transience
Member
This is doing pretty well. Now we just have to hope that people keep giving for 30 days.
Will buy.
At a sane retail price.
I totally agree. For all of Japan's invaluable contributions to gaming (not to mention entirely resurrecting the home console industry in NA), way too little is known about our favourite series, be it mainstream hits or cult hits. As a fan and collector of almost only Japanese games, I would definitely buy such a book (should it meet expectations).
A Japanese translation would be ideal for a stretch goal.I've seen there's been a flurry of Japanese Twitter activity, plus a Japanese news site covering the story - it seems even more are interested in the book than I realised. I also had an email from a Japanese gamer yesterday, asking if I would publish the book in Japan. It's still too early to think about, but I have had a casual talk with someone in that field, and I am very open to the idea of it being published in Japanese. If this goes ahead, I'll keep all my notes in order to make this feasible...
...I've been emailed with an offer of contacts for Acquire, developers of Tenchu, Way of the Samurai, and that funky little PSP dungeon management game. In addition to further contacts at Konami.
Two developers at a well known small company have invited me to their Tokyo office. One of them created a rather beloved series. They'd prefer if I didn't name them just yet, but they've both been involved with topics I'd like to cover.
I dunno, I don't regret paying the $25 for the color version of HG101's Sega Arcade book
oh oh he touched upon "Miyazaki Tomoyoshi and Hashimoto Masaya" matter too, as I asked him
Tim Rogers said:Kimura asked what I was doing tonight; I said I was having dinner with Adam Rippon, creator of Dragon Fantasy for iOS, and that I intended to talk with him about a project we were getting started. I invited Kimura to join me; Kimura reported that he was meeting Yasuhiro Wada.
I showed Dragon Fantasy to Kimura. He immediately laughed delightedly at the aesthetic. “It’s perfect. It’s pitch-perfect. What’s it about? What’s the story?”
I told him that Adam Rippon made the game after his father passed away. “His father always encouraged him to be creative. He ended up working as a programmer for other people’s games. So he made a Japanese-style role-playing game where the hero is based on his late father. That’s why the hero is old and bald.”
Kimura was literally in tears. He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm.
“That is incredible. I’ve never been more honored to be involved with making videogames.”
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...tory-of-japanese-game-developers/posts/502163
Lovedelic is a go! Yoshiro Kimura loves to jabber and loves to drink until drunk, and Mister Szczepaniak has been asked to join him. This, as with many others, will be the 1st time we get a detailed developer tale in English. Kimura is so wonderful.
http://insertcredit.com/2012/06/01/...nce-in-san-francisco-california-by-tim-rogers
Yasuhiro Wada, originally of Natsume, is on board, too, since they're friends. Perhaps we'll find out what happened at Grasshopper, too.
To reiterate: please support this project.
I'm in for £500.
My wife will kill me... if she ever finds out
Was Moon ever translated officially or non-officially? I hear about this game a lot, and I really want to try it out.
A few other people and I have hopefully perpetuated that chatter, so I'm always happy to hear others have heard it!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=61235989#post61235989
I've already made a few topics on it, if you search, so I'm going to wait until it's done to post an update. So, yep, it's nearly done and will be as perfect as possible.
I hope that this book sheds light on the actual process, because it began quite different from how it was released. I'd also love to know what happened between their work at Squaresoft and Lovedelic (and Lovedelic to now).
I put the guy running the campaign in touch with a couple of people I wanted to see in the book. When he confirmed them I ponied up my money, as promised.
So if you want to see SNK, try to put him in touch with some key people.
@Loona I've just had this from John, the guy running the Kickstarter.There's only contact information out there through blogs for some of the artists though - although one of my pet questions concerns a piece of Shinkiro artwork, and I can't seem to find his :/
Hello all. Thanks for the support. I signed up to NeoGAF with my szczepaniak [at] hardcore gaming 101 [dot] net email a long time ago, though it's not been approved (hint, hint). Hence the proxy message.
Technically there isn't any SNK mention (yet), since Metal Slug was by Nazca, and my contact was Kazuma Kujo from Irem (he also did Steambot Chronicles, among many other things). Of course I'd like to cover SNK. Some on the NeoGeo forums were disappointed the MS article wasn't in-depth enough. That's the problem with email interviews via translators. It's slow, and there's no on the spot elaboration. I want to correct this.
SNK has a rich heritage among the hardcore, and I'm keen to increase my arcade coverage. A lot of people on my priority list I will only try to contact if the KS succeeds. I jumped the gun with Arino, and now his manager is waiting for my follow up. I want to avoid doing that too often. If the KS succeeds there will be 2 months before I leave, in which time I can round up more people.
It's also not a 4 page tier, rather that's the minimum I intend to give to Guest Editors. Some of the Guest Editors I've spoken with have suggested topics which I can see running for 10 pages or more. It depends on multiple factors. If you ask me to dedicate a chapter to the Taito WoWoW, then we're probably going to get stuck...
I've been chatting with someone in a Japanese game preservation society, and I think this could lead to a long list of super cool people - more will be announced as I confirm them.
Just received the latest update. Never knew those folks at Siliconera were such jerks. They should just get over with it.
I've been abstaining from my movie-watching to go look up various sites cataloguing all sorts of fascinating, untranslated Japanese games Jon might at least mention in his history. One amazing source of knowledge is this man's Retro PC Game Music Streaming Radio, which features a detailed list of games he has (with reviews, screens, and music samples). This is the kind of stuff that needs Western translation and documentation!
Back when I was a Square Enix Music Online regular, I tried pushing for more coverage of it. I'll make a Game Music community thread this summer to promote it a lot more, once I can get my shit together. This site is full of awesome stuffbe sure to check out any game from ZOOM, Exact, Kogado, Data West, System Sacom, and many more who made these gems of JPC gaming.
Really shows how shitty gaming journalism can be sometimes. Not reporting about this kickstarter is detrimental to Siliconera's cause, which is showing the unseen side of video games and they instead put their personal interests ahead.I'm no fan of Siliconera myself, but they're not all bad. Szczepaniak's outlined the exact reason why he thinks they won't cover his Kickstarter (due to refusing translators from their sponsor 8-4), so that's all done. There's going to be a boost in pledges near the end (as always), so the bulk of the work right now is actively promoting this in the most meaningful ways possible.
I don't know that John can cover everything (hint: he won't, there's too much to cover), but he'll get the important companies and developers alongside more than a few of the obscure ones. I'm expecting a lot of talk about the connections between Japanese PC gaming and console gaming at the time.
Where my mouth is->($)
__________My money^
I'm moving, unfortunately, but I coughed up enough to earn the Premium D.V.D. Set. I want the raw footage!
I can't say he shouldn't have started this 1 month earlier, but it would be disconcerting and embarrassing for gamers if this didn't get funded.
Eh, I think he may be constructing things there. I really do adore Siliconera the site, but they clearly have their agenda set (as is their prerogative). I imagine, because they do similar work, that they don’t like that there wasn’t reciprocation. He likely never helped them out, so they feel no obligation to him. That’s fair, although I wish they’d agree that this (or Scroll or whatever) only contributes to gaming as a whole.
Plus, while I am nobody (at least in the video game world), I contacted them a bunch about Lovedelic and fan translations and received no response. They post a bunch of garbage/low-content posts on games that get them hits and appear to have little interest in retrospective work.
Like I wrote, though, they do cover stuff not covered elsewhere and are clearly dedicated and responsible. They’re just limited as members of the video game community.
They started out great, but they're basically just a place to go for niche game news when there's no other recourse(which is sadly the case).
So yeah, responsible is not a word I'd apply to them. Come back, Anoop.