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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi and PaRappa the Rapper mastermind Masaya Matsuura are smart guys. They say smart things. This time, they’re chatting up music — so essential to their games. Dig this exchange: Mizuguchi: …What is music? Music has many elements, so how can we cut and separate and remake the parts in the process of game design? So then, game designers have to know what is fun, what is the essence of music?
Matsuura: Essence of music, I don’t know. I really don’t understand the essence of music. I’ve been composing music for thirty years, and I still don’t understand what music is. But I’m still looking for the certain shape of my music. Anybody who can define the existence of music, I really respect.
Mizuguchi: Yeah, I agree with you. Music is like a universe — many, many elements. Lyrics, chords, rhythm, beats, playing, listening. Emotionally, you feel something. When I was 11 years old, I listened to my first Beatles music. I couldn’t understand English, but I felt emotion or something, sort of… I want to love somebody! It’s the power of music, of chords… very physical things, very emotional things. Not logic — I don’t know, maybe logic. If I understand the lyrics, and it’s a new chemistry. Music, we have a long history with music, but new music is coming still. I don’t know why. It’s a universe. Amazing.Great stuff. The rest of the dialogue over at Game|Life is worth checking out as well. Do it, you won’t be sorry. Interview with Miz and Matsuura [Game|Life]
Developer NanaOn-Sha has churned out some pretty great music games like PaRappa The Rapper and UmJammer Lammy. Games so great they deserve to be immortalised in musical instruments. Over the holidays, reader Landon found these Parappa guitar picks in Osaka. He writes: I play drums, not guitar, but I had to PICK (get it?) them up.
Yes, yes. We get it. He even found an UmJammer Lammy guitar for about a hundred bucks. That, after the jump.
The DS is, arguably, the posterchild for expanding the demographics of gamers. Yet for all its success in baiting old folks and lady folks into playing games, is the system’s innovation innovating for some and not others? That’s what PaRappa creator Masaya Matsuura is thinking, telling Gamasutra: We have to keep increasing the chance to make more unique titles, but for us it’s getting much more difficult because the game market — especially in Japan — is still very conservative.
Many people know that the DS has very unique titles, like Brain Training, or something like that, but it’s not for younger-aged market. It’s kind of older people, like me. Hmm. Might be onto something. Ace Attorney, Phantom Hourglass, Mario, Advance Wars…most of the DS’s best games for “regular” gamers have been additions and upgrades to existing franchises, not out and out new experiences. Flip side: having shown we’ll buy the same Nintendo games over and over for 10-15 years, why would developers bother? Matsuura Got Rhythm: The State Of NanaOn-Sha’s Founder [Gamasutra][Image]
Back in 2007, game designer Masaya Matsuura mentioned that he was in talks with Sony for a PSN downloadable version of PS1 cult classic Vib Ribbon. The original game loaded into the PS1′s RAM and let players use their own music CDs to play off. The game would generate unique levels based on the music. So when a Vib Ribbon appeared on the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) homepage, the remake seemed all systems go. Not so fast! Says a Sony spokesperson:
… as far as I’m aware there is no new version in the works. We regularly have our games rated so this may not mean it’s actually going to be released but you can always keep your fingers crossed.
What does that mean? Besides that this spokesperson doesn’t know what’s going on, not much! Don’t rule anything out just yet. Vib Ribbon Coming? [VideoGamer]
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences recently added a clutch of new speakers to their 2008 Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain Summit in February including newly appointed Entertainment Software Association president Michael D. Gallagher and Masaya Matsuura, the man behind PaRappa the Rapper.
Other additions include Blizzard president Mike Morhaime, LucasArts president Jim Ward and Dr. Mark Ollila, director of tech and strategy for games and multimedia at Nokia.
The annual event will also include three-days of seminars and the Interactive Achievement Awards, which will once more be hosted by Jay Mohr.
Man, the world’s gone Matsuura crazy! First PaRappa is released on PSP, then we get his new iPod game, and now we get murmurings that he and Sony are in (casual) talks about another PaRappa game. After finding out that Matsuura was both keen for another PaRappa and that Sony were interested, 1UP pressed the topic a little further, with Matsuura revealing: Personally, I really love the downloadable games on PS3, but currently I don’t have any discussion with Sony Computer Entertainment people right now. We are exchanging casual e-mails, meeting up sometimes. I would not be surprised if these kinds of discussions will be started in the near future.
PaRappa as a downloadable game? That would of course suggest a cheap price, and maybe downloadable content as well. Good luck with those casual meet-and-greets guys, because this would be real swell. PaRappa Creator Optimistic About New Sequel [1UP]
Musika is a new iPod game from PaRappa the Rapper creator Masaya Matsuura. In that article, Matsuura says this about iPod games: Almost all the other games are basic and limited – like a simple puzzle. Our game will be very advanced compared to the others. This will last.
And it’s tough to agree.
Masaya Matsuura, creator of PaRappa and Vib-Ribbon, has been a busy boy. He and his team at NanaOn-Sha have been working on a new rhythm-action game. Thing is, it’s not for a console. Or a handheld. It’s for the iPod! Called Musika, it’s probably best explained as an interactive visualisation program. As a track’s playing, letters are swirling around the screen – see one that’s in the song’s title and you hit the button. I actually had a chance to check this game out back in March, when it was still called Rhythmica, and walked away with one impression: this shit would be the next Snake. It’s on a widely-used platform, is simple to play, simple to learn and (depending on your playlist) has almost endless replayability. Plus, it looks nice. Very trippy. Matsuura says of Musika: …almost all the other ipod games are basic and limited – like a simple puzzle. Our game will be very advanced compared to the others. This will last.
Hear that? It will last. Like the Rolling Stones, and organised religion. Musika has just become available for download in the iTunes store.
