We caught up innovative Japanese game creator Suda 51 to talk about shoes, bathrooms, and executioners as he readies his next game - Killer is Dead.
On the concept:
"The whole concept was not the typical killer/assassination titles that we're good at. But I wanted to have a character that has more of a governmental job. He's doing his killing as an occupation and he does it as part of a team. That's the main concept when I came up with the idea for this title."
The graphical style:
"I think video games nowadays is a digital art so when I create a title I want to create something that just by looking at the screenshot you can identify what title it is. Especially for Grasshopper Manufacture I think that's one of our strongpoints. That's why we strive to create something new and unique."
"For this title we created what we're calling high contrast shading, it's a little different from photo rendering or cel shading. But we really just wanted to come up with a really cool look, like you mentioned, like my shoes. I think it looks cool, it has this functionality, but it still looks good and it really has this impact on people who look at it. I always want to provide some kind of new experience, shock value, new art style to the users."
On how Grasshopper Manufacture is different with new owners GungHo Entertainment:
"I think in a creative prespective, because we're part of GungHo it gives us more creative freedom. We can concentrate more on our creative side and because of that we can risk more on original ideas and original titles so as Grasshopper we really found a really good working environment that we can concentrate on what we're good at."