Mizuguchi Chat
Lumines creator taps out answers to tough questions
Creator of both Lumines for PSP and Meteos for DS, Japanese developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi can rightly claim to be the best puzzle game designer in the world. And following the successful launch of Lumines in Europe, publisher Ubisoft got him into an Internet chat room so fans could fire questions at him
Here are some of the highlights....
Q: Can you briefly explain about Lumines, for the players who don’t know?A: Sure. This is a puzzle game, but all the control/play sounds are on the music sheet. The sounds you play will become a song so it’s like making music by playing puzzles or a fusion of a puzzle game and music. Kinda of a very normal explanation. Haha =)
Q: Why did you limit the high score in Lumines to 999,999 points?A: I just simply thought no one could reach that high score. How many of you have reached the MAX already ? Maybe I should change the MAX to 999,999,999 for the next Lumines. Anyways the reason for 999,999 is I was thinking how long PSP battery would last. I thought it would last about 2 hours so I kinda calculated from that.
Q: What inspired you when making the sound and visual presentation of Lumines?A: There is a drama behind it. I went to the southern Japanese island - it's called Okinawa. I was thinking about Lumines on the beach, then I heard Mondo Grosso's song. It was night and lots of stars were in the sky. It was very beautiful. Then I was thinking, if stars shining coresponded to music, that would be really interesting. It was like a show. I asked our art director Yokota to create such a show with music and visuals
Q: How big was the team that worked on Lumines ?A: Six people - the smallest team ever, but since I didn't really work hard, so I should say 5.5 people =P
Q: What genres of music, bands and songs do you like yourself?A: I like all kinds of music really. If possible, I'd like to use Beatles songs for next Lumines! All You Need Is Love... Classics sound good, too. Recently I've listened to Chemical Brothers and Far Boy Slim a lot.
Q: Will there really be a Lumines 2?A: We haven't announced Lumines 2 yet, but we've been trying out many things. Sorry. I cannot tell you more than that at this point.
