by ERIK LEIJON

Japanese video game developer Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s keynote speech at the recent Montreal International Game Summit not only showcased his resumé, but also gave him the opportunity to learn from us.

“I went to my first hockey game,” says Mizuguchi, 41, referring to the Habs/Oilers contest the night before. “My imagination was running wild. I enjoyed watching the people’s reactions, seeing how excited everyone got—it looked like a future rave party. I would love to recreate the lights and sounds, like the players skating hard, and the sound the puck makes when it hits the boards—it sounds like an explosion.”

While there’s no hockey game in the works, Mizuguchi has made a career out of getting ideas from unconventional sources. He came to prominence in the 1990s working for Sega; his first title, 1994’s Sega Rally, was one of the first driving games where developers worked hand-in-hand with a racing company to deliver authentic cars and physics. The idea was first rejected by Toyota, but upon seeing Rally’s 3D graphics, they came on board.

He got the idea for his first music-based game sitting in the audience watching the Stomp dance troupe, and the result was 2000’s Space Channel 5 for the Sega Dreamcast, which features a cameo from Michael Jackson.

Rave inspiration

His allusion to the Bell Centre looking like a rave was not surprising either. His space shooter Rez, featuring vector-line graphics (to Tron-like effect), came about after he attended his first rave in 1994 in Zurich. He was so impressed by the vibration of the thunderous bass that he designed the trance vibrator controller add-on to recreate the feeling—although it’s most famously known for its effectiveness as a clitoral stimulator.

Lumines II, his latest PSP title and sequel to the 2005 hit, is a puzzle game where his love of music and gaming meet. Initially looking like a more colourful Tetris, players must position falling dual-toned blocks in such a way that the same colours form squares. A sliding timeline bar, moving to the speed of the music, then eliminates the newly formed squares. Sounds also come from the different moves the player makes, and are incorporated into the music. For the sequel, Mizuguchi added video skins, where actual music videos play in the background (the soundtrack includes Beck, Chemical Brothers and the Go! Team).

“The first (Lumines) was inspired by the Walkman, but iTunes changed the way people enjoy music, because now you can download one-by-one, and then customize and edit your song list,” he says. “This is a human want; people want to create their own styles and trends.”

The main theme for Lumines II is the A-ha-esque video by the Genki Rockets, called “Heavenly Star.” This mysterious group is a pet-project for Mizuguchi, who wrote the song and directed the video.

“It’s a casual thing,” he says. “I didn’t want to create something interactive, but to combine sounds and visuals, and to create a video that corresponds with the music. Like when someone says ‘love,’ everything would turn orange.” He says it’s something he would like to explore further in his next projects, which may include a full Genki Rockets album.

Games to go

In 2003, Mizuguchi left Sega to form Q Entertainment. This November alone, they’ve released Lumines II and another PSP music game, Every Extend Extra. The DS/PSP homage to the late Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi, entitled Gunpey, also recently hit stores. It’s no coincidence his studio is concentrating on portable gaming, as he says gamers’ increasingly busy lives has meant less time spent in the living room and more time on the run.

“People’s lifestyles are changing, and our brains are changing too—from a simple task mode to a multi-tasking mode. Our brains can now edit multiple streams of information at once, so our brains want something different. If you watch television news, there’s information all over the screen, but 20 years ago, it was just an anchor talking to you.”

Mizuguchi says that it was amid the chaos of modern news services that he got his idea for this year’s Ninety-Nine Nights (N3), a massive action-war game for the Xbox 360. He explained that nowadays, with so many different news sources, wars can be told from a variety of different sides and perspectives, so players get to experience the game from seven different sides.

“Everybody talks about justice,” he says, “but it’s all based on point of view.”