entertainment is overflowing, yet they're stuck sitting in front of a monitor for 5-6 hours. We make them do that, so we'd better not make them regret it. I want to think of it as entertainment, as something that will leave a lasting impression...wow, that's a really obvious thing to say. (Laughs)
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Takeuchi |
Yes it is.
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Editor |
(Laughs) How about you, Takeuchi? You're often quoted as a maker of "Super fun, slightly sad, and amply erotic games."
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Takeuchi |
Yes.
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Editor |
After seeing that quote and then playing the game I was quite impressed.
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Nasu & Takeuchi |
(Laugh)
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Editor |
I like how the "fun" part comes first. It seems like a very doujin thing to say.
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Takeuchi |
It's simply that Nasu happens to write fun things.
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Nasu |
Ahahahaha... (Blush)
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Takeuchi |
He takes things in fun directions without me having to push him. I think that's an important part of this. I simply add on the erotic and sad parts to that. Parts that existing games seem to lack. We just decided to make a game that was full of the parts that we missed in other games.
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Editor |
So 「Tsukihime」 was your ideal game?
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Takeuchi |
Yes.
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Nasu |
More like a basic formula than an ideal. I hope this doesn't sound conceited, but it represents our standards as to how far people should go in making games. I know that as a game, 「Tsukihime」 has a lot of "iffy" parts to it, so I think it's far from words like "ideal." (Laughs)
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Takeuchi |
I see... (*1)
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"You can't depict love in less than 30 days?"
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Nasu |
Once 「Tsukihime」 goes down the path of a certain heroine, there are only a few other splits from there. We really wanted to make it flow like a river, but we didn't have enough time. We decided to make it so that there would be one big split for one heroine per day. By the way, Takeuchi hasn't played many games.
When I was making the chart he would come over and say in a really lazy voice "I guess it's fine," or "Just keep going." (Laughs) But I kept working hard to make it more like a game!
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Takeuchi |
I thought it would take half a year to make.
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Nasu |
I...I'm sorry. (Laughs)
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Takeuchi |
But then Nasu, at first, kept insisting "You can't depict love in less than 30 days!"
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All |
(Laugh)
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Nasu |
No, that's not what I meant! I was talking about daily life! Everyday life!
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Takeuchi |
Liar. I heard love. And he wanted a whole month's worth of life. But as you well know, 「Tsukihime」 only takes place over the course of 10 days. When we first started, we started with 3 times that amount. It already takes 8 hours (*2) for one heroine. With our original plan, it'd take 24.
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Nasu |
See, it'd be perfectly rounded off at a day. (*3)
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Takeuchi |
Actually the reason I thought it should be done like that was because the game had 4-5 heroines. I've always thought the length of Nasu's writing is a little too long since the 「Kara no Kyoukai」 days. I asked him to write less, because without a limit the script would just keep growing, and he would always reply with "we'll worry about it later" or "it will stay short somehow."
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I wanted 30 days to express the importance of mundane everyday life with nothing special in it.
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Editor |
You were going to do 30 days with that much volume?
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Nasu |
No, at first I thought with 30 days it'd be fine if one day was only equal to one hour. (*4)
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Takeuchi |
But it wasn't.
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Nasu |
True. Something was wrong. We had this concept for Ciel among the other heroines, and that's why I wanted 30 days. For her. She would appear in the first 3-4 days, then there would be a week of school life. I thought that would be fun for the player.
But then a certain event comes afterwards. I just wanted 30 days to express that "everyday life." On the contrary, that long 30-days span was like shackles for Arcueid. (*5)
In the end, we decided on 10 days, and it became what it is now, but Ciel really changed from our initial concept of her. Maybe it's too bad that we couldn't really express the importance of mundane everyday life. But yeah, 30 days...I remember when he first told me "We can't do 30 days," I was really irritated. I didn't want to do it any other way. That was in 1999, around Dec. 25. That caused some trouble. Around that time, I was working as a helper for a certain game company, sort of fixing up the scenarios for a certain game. And I would say stuff like: "This introduction is completely useless. Who would want to sit through this?" ... "Who would want to sit through 30 days?" That's when I realized. And I picked up the phone and said: "I'm sorry. I'll rewrite it. You were right."
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All |
(Laugh)
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Takeuchi |
Nasu really focused on the romance. He was really insistent on making his "romance" different from romance stories he knew, even though he didn't personally intend to make a "romance" work himself. This was something different. I told him just to work like he always does. But he was really stuck on making something fun in a romance format.
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Nasu |
"We're going to make a romance game, but the main character's going to be really cool," we said, right? I got really hung up on that "romance" word.
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Editor |
So obviously, it ended up taking more than half a year.
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Nasu |
We made the source within four months. Fitting in our concepts with a game, through actual game creation, was something we'd never done before, and also something we just didn't have the skill for. And then, before we knew it...
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Takeuchi |
The scenario was just stupidly long. We weren't even thinking of beta testing, and we had far from an adequate number of members in our circle. It was basically just me and Nasu working on it, and we planned to hire a programmer and a sound guy from a certain point. By the way, it took half a year for all this to get ready, and the programmer and the sound guy already had normal jobs. In other words, none of us had any free time anymore.
We didn't make it in time for summer. I think that was good, though, looking back now. I thought we'd send out a demo in summer and test the waters. Turns out that a lot of people liked it, so we received their support. They tested it for us, proofread it, etc. (*6) We also took suggestions, such as SKIP options, which was another big help.
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Editor |
And Kohaku's scenario probably wouldn't exist now if it wasn't for that, huh?
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Takeuchi |
Nor would "Tsukishoku" (Eclipse).
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Part 03
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Part 05
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