This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.
Everything has been progressing steadily, little by little.
Today, though, I’d like to talk a little about the “Customary Cave.”
Sometimes, when I’m making a game, it feels like I’m in a dream.
In the dream, I’m exploring a dark cave, equipped only with a simple torch.
It’s dark, it’s dank, and you can barely see a foot in front of your face.
But, you forge ahead, armed with the belief that at the end, there will be treasure.
I’m in that cave again, and I’ve been feeling all those same feelings.
You get lost.
You make mistakes.
You butt up against enemies.
But sometimes, sometimes, you stumble upon treasure…
These days, I’ve been hard at work every day, mostly just here at home in my room.
From time to time, I’ve been hearing little voices asking, in English, “are you OK?” Am I hallucinating from working too hard?
Between COVID-19 and everything else going on in the world right now, it’s taken us some time to make a proper announcement, but I wanted to reach out and give you an update on our current situation.
We have finally (finally!) reached the last stage of debugging the English version of moon.
The first draft of its translation was actually finished a while ago, but given that this is the first time ever that you’re all going to play it in English, we wanted to take even more time to polish the script.
Moon is full of so many subtleties in the characters, their strange personalities, and idiosyncratic ways of communicating. We wanted to do even more testing than usual to make sure all of that came through clearly, felt special, and guided you properly through its world.
Today, we’re starting to debug the latest build that includes all that extra polish. We just need… a little more time. The goal is really, actually in sight!
Well, the year is almost over, and it was a good one for me — thank you very much for all of your support as we released Dandy Dungeon on Switch and Steam, and moon on Switch here in Japan.
I’ve been looking over comments you’ve all been leaving on our Discord and our Twitter lately, and I think it’s well past time to give you some direct progress updates from our little studio.
I know we said the English release of moon would be “coming very soon”, and clearly that was a little optimistic. I’m really sorry it’s taking this long, but the translation and implementation of moon is… very delicate. We need more time to finish it, but please rest assured the English version is still on the way, and we hope you can be patient with us!
The English version of moon is being prepared by a tiny, tiny Onion team. I mean… Onion Games itself is very, very small, but these Tiny Onions are working very hard, every day, to get everything ready for you.
The localization of moon is actually going great! But there are many, many more things involved than just translating the text. I’d say that the translation itself is more than 70% done, implementing that translation is around 20% done, and then debugging and checking the translation is about 5% done.
I think, all added up, the project as a whole is at about 40% done…. probably!
We have all been working incredibly hard lately, juggling multiple projects and issues at once (including…. new games no-one’s even seen yet!). But that means even though we’re working hard, we’re working slow. I hope everyone is ok waiting until everything is really, truly ready!
Personally, I want to be even more involved than usual in the localization process, and also contributing more to our New Game Ideas, but… to tell the truth.. my brain, my body… my mind are all so, so exhausted.
I need a proper rest. I have been working too much this year. I need just a little time to recover ahead of everything we’ll have coming in 2020.
Give me time!
Give us more time, please!
Thank you very much,
Yoshiro Kimura
2019/12/24
By the way, here are links to the other Switch games we‘ve released. While you’re waiting for moon, please play them!!!
Hi guys.
We are going to go IndieCade2014 culver city LA. And we want you to play million onion hotel. Please play and tell me what you feel.
And this is trailer.
Please come and play our game.
Me and taniguchi san join this festival.
Taniguchi is composer of Chulip and moon.
and Kimura’s best frriend.
This million onion hotel’sound is 100% taniguchi-san’s music.
I love it
I was not anticipating that I fly to LA again as indie game developer.
I need big courage like a child of elementary school first year.
I love indie game people of USA.I am afraid of watching a lot of good indie game.but I GO.I MUST GO absolutely.
I will be in Bitsummit with my strange friends from Lovedelic-era, His name is Kazuyuki kurashima.
Hello! I am Yoshiro kimura of Japanese game designer.
We are so busy to prepare for BitSummit.
Because of that I want to show my new game at Kyoto.
Today I want to introduce my friend who is exploring indie game cave with me.
His name is Kazuyuki kurashima who is the best pixel artist of Onion Games!
He is drawing Boss character very seriously recently.
I have shown some my strange hand drawing GDD before, but it is not possible for us to build with it only.
After I got game rule and visual image in my heart, I need to explain kurashima-san. And He start to draw pixels rapidly. It is really rapid!!
This is the happy moment that my thought and his image become together.
And Engineer and God and some fairy have been watching us from the sky very seriously,carefully.
We are always on the road called strange funny journey.
We are not only Job fellow, but also we are … ?
He have been working with me since 20years ago.I met him in square of Super NES age. And after we left big company, we were working in Lovedelic together.
We often doing something ridiculous things, for example we are talking about Starbucks’s waitress too much, Or we have been often shouting queer voice in midnight together too much.
Lovdelic-era ,when I was explaining my experience what small bird design of passbook was talking to me, then he draw new character for me immediately. The bird name was Yoshida.I love that character. Our conversation was like child play.
At that little king’s story –era, he was a designer of monster. But he had a big operation of brain at that time.
As soon as he got out from hospital, we had a meeting of monster visual design at cafe of Shinjuku. Even though he was stunned a little. He was very happily drinking coca cola a lot and talking about monster characters a lot. He is incredibly super strange guy or workaholic artist.
And he was not only helping me as a character artist, but also he is helping for my art activities often.
Drawing picture for my acting, or drawing pixel character for Ust Broadcasting, going to Switzerland together for exibition.
He is friend for my art and he is my job fellow.
We are having a job. Yes, we need a job. But we love to play like a childhood more than work.
This is very strange funny journey.
Our next stop is Bitsummit in Kyoto
Even though we are children on the funny journey now also, we are still collaborating for game.
And This is some characters of our game.
If you come to BitSummit in Kyoto, you can see these characters!
Do you want to touch them? Please come and play our game.
And if you see me, please say hello or say something..
This is first time for me to join indie game event.
I am so excited.
Hi guys.
I never anticipated that it was so hard for me to write blog once a week. But I still continue I show what I am doing as game designer.
Let me start from the rest of the last diary. I was writing that our making indie game is like a exploring cave. I want to talk about MAP for cave adventure today.
Indie game explorer without map I am sure,If I prepare map, It is very convenient for developing video game. And this map is called Game design document. But I noticed this thought was very workaholic. so I gave up to prepare proper beautiful game design document in this project.
Mean that, we do not have proper map for adventure of this cave.
But our project have this rough map.
Like this..
I said I stopped to make proper beautiful GDD, but we have something surely.
I started to make my handwrite GDD for team since 8 month ago.
This is not proper one. This is not beautiful at all!!
What is important for my making game?
I am still thinking what is good for my style everyday. But I am sure. Hand drawing is very good for my brain. I can order my thoughts easily.
Entertaining people, Honesty, Good fellows, Hand drawing, it seems these are very important for my making game.
Oh, my fellows..
When I was talking insignificant rubbishy idea to them, they showed me their strange questioning face.
Hi guys, finally I am going to start something like a DEV diary of my project.
I will write something like a diary of explorer in the cave.
I think I should show good and bad things both.
I am walking on bumpy road. I do not want pretend this is very beautiful flat road. So, This is not a hopeful blog:-)
And I want to tell you something before I start.
Game designer who was dropped out from Japanese Consumer game industry
Actually, people often ask me “Did you retire?” NO! NO! I am not giving up making game! But people says to me “ I thought kimura-san is spending the rest of his life wealthy” Fuck off! NO! Definitely NOT! I am looking for a way to survive desperately. I am not retired from game industry. I am walking on the new way which is very different from my past. I was looking for my new door of life. I was struggling for changing my life, changing my self since 4 or 5 years ago. And I am struggling still now on for this theme.
My theme is…like this
“I make game what I want to make.
And I sell directly to customers.
And I survive with it.
Is it possible for me?”
***Struggling man and My character ***
I know how difficult it is. I know only few person can do it in the world. And they are very great men who have very great skills, of programming and visual and sound in one person. And I am not a kind of man unfortunately. Even though I can do all, my skill is very low.
But I asked to my heart.
A Little kimura in my heart, he said, “Do it! Do It! You must do! Make your strange world again!”
And I think that it is night of before I fall asleep. The last moment of the day is my favorite magic time.
I would play with creatures in my head a little. I speak with tiny onion some time. And I speak with small creatures sometime. This is my play. But,If I get good inspiration,I stop that I play with them.
Tiny onion says “why don’t you continue ? Please play with us ,Please chat more with us” I answer “Don’t disturb me. I got a Idea that I want to write about. And I am going to work now!”
