Source: Collected in Misshitsu Mystery no Meikyū ('The Maze of Locked Room Mysteries') / 『密室ミステリの迷宮』, 2010
"I want to create video games focusing on the fun of mystery fiction!"
It has been 16 years since I first started making games at Capcom with that dream in my mind. Up until now, I have created games like the Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) series and Ghost Trick. That is why to the outside world, I say that I am a game creator, but actually, as a human person, I am not comprised out of video games, but out of detective fiction, rather overwhelmingly so.
Ever since primary school, when I read Edogawa Rampo's Shinri Shiken (The Psychological Test) and I stepped into this world of mystery, I've only been reading detective fiction, growing up as an adult with a rather unhealthy literary diet. I of course also loved games, so I had played several famous mystery games. And it's a pity, but I personally never came across a game I was satisfied with. It is true that all of them had the 'shape' of a detective, with a murder happening and it being solved in the end, but that wasn't enough. What I wanted to play, wasn't just the 'shape', but the fun of detective fiction.... a game that would let me have fun with that 'essence' of mystery fiction.
Mystery fiction and games.... at first sight, the two seem compatible, but there is a big contradiction there when you look at those concepts through the eyes of a game creator. The theme of a detective is to 'unravel the mystery'. But on the other hand, you enjoy it the most when 'you're surprised when the mystery is unraveled at the end' .... so that is actually the complete opposite. What you want in a game is of course 'to become a great detective and solve the mystery'. But if that is the case, you neccesarily lose the enjoyment of being surprised at the end. A great detective can't explain his own deductions and be surprised by the solution themselves... Just like that a magician who can't be surprised by his own magic. How can we overcome this contradiction? The key to mystery games lies precisely there.... that what was I felt. And what I made as my own answer to that idea was Gyakuten Saiban. This will always be a big problem to everyone who aims to make a mystery game, I think.
--- Yes. When it comes to mystery games, I become a bit fussy... but actually, you can enjoy the essence of mystery fiction, even outside mystery games. For example, the point & click genre that focuses solely on the solving of mysteries.... Like the famous Myst series. When I first played it, I thought: "this is mystery fiction". This game starts with the player being dropped in a beautiful strange world. At first, you don't know the 'rules' of that world, but as you walk around and play around with the machines there, you slowly come to understand something likethe "governing laws" of the game and then, the answer to the mystery comes.... that feeling is truly an essential element of mystery fiction, and at that time, I was really impressed.
The point & click adventure genre, which is playable with simple controls, is quite old, but some years ago, it became very popular again after changing its appearance. The so-called Escape Games. At the start of the game, the player finds themselves imprisoned in a locked room. By clicking on suspicous spots, you solve puzzles and escape from the room. It has grown out to be a genre itself, starting with The Crimson Room, a game that was published on the internet several years ago. What is so fantastic about an Escape Game is that it ties the essence of a locked room, that simple yet powerful alluring concept, to a game; what a idea! When you're locked up somewhere, you want to get out: that is human nature.... a simple urge that everyone shares. That together with the ease of being able to enjoy it with a single click, has made the genre into a big hit. And so, in the current video game world, the representative locked room is the ones in Escape Games. By the way, I personally like Portal, which offers an experience only possible in video games.
However. As a lover of mystery fiction, I find this conclusion a bit sad. I dream of playing a locked room mystery that can only be experienced as a game, using the newest technology. Personally, I think that the key to my dream lies in the physics simulation that is becoming common in especially action games. This is a technology that calculates physical effects, gravity, wind power and friction and reproduces it for every object that exists in the game. For example, when a player bumps again a table in the game, a vase falls off the table on the floor and breaks... every single 'movement' that we had to make seperately until now, can now be calculated and reproduced automatically. The advantage of this technology is that the reactions to the player's actions can become infinite. It is freedom. If we applied this to locked room mysteries.... for example, how about a game where you murder a hated target who lives in a locked room, and you have to come up with a perfect crime using several tricks. Even the old-fashioned thread and needle locked room trick is thrilling, when you try it in a world that is realistically simulated. You examine the build of the room, keep in mind the location of the air vent and the door and then... do I stick the needle here.... but I would have to stick the needle in deep here, and then I would leave a mark... An experience you can only get from a game. And what about the reverse, a game where you examine a locked room crime scene and starting off a small mark on the wall or some burnt cinders, you reconstruct the locked room trick of the murderer. How wonderful this would be! We won't be able to keep that locked room mania of ours silent!
And so, the real time for locked room mysteries to shine as games is still to come! Game creators everywhere, now is the time to strike!
Wasn't notified of your response in another one of your blogs (https://gyakutensaibanlibrary.blogspot.com/2017/04/15th-anniversary-gyakuten-saiban_17.html), but still thanks for sharing even though I'm years late.
ReplyDeleteThe locked room mystery genre, seemingly pioneered by Kotaro Uchikoshi and Takumi Nakazawa, has seen some interesting developments since this somewhat prophetic essay was written in 2010. The Zero Escape and Danganronpa series took off in the last decade, and their creators went on to make multiple spiritual successors to those series like AI the Somnium Files. "The Room" series of virtual escape rooms on smartphones is a highly celebrated franchise on phones with plenty of instalments, aimed at a more casual audience considering its lack of a story. Other games like The Sekimeiya, Nankidai's Your Turn To Die, Takumi Nakazawa's Root Double, Miracle Moon's Abime Series, Tatsuro Iwamoto's Sweet Fuse, Corpse Party, Gnosia, and so many more are all games that take elements from the locked room mystery genre and put their own spin on it. Some of the games are even really successful with big fanbases.
But it seems that the popularity has waned, or at least shifted away from locked room mysteries. Now, it seems that Death Games and/or Social Deduction mysteries are dominating. Some of the aforementioned games make clever use of elements of that hot new genre. Jiro Ishii's Crimesight is a great example of a recent new game in this trending genre.
That said, I would still like to see Shu Takumi's take on a locked/escape room mystery game. At times Ghost Trick had some similarities to that genre, so a new game completely leaning in on those aspects would be cool to see, despite the popularity wave being beyond its peak. A game with elements of social deduction (which Ace Attorney already has plenty of to be honest) or a death game by Shu Takumi could be interesting too. He probably has plenty ideas for what he wants to do next and probably has been pitching new IP constantly at Capcom. I hope once Ace Attorney 7 releases he can once again make use of that "once in a decade chance to make a new IP" (we're due one considering Ghost Trick is 10+ years old), but only if AA7 does not set up a sequel or trilogy of more stories.
Hey, so I wanted to note a few things for you:
DeleteEscape rooms and locked-room mysteries are not the same. An escape room, like Zero Escape, is what you already know, being an inside-out puzzle box where the player solves riddles to get a key to get out of the room.
However, a locked-room mystery is not the same. A locked-room mystery is any mystery in which the crime occurs in an impossible-to-access and impossible-from-which-to-escape location, such as a room locked from the inside with the only key. The impression is that the crime is supposed to appear impossible, and the puzzle is in figuring out how it could possibly be done. This also applies if there's one (innocent) person in the room and you have to prove how they could be feasibly innocent.
Takumi Shu has written tons of these locked-room mysteries and other impossible crimes in cases like 1-3, 1-4, 2-2, 2-3, TGAA1-2, TGAA1-3, TGAA1-4, TGAA1-5, TGAA2-1, TGAA2-2, TGAA2-3, and TGAA2-4/2-5, all of which are impossible crimes and locked-room mysteries in some capacity.
The term "locked-room mystery" is misused a lot, and is not the same as "closed-circle" mystery (Danganronpa) or "escape room" (Zero Escape)! Hope this helps!