![]() Back then, Epson’s NEC98-compatible computers were in vogue, and we were doing something akin to parallel processing by linking two computers together, back before the concepts of networks were really established. We had to modify all that hardware in order to construct a development environment, hence why the game took so long to make. I’d go out and buy cheap games for this purpose, and there were games that included additional hardware like MMC and SD, so I’d source those and modify them to use as test hardware. Masuda: I’d buy cheap game cartridges, open them up, take out the ROMs, burn new ROMs with the latest Quinty data, solder them onto the PCB, reassemble the cartridge and then test the games that way. Sugimori: We’d work through the night without sleeping. That included pulling all-nighters, I’m sure. We were all of the mindset that we had no option but to go all-out. Sugimori: I think we spent a lot of time in the prototype phase, since the programmers were only able to work on it after-hours, so when Namco signed up as publisher and we were able to enter full production, we picked up the pace pretty quickly. Masuda: From the placeholder Mario demo, it took about two and a half years, I want to say. Sugimori: In total, less than three years… closer to two, perhaps. How much time did you spend making the game, all up? Tajiri wasn’t particularly fond of the game as it was, so he decided to redesign it even so, we’d made a certain amount of progress and starting from scratch would have meant throwing away all our work, so we came up with a new game using the pre-existing mechanics for sliding and flipping floor panels, and from there we were able to create Quinty. We began turning that idea into a game, to the point where the programmer had something running using Mario graphics as placeholders, but then the person who came up with the idea disappeared midway through and Tajiri decided to overhaul the game. When we friends decided to make a game together, we asked ourselves “What are we going to make?”, and from there, one person submitted an idea for a game where the screen is divided into a 7×5 grid and, by assembling floor panels to create paths, you’d guide a character across the screen from right to left, trying to collect scoring items on the way to the goal. Sugimori: Aside from Tajiri, Masuda and myself, there was another artist and two other programmers, so… 6 people, I think. By the way, when you began working on Quinty, how many people were involved? On the side, Tajiri and I had been producing an independent game magazine called “Game Freak”, and from there we began talking more and more about making games instead of magazines. Sugimori: Back then, I was an aspiring mangaka, so I was reeling off pitches to publishers. Sugimori, what kind of work were you doing at that point? I was enrolled in a computer graphics program at vocational school, where I also studied programming using UNIX.Īfter school, I got a job as a dispatch programmer for a temp agency, so during the day I’d work on in-house corporate programs and so on, and when I got home I’d write music for Quinty, and on the weekends I’d go over to visit Tajiri and pals, back before Game Freak was an official company, and drop off my data. Masuda: That’s correct, I was a programmer. ![]() When you were handling the music for Quinty, didn’t you have a day job elsewhere? Of course, I also spent a lot of time in the arcades. I played games all the time, and my parents bought me a computer in high school which I used to make games-just simple little things, nothing worth mentioning. Masuda: The desire to make games was something I’d always had, since elementary school. ![]() After I’d met Tajiri, 1 I remember going to a programmer friend’s house and showing him what we’d done and he was like, “Mario’s turning around!” -You were already interested in games, but had you realized you wanted to make them before that point? Sugimori: Right, as we didn’t yet have character editing tools. In other words, you were tinkering with the graphics in a crude manner and feeling your way around… “this is how to make the character move”, that sort of thing. In the beginning, I was entering data using the Family Basic keyboard and experimenting with the characters that came with Family Basic… we did debugging with that Family Basic keyboard too, I think? We didn’t have anything resembling the dev tools available today. We started development during the era of the Apple II, which possessed the same MOS 6502 processor as the Famicom, so I was using the Apple II to analyze Famicom software. (2014) -At that point, you were making your own development tools for Famicom, right? Ken Sugimori, co-founder, artist and character designer of Game Freak.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |