The other day I was in my local BOOKOFF and I ran across a copy of a PSP game called Corpse Party. Actually, the full title per the official site is Corpse Party – Blood Covered… Repeated Fear, which is pretty awkward. But it looked like horror material, and the back of the box made the game appear to be a 2D JRPG-style adventure, which sounds interesting enough (anything but a visual novel). So I put it back on the shelf and wrote it down in my mental list of games to research for the Quest.
Later that day I was talking to Pixel (see previous post) and he brought the game up. Apparently, he told me, Corpse Party is the work of a single developer. It was originally built using RPG Maker for the PC, and the PSP release is a recent console translation. Pixel himself has gone through something similar; his excellent Cave Story game is now available for Wii via WiiWare.
I have a thing for lone developers. Not only are people who are talented enough to put together an entire game from beginning to end totally awesome and amazing, I find that such games are often extremely focused. Some of my favorite PC games came from lone developers: Jordan Mechner and Eric Chahi, known respectively for Prince of Persia and Another World / Out of This World, are totally my heros. Pixel ranks up there too; Cave Story is the best side-scroller I’ve played in years. These games stand out because they do things that other games do not. Prince of Persia had amazing animation, innovative combat, and careful, paced platforming game play. Another World, another animation powerhouse for its time, remains today an example of how traditional game mechanics can be used as visual storytelling. And Cave Story manages to feel like a retro game in
ow! ow! ow! ow! ow!
I have a sneaking suspicion that these games are as good as they are because they were made by a single person, a single holder of the vision who was also capable of rendering their vision to code, art, level design, and sound. These games are also labors of love; in each of the cases I’ve mentioned, the developers toiled away for years on their projects, spending much longer than a traditional game team would have on the same project. I think spending time on game development is a good thing; it takes a while for games to bake and for the real stars of the experience to become evident. Few teams can afford to spend five years on a side scroller, but Pixel did just that. Most developers don’t have what it takes to work without pay upfront for three years to produce a next generation game for a dying platform, but that’s what Mechner did when he built Prince of Persia. These works are special because the people who created them are crazy awesome, and also because the circumstances of development were special themselves.
I have no idea if Corpse Party is any good. The fact that somebody took an RPG Maker game and turned it into a PSP release means that somebody, somewhere thought that it was really good. The fact that it’s been developed by a single person increases my interest in it ten fold.
If you’re interested in Corpse Party, siliconera has some info about it. I’ll probably pick it up when I return to Japan in a few weeks. Gotta finally buy a PSP first, I guess.
http://www.ifcomp.org/comp10/games.php
The capacity of an individual to create a focused game focused in an underutilized setting (or genre) is one of the primary reasons I like Interactive Fiction.
Lately, I played one called “Gris et Jaune” (Linked above; it’s an English-language game, however)–not only did it have a mysterious, horror flavor to it, but it used a setting that I don’t think I’ve ever seen used in any game before.
Chris! What is this reluctance I see to play visual novels? Please explain, and I shall refrain from spanking until said explanation is given.
As for Corpse Party, it is my understanding there is quite a bit of VN activity in it, however there is quite of bit of interaction from the player/reader as well.
And yes, I think you are right about lone developers. There is less interference, in theory, when you are your own team. Which is why things like Steam, indie networks on Xbox Live and PSN, and platforms like Droid and IPhone are snazzy– lone indie developers can sell their product on the same sites where major developers also exist. We should reward our teams of one (or whichever single digit) just as much as SquareEnix’s hundreds.
Problem #1: There are, literally, thousands of games in this genre within Japan. THOUSANDS.
Problem #2: Sturgeon’s Law applies. Most of those thousands of games are not good, and of the good ones, many are of a genre I am not interested in (read: dating games).
Problem #3: It’s pretty hard to separate the good from the bad.
Problem #4: It takes significant effort for me to read any lengthy text in Japanese. If I know it’s going to be good I can put in the time, but if it’s 90% likely to be crap, I don’t want to take the risk.
Problem #5 (this is the biggest issue, for me): The game mechanics are so simple in these games that there’s very little to learn from them. They are generally even simpler than Infocom-era text adventure games. Nothing to learn = little reason to play.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some great visual novel games out there. Kamaitachi No Yoru et al are great. If I were to play one, I’d probably give Higurashi no Naku Koro ni a try–that seems to be fairly popular.
But man, without some sort of mega, mega recommendation, I can’t even bring myself to put in the disc.
http://www.andresborghi.com.ar
Hi Crhis. I’m from Argentina and I’ve been following your site for ages. It’s really cool and informative. I wanted to bring something up related to this post. I too made a game on my own that took seven years. It is related to horror aswell and I’d be very thankful if you take a look at it. The name of the game is The Black Heart and it’s a fighting game. this is the site:
http://www.theblackheart.com.ar
Some people think the game is just bad by seing how it looks but they are instanctly enchanted once they start to play it. I’ve been told that it’s fighting game with the best plot ever. I think they exagerate a little but it’s trueI have put the biggest effort in the story. I hate to finish a game, let’s say street fighter, and have an ending like: “ok, good fight, I gotta keep training”. Shitty ending!! So I made up the best story I could.
Some other sites have been talking about it. I’ll show you those so you don’t think I’m just a weirdo:
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/11/freeware_game_pick_the_black_h.html
http://playthisthing.com/black-heart
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9101.0
ok, I won’t take any more of your time. I hoe you read this post and take a little look at it.
Thanks! take care and keep up te good work.
Andrés
http://chaos-projects.blogspot.com/
Problem #1: There are, literally, thousands of games in this genre within Japan. THOUSANDS.
Problem #2: Sturgeon’s Law applies. Most of those thousands of games are not good, and of the good ones, many are of a genre I am not interested in (read: dating games).
Problem #3: It’s pretty hard to separate the good from the bad.
Problem #4: It takes significant effort for me to read any lengthy text in Japanese. If I know it’s going to be good I can put in the time, but if it’s 90% likely to be crap, I don’t want to take the risk.
Problem #5 (this is the biggest issue, for me): The game mechanics are so simple in these games that there’s very little to learn from them. They are generally even simpler than Infocom-era text adventure games. Nothing to learn = little reason to play.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some great visual novel games out there. Kamaitachi No Yoru et al are great. If I were to play one, I’d probably give Higurashi no Naku Koro ni a try–that seems to be fairly popular.
But man, without some sort of mega, mega recommendation, I can’t even bring myself to put in the disc.
I highly recommend reading Higurashi. It’s very good at using psychology trick to make the reader feel uneasy, paranoid and more.
You can buy the English version of Higurashi here:
http://www.mangagamer.com/allages/
You can get a demo (of the whole first arc) here:
http://sonozakifutagotachi.blogspot.com/2008/04/acquiring-our-releases.html
Here is an analysis I made of the first four arcs:
http://chaos-projects.blogspot.com/2010/06/higurashi-when-they-cry-arc-1-4-design.html
http://twitter.com/#!/matty_125
There’s a demo out for Corpse Party on the PSP’s PSN store. I tried a bit of it myself, but I’m not too far in.
Also, I’ll recommend Higurashi, as well. If you want the official English text MangaGamer has it at their site, as Chaos_Alfa mentioned.
Actually, there are couple horror-esque games out there were made by a single person; Amon26 made “All of Our Friends Are Dead” and “Au Sable”.
Also, there’s another horror-esque game made on RPG Maker called “Yume Nikki” – best way I can describe is that you’re a little girl exploring a/your nightmare. Might want to check that out if you want.
Too bad there’s only a slim chance that yet another possibly interesting Japanese game will see a release in the west. I can cross my fingers I guess…
Anyway, your thoughts on lone game developers are quite encouraging!