Pig-Min
did an e-mail interview with Naramura, who is leader of NIGORO. NIGORO
released very big hit 'Slap Cheek' game [Rose & Camellia] recently,
and it became very popular all over the internet.
Naramura used
'Translation software' to make this interview, Japanese -> English.
I edited some of it, but you could have little bit hard time to
understand partly. So please make sure about that. Thanks for your
understanding.
1. 'Nigoro' is not very popular name in Korea, even if it's
known for earlier work [Death Village] outside Japan. Please
introduce yourself briefly, to Pig-Min readers.
We had opened the
game to the public making it in the hobby before. The most important work was
"LA-MULANA", that is Windows game which looks like MSX. But we were not able to
make the game, because our members became too busy. After that, we made NIGORO, because I want to
continue to make the game.
We
opened Flash game site to the public, for the preparation of the long
period game production. We plan to make a bigger game sooner or later.
2.
'Slap Cheek' is the least thing, people could consider for 'Fighting
Game'. It's very unique & unusual, and very fun to play, but
NOBODY made it until your game. How come to think about that?
We were not
accustomed to making the Flash game. To make the game that was able to play
by more people, a lot of popular Flash games were researched.
And,
we decided it to making a simple game only of hitting each other.
However, We decided to look for a changeable theme, because it was not
interesting in it alone.For slapping each other by the women, it is
seen with an old drama in Japan sometimes.We got a hint there, and
"Rose and camellia" became such a game.
3. 'Character
Design' seems to be influenced by Japanese old school Manga for women.
But 'Storyline' seems to be influenced by Japanese old school manga
for Boy. Very fun combination, as 'Escalation of the Enemy'
&'Hidden Boss'. Can you pick up some specific Manga, which you got
influence to make this game?
We started making the design of "Rose and
camellia", from the influence of the old school Manga for women style, as you guessed it.However, it
has become like old school manga for Boy, because I am the Man & I wrote the story.
I got the model from "Rose
in Versailles(Japanese old school Manga for women)". And I got influence from "Hokuto no Ken - Fist of the North Star
(Japanese old school manga for Boy)" for the Story.
The storyline was not too deep, because we'd like to let people playing it freely.
4. Homepage & Game have some 'English' words, but
most of the messages are 'Japanese' language only. Partly
foreigners-friendly, but not very friendly. Do you have any specific
reason why? And do you have any future plan, to make homepage &
game 'Multilingual', with English & even Korean? Many Korean
people wish to play game with Korean language, so curious.
Our
team NIGORO is 3 people, and no member can translate. However, because
a lot of foreigners have come to our site, so the explanation of easy
English is put. We can prepare only the explanation of English,
because we learn English at the school in Japan. We'd better make the
multilingual version, by employing the translater, if our work
succeeds.
People
in each country explains the brief storyline local, and it works. We
wish to express our gratitude to the volunteer translators.
5. Not sure
about Japanese market, however there are some Webgame market in USA.
Do you have some plan to service your game with commercial channel in
the future? And did you get some proposal from commercial game
site?
Certainly, the foreigner evaluates us higher than the Japanese. First of all, NIGORO must make a lot
of games, and became famous to make something bigger. If so, we can develop the consumer game like "Wiiware" ,"XNA"
etc.
6. Too many people enjoyed your game, and your website went
down due to traffic. Do you have some data, where all the people came from? Country & Referer website, I mean.
The server was moved, due to high traffic & even went down.
Our
site records 500000 visitors. When the game is open to the public,
50000 people visited our site that 1 day. We had not thought that such
a many people came, we used just a cheap server, and sever down at
then.
A lot
of people in the sphere of Spanish came, when "Death Village" was opened to
the public. NowA lot of people in the sphere of Asia have come, when "Rose
and camellia" is opened to the public.
7. Do you have future plan,
to post your personal picture? Some people might want to see 'Who made
it', because it's too unique and shocking game.
If we become famous
more, we will update our photograph to the public.
8. Please
recommend other good Games, and the reason
why.
I do not play new games usually. We love retro game. We want
to let people have the interest, what we had while playing retro games in the past.
Hydlide, Maze of Garious, Gradius, Xanadu, Relics....and more retro
games!
9. Did you try some Korean games, or even heard or
experienced about them? If so, please share your thoughts about
that.
Sorry,
we have not played Korean games. Foreign games doesn't do well in
Japan. We want to play them in the future, when we have time.
10. Please leave some message for Pig-Min readers.
We wish
to express our gratitude to a lot of foreigners for playing our game, though
we are making the game for the Japanese. I think that there was no border in
a fun game. However, we want to continue the game making that can amuse
you!!