Just wondering, but are you the guy that he says "is very good at physics calculations"? If not (or if you are), what exactly do you do on the team? I can't remember if you've ever said or not.
No, the physics programmer is a guy named Daiichi Honda. He made the original PC demo then a year later ported it to the PSP once PSP pre-production was approved and then he moved on to PS3 while another programmer, Seiji Sasaki, took over that part of the code.
I'm not sure it's easy to explain what I did to someone not in game development without a lot of explaination but the short list is I made the entire build environment, all the tools that take data and textures from the artists and prep them for the PSP. The level system, the animation systems, the signal/scripting system, the data instancing system, the localization system, the level editor and many individual game objects.
Since I assume that this game will be put in as many languages as possible, has that been tricky? Do you have to do different UI layouts for certain languages like Japanese?
I imagine your team doesn't have much control over these kind of decisions, but do you know what PSP firmware version Loco Roco will run on? I'm very excited to play this game, but I don't want to update my PSP's firmware because I play and create homebrew software for it. If possible, tell some higher-ups to let it run on all firmwares so us homebrew-types can play this game, too. =)
When they find a way to allow homebrew but not allow piracy they will do it but until then blame the pirates. As long as people use hacks to pirate games no company Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo is going to allow homebrew. Sorry.
As for languages, we have 16 currently. 17 if you count UK English vs USA English (what a PITA ) Even though we don't have *that* much text still, we have around 300 message. x 16 languages = 4800 items. We don't have memory for fonts for Chinese so we are using textures. We made tools to generate them but it still takes a long time to process all of them and pull them into the databundles for the game and they are still in the process of being updated so it's quite a lot of work.
I love unconventional games. I recently started playing Taiko no Tatsujin Portable which is a great game. Loco Roco is on my list of must have games. What other unconventional games coming up or out now for PSP do think should also be on my wishlist?
I didn't know where else to post this, but I just played the demo and it's awesome. I take back my previous comments of the game being like Gish, other then them both having a blobby character with physics, they both play differently. I like the happiness of Loco Roco :)
I haven't played any game for a long time. Just founded the videogames scene pretty boring in the last years. But, last year I happened to see a Loco Roco video (I guess from your site). You know, I got stunned from the very first time I saw it.
I'm even considering buying a PSP just for playing your game. To me Loco Roco was a "massive-kick" of fresh air.
Going to the technical issues. As the curious young coder I am, I understand how the character is programmed and modeled but I was wondering which way are you modeling the world, polygons? nurbs curves? just something like a 2d-tiled approach? Handling the collissions against polygons? Curves?
The world is modeled with polygons. The artists generally design the worlds in Adobe Illustrator, convert to Maya and then inside Maya they add all the game attributes, animations and connections needed to make it playable.
Collisions are moving points against line segments in 2d.
I live in the US and I really want to play Loco Roco now. I see Europe gets the game in June and US in fall. Is there a reason I should wait for the US release date or just buy the Europe version.
Sorry if I post this twice (the last time I don't think it took it)..
I was hoping maybe you might shed some light (since you, being in the industry, in Japan and have published worldwide and all) as to why USA (where I live) and Europe (sometimes they do and don't get the game either) are left out of so many of the good (if not the best) games for Japanese consoles.
I'm an older gamer from even before the Amiga days (A500 ;) and I think the obvious answer is that it is a high-risk, and/or low-return (R.O.I.) to publish in territories (like usa/eur) where the game wont get any of the same media/advertising attention it gets at home. And as a result it might make or break many development teams to translate, ship, wait and maybe never make some/most of the invested money back, etc, etc.
But, is this the only reason? Money?? It is understandable, but it just doesn't make sense (to me). I think, in the long run it would pay off (once the title are known to the gaming public outside Japan) since the cost of actually shipping the game is getting lower and lower (I'm referring to the game medium being on disc now on all 3 major console platforms as opposed to some on carts, etc.)
I've played or owned almost every console, but am having severe doubts about buying anymore (esp. handhelds) when I only "Think" it is going to be as cool as it (lets take for an example the DS or PSP) in Japan, with this such-and-such game, or that game, etc. etc. when it is said and done, probably 50-60% of the games will get a worldwide release, but the remaining 30-40+% will never see the light of day (outside Japan)...
I know alot of gamers import/export games with decent success. But, I feel that alot of excitement is taken out of the everyday gamers experience by knowing and not having any of these really big "Hits" that never leave their home territory. I'm not really looking for anyone to 'blame' here, but, is it more or less the developers that will not allow release outside their home territory, or is it the publisher that is the main decider? I mean, at least with Katamari (and any of its sequels) they took a gamble on a high-risk game (launched at jaw-dropping low $20) and it paid off. I think more companies should 'take the gamble' and see that many gamers are more open now (especially in more recent years) to the more ecclectic/Japanese side of gaming.
Peace,
Rifter
posted by anonymous_rifterApril 5, 2007 at 2:30 [ e ]
lots-o-reasons
It's not just about money. Reasons off the top of my head
No time
It actually does take time for people to localize the product, the manual, contact all the stores and chains and try to get them to buy the product, get it duplicated, make a box, etc.. Even if they were only going to sell it online someone has to make the webpage, setup the info, get the product approved for shipping through Sony, MS or Nintendo depending on the platform etc.
So, the point is, let's say some publisher has 5 people working to do this stuff and those 5 people only have time to do this for 3 titles a year each (15 titles total) and lets say there are 100 titles to pick from. Well, they are going to pick the 15 titles they think will sell the most. That leaves 85 titles unpublished just because they don't have the time to release them.
That might change as we move toward online distribution like Xbox Live Arcade, the Wii Shop and the Playstation Store. Except. see the next reason
Market dilution
The idea here is that if there are too many products on the market none of them will sell enough. These numbers are not even close to real but just for the mental exercise ... Let's say it costs $10000 to get one game ready for market. That game is already done (it's an import) so there are very few development costs but localization costs, approval, a little marketing etc. ($10000 is actually a lot lot less than what it actually costs)
And let's say the game is going to come out for Xbox Live Arcade at $8. I have no idea what kind of profit split there is with Microsoft but let's assume the publisher gets $4 of that $8 for each unit sold.
In our example in order to not lose money they have to sell at least 2500 copies.
Now, let's say we check and every year 100,000 XBox Live Games are sold. If there are 100 games on the market then each game might only sell 1000 copies and lose money. If there are 15 games on the market then each game might sell 6666 copies and make money.
Of course some games will be more popular than others. The point is, each person only has so much money to spend so just offering more games doesn't mean there will be more overall sales. Instead there might be the same overall sales but less sales per game which would be bad for those games.
So, instead of letting you choose from 100 games they pick the 15 they think will sell and leave the rest off the market hoping they can at least make their money back on those 15.
I'm sure there are others reasons
The game doesn't appeal to the person making the decision
Given there are limited resources to publish these games, someone has to decide which games to publish and which ones not to publish. Those people have different tastes so they might just not like the kinds of games other like and choose not to publish those.
I'm sure there are other reason, those are just off the top of my head.
I think I see now that you run some of those numbers by.. I'm glad to know at least more and more titles may make it now that e-distribution/downloads are working and are more accessable. Tonight I walked into a game shop here and one of the first titles I saw on the shelf was LocoRoco for PSP. It does help to see we're getting left out less since last-gen (due to other 'breakthrough' titles and new technology coming and getting warm reception) and to know more or less why some are held back.
Thank you for your insight and I'm still hoping to eventually find "Relaxkuma" (or, Rilakkuma リラックマ ) to make it over here. My g/f likes Hello Kitty and all her 'incarnations' hehe. I know they've made some Hello Kitty games, but only a small number have been released here. Short of moving to Japan or Asia, I guess I will have to hope and wait for someone to localize it.. Maybe, just maybe some of the rumors of a few of these games coming more and more to handheld will make me spring into purchasing one soon. Thanks again,
Sincerely, Rifter
Oklahoma USA
P.S. Nice work on that wedding vid game you and friends made for those newlyweds. I had no idea what console it was made on til I read more. Cool beans.
posted by anonymous_rifterApril 7, 2007 at 0:37 [ e ]
One last postscript
Here is an interview posted where Jeff Minter (aka Yak) mentions Loco Roco.. Deff worth a read...
) Even though we don't have *that* much text still, we have around 300 message. x 16 languages = 4800 items. We don't have memory for fonts for Chinese so we are using textures. We made tools to generate them but it still takes a long time to process all of them and pull them into the databundles for the game and they are still in the process of being updated so it's quite a lot of work.
are known to the gaming public outside Japan) since the cost of actually shipping the game is getting lower and lower (I'm referring to the game medium being on disc now on all 3 major console platforms as opposed to some on carts, etc.)
