A rare peek behind the curtain!
Few companies have produced as many “arcade hits” as the video game giant Konami. The Japanese developer and publisher — founded all the way back in 1969 as a jukebox repair business — is behind some of the most beloved arcade titles: from puzzle-action games like Frogger to a huge collection of classic shoot ’em-ups and side-scrolling beat ’em ups.
Yet, in spite of this success, there is a shockingly small amount of information available about the people who actually made these games, in part due to Konami’s decision not to credit its developers in order to avoid other companies headhunting its talent. So, recently we set out to interview three former Konami employees — the programmer and producer Masahiro Inoue, illustrator and designer Yoshiki Okamoto, and designer and artist Masaaki Kukino — to find out more about their careers and what it was like working on some of the company’s biggest games. The interviews were conducted primarily in Japanese and were translated with the assistance of the English-to-Japanese translator Liz Bushouse.
Read the full article on timeextension.com
A rare peek behind the curtain!
Few companies have produced as many “arcade hits” as the video game giant Konami. The Japanese developer and publisher — founded all the way back in 1969 as a jukebox repair business — is behind some of the most beloved arcade titles: from puzzle-action games like Frogger to a huge collection of classic shoot ’em-ups and side-scrolling beat ’em ups.
Yet, in spite of this success, there is a shockingly small amount of information available about the people who actually made these games, in part due to Konami’s decision not to credit its developers in order to avoid other companies headhunting its talent. So, recently we set out to interview three former Konami employees — the programmer and producer Masahiro Inoue, illustrator and designer Yoshiki Okamoto, and designer and artist Masaaki Kukino — to find out more about their careers and what it was like working on some of the company’s biggest games. The interviews were conducted primarily in Japanese and were translated with the assistance of the English-to-Japanese translator Liz Bushouse.
Read the full article on timeextension.com