Talking Lumines II and Every Extend Extra with Tetsuya Mizuguchi

If there are better or nicer handheld games designers than Tetsuya Mizuguchi, we'd like to meet them – we got to interview him at E3, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Mizuguchi is one of the busiest games designers too. Just in terms of PSP games, he had Lumines II and Every Extend Extra playable at the show, while the Lumines universe continues to expand with Lumines mobile, Lumines Plus on PlayStation 2, and a version of Lumines for download on Xbox Live Arcade.

"I've only just started with Lumines," he laughs.

In terms of Lumines II, Mizuguchi says this version is more like a music festival.

"For this game, I'm the party organiser – I'm bringing in talents from different music genres and groups," he says. "Plus I've also always been influenced by music videos – Aha's Take On Me and Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer were the first – and so Lumines II is more about watching."

In terms of gameplay though, the basic moves and modes of the game are much the same as before, with you trying to arrange two-colour squares into one-colour blocks of more than two-by-two units, which are removed from the action by a horizontally-sweeping line that moves through the screen like a musical timeline.

There is a new battle mode available in Lumines II, but the main focus of the update is its graphical polish and 3D skins, as well as that expanded selection of music tracks and videos.

The contrast with Every Extend Extra is interesting. First released as a simple PC downloadable game by a Japanese university student, Every Extend Extra was picked up by one of the developers at Mizuguchi's company Q Entertainment.

"He wanted to work on a PSP version, so I let him get on with it," says Mizuguchi, who acted as executive producer.

Unlike Lumines, which you can easily play for 40 minutes or more, Every Extend Extra is extremely fast, with most games taking less than five minutes.

That might not surprise you when you learn the aim of the game is to blow yourself up. You pilot your bomb/craft into a swirling mass of coloured space objects, and try to detonate yourself at just the right time to cause an optimum chain reaction of explosions. These leave you with power-ups and time-delays to extend the game (hence the name Every Extend Extra).

You've only a limited number of bombs to start with, but destroy stuff right and you get more to use. With regular bosses to defeat, Every Extend Extra will certainly test both your reflexes and lateral thinking skills.

"It's simple but addictive," Mizuguchi agrees. "It's all about building chain-reactions. If you do 55 today, you'll want to do more tomorrow."

More generally, Mizuguchi says he's enjoying running Q Entertainment

"I was frustrated when I was working at Sega," he admits. "Now, even though we're only 35 people, we're quick. We're like a backpacker. We can go wherever we want, so I'm very happy at the moment. For people who love to create games, it's not work. Making games is my life."