Hello everyone.

This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.
Today, I want to talk about this “Rose-Tinted World”.

It seems that number of Japanese developers making indie games is going up dramatically. And now, last month saw the debut of a TV drama called “Atom’s Last Shot“, about a solo, auteur, indie game making genius.

What an amazing time we live in!
I can’t believe there’s a TV show like this in Japan!
…But it’s kind of weird. It’s honestly not super interesting.
Maybe because there is no “drudgery” in it?

In the real world of indie games, there are many more frustrated developers than successful ones. What you thought was going to be a bright, rose-tinted future turns out to actually be stained red with blood!

In reality, the world of indie games is more about getting tossed into a muddy, bloody battlefield.

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Hello everyone.

This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.

Today, I’d like to talk about “cows”.

In this world, there are very talented “professionals”,
who can create exactly what they’ve been assigned.

Sadly, I am not such a game developer.

For example, if someone asked me to make X,
I probably couldn’t do it.

In that sense, I am not a “professional”.
Well, then, what am I?
In short, I am a “cow”.

One day, in the Swiss countryside,
I was on a farm, watching cows.

You’d see these cows, they’d eat some grass,
and then they’d move to a tree to lick something.

As it turns out, there was a “salt lick” suspended from a tree branch…

They’d eat grass, and then they’d lick the salt.
Eat grass, lick salt, eat grass, lick salt…
Back and forth, endlessly.

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Hello everyone.

This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.

Today, I’d like to talk about “seriousness and unseriousness”.

Game development is something like a “locomotive of seriousness”.

Developing RPGs, especially, is a long-distance train, like the Trans-Siberian Railway.

We are a very small development team… but, day in and day out, we work very seriously to keep the coal burning, in the locomotive that is game development.

Shoveling in programming, drawings, music, and everything else… all of these things become heat energy, which keeps the locomotive moving.

Put another way, we are a busy, steady locomotive that chugs along, puffing out smoke.

But what exactly is the “game itself” that such a serious locomotive produces?

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Hello everyone.

This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.

Today, I’d like to talk about the urge to “escape” I sometimes feel.
I’ll be totally honest and confess:
I am not a very good game developer.

I say that because I often feel like escaping from game development entirely.

I’ll get stuck on an idea.
I’ll feel stuck as the head of my studio.

Whenever this happens, I want to escape.

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Hello everyone.

This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.

Today, I’d like to talk about a feeling I get,
when I’m in the very early stages of game development:
the “feeling of being alone”.

When you start making a game,
it feels like arriving alone in a strange town.
Sometimes, I feel a little intimidated.

I’m the only person who isn’t from here.
I’m in a world where no one has set foot before.

There’s a lot of uncertainty lurking everywhere,
and I have no idea where I’m headed.

But I’ve come to this place where I’m sure I’ll discover something new.
…That’s the feeling.

What discoveries?

Where’s the first clue that will lead me to those discoveries?

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