The Making of Jerry Boy:
An Interview with its Creators

First off, there was a young part-time worker (???) in the company before us who wrote a game design document about a slime -- but it was an RPG [turn-based Role-Playing Game]. The idea that a slime was the hero of a game was interesting to us, so Ken Sugimori and I started a new design document for an action-RPG. But as we went along, we agreed that the hero's being a slime was rather meaningless. So then, what if we could move this shapeless blob freely by using the control pad...... bridging gaps (that even Mario couldn't fly over) by stretching over and crossing to the other side...... We had such ideas at first.

At Epic, it looked like somebody had wanted to make it an RPG, however. From the beginning, our group (GameFreak) had always loved arcade-style games; we were skilled at those games, and so without really considering what the other side [Epic] wanted, we made a slime action game. The meetings that came out of that were the most interesting of all. But the person who had wanted an RPG...(???) (smile)

Although "Jerry" is our 2nd original game, our debut production [Quinty] was rather non-mainstream. It sold sluggishly on a popular system. It had small characters moving around a level that didn't change [much]. This time, we had to make a game that was completely opposite to the first one. Thus, we tried energetically to put a story into our action game.

Although the work itself was simultaneous, the basis of the way of thinking was in the direction of an action game. It would be wrong to think that we just said "This is the story of a slime as hero, so let's make an action game." We made an action game first, and then the story was incorporated into it. So then, what we considered was, from the beginning of the game right to the end, what exactly from the story had to be told at which point. The slime would go through great trouble, flying and bouncing, all the while saying, "I've gotta help Emi right away!" The story would develop like this, even if some rhythmic sense of a game is lost. The tale will be told between stages. In addition to this, different episodes will be inserted in between each world (??). Each episode was small -- for example, the hero goes inside the body of a whale -- but with all episodes considered, it made one big tale. Although the continuity with drawings was all also laid out with each world, we didn't waste all our free time doing this. (smile) There was no more space left in the game's memory. But frankly, if we had removed these episodes, the game would have been so easy that the player wouldn't have cared about the story.

For example, in the state where the slime is stretched out, he adheres to a wall or anything else we could consider. If he adheres to something while standing on a ground which is slanting upwards, so many terrible possibilities are raised; an infinite number of patterns such as this will develop. Even though Sugimori had spent a long time cranking out drawings of the slime, the end was nowhere in sight; so, the game system was simplified. In the beginning, Jerry could have extended himself to extreme lengths. When he is extended too much, it stops playing like a game. Although reappearing as a picture is possible (???), we were serious about filling in this hole in the game system.

Different colours could be applied to him. A swamp and a bucket could change his colour. If he comes in contact with the many objects in the levels, the colour of the slime's body changes there, and a function will change also. By playing an action game like a slime -- by thinking very hard -- you could use between 1/3 and 1/5 of all objects in the game.

At first, there was no possibility of attaching to the ceiling, or extending horizontally and repelling an enemy. We had only planned that the slime could attack with a ball. But if he could only attack with a ball, then there is no meaning to his being a slime; and the game is too hard when he doesn't have a ball.

What about the enemies? Do they all move according to a unified theme? (???)

Because we wanted to create things that moved in ways different from past action games, we used animals as the motif. We wanted the enemy characters to teach us a lesson.

At first, I was only in charge of the game plan. Therefore, I made descriptions of the enemies; I drew initial drawings on paper: The mice are like this, the birds are like that, etc. It was the so-called draft proposal.

He (???) is neither just a game designer nor a director -- in short, he brought out the game plan. Then over at Epic, a schedule was made [by whom, I don't know]. For that reason, characters were not drawn in pixels, but rather everything was sketched in an animation style. [Perhaps this means artists at Epic were to transfer the characters to pixel art.]

The style of art has the splendid tone of a graphic novel. At the end of the 1st stage there is a bird -- well, it looks more like a game hen. Because that wasn't really close to the art style, I was a little troubled.

About the slime, I think he would resemble to game players the slime from Dragon Quest. I wanted girls or elementary school children to feel that it was "cute". We wanted to give it just a little twist, so it would feel easy to get into. (??)

That a slime could be cute is probably an idea from the Family Computer. Personal Computer users would more likely say it looks like [the slime/something] from Wizardry.

Yes, yes, that's right. Therefore the same story [as those games?] was not accepted. The image attached to a slime should be different.

When creating the enemy characters, [did anyone write/was it written] absolutely that one part or another couldn't be "like this" or a part needed to be "like that?" (???)

At first, we thought of enemy characters off the top of our heads. We had done the same thing when we made Quinty, and we had thought the results were interesting. That's what we thought. In practice, however, when we were making enemy algorithms we knew it was necessary that if a character walks straight at a fixed speed, if it hits a wall, it'll reverse itself and walk the other way. Up until that time, that was the first time that I'd thought of that. (????) Doing that is difficult enough, but then if the enemy comes within 32 pixels of the hero, it'll do a jump. If the hero jumps upwards at that point, what will the enemy do? Such things had to be considered in full.

Although each person has his own way of writing down [such algorithms], I think it's good to write it in the form of a flowchart.

Since our locations were separated very far apart, the parts which could not be explained had to be written in detail in a text. If we were in adjacent rooms, an easy memo could be passed back and forth vocally.

When trying [to make a game] for the first time, it's probably good to write it down once, right?

It's lesson time, isn't it? I think it ought to be understood how a game is structured and put together. Children who are now aiming at becoming game designers should understand, for example, the reason why a round stone rolls and rumbles around and then comes to a stop. That's one step towards becoming a pro. When writing about speed, about how fast something is, if you say a character walks 90 pixels in 1 second -- it's fine -- this speed will become the rule against which all other speeds will be decided.

In each of our heads, we have a vague sense of how fast the characters should move, and how the characters should move. How do we reach a shared sense of this? We say, "Jerry should be like this, should jump like this," and understand [together]. But it is not necessary to put it as a mathematical expression. It needs to be explained as an image [first] in order to write it as an expression.

For me, it's the guy whose hips are always turning (???). He is a guy who runs at an incredible speed. When he is running on ice, his legs slide around and he doesn't move forward at all. But if he hits ground for just a moment, he will begin to run suddenly and collide with the wall in front of him, and reel away from the wall, tottering.

There are so many one-shot gags in the game that many had to be taken out, things that were incomprehensible, anyway.

Although it was good to have dropped the demonstration and the view of the world, there are places where the basic gameplay system was not adjusted and balanced -- that is what I regret the most.

Even though the boss characters were all programmed in at once, once they were incorporated in the game, they were left, finished. When playing the game, you can kill the bosses very easily. I think true game creation is in polishing it properly from that point.

Although I like the idea of Jerry Boy, there is much regret about the product. Sometimes I see other games with ideas that I think are good; other times when I see games that are blundered to completion, I feel a pain in my heart.