[CC#08] One Year Later (Free) (Patreon)

It has now been one year since I started this Patreon.

Originally, I planned to post about twice a month and make the articles available for a small fee. However, because of the nature of Patreon, it took the form of "support." Once I looked at it that way, posting only twice a month felt insufficient, so I decided to publish four or more articles each month, as I do now.

The reason I started all of this was because I felt it was important to record the real memories still remaining in my mind about why Mega Man, such an unusual action game for CAPCOM at the time, came to be created, and how it was actually made.

Back when I was at the company, I threw myself into game development with everything I had. I kept running forward, forgetting to eat and sleep. When I was entrusted with the Mega Man project, I had only been with the company for a little over a year. I did not even fully understand what video games were, yet I continued moving forward by solving one problem after another right in front of me.

Now that I have left the industry, one regret remains: I was never able to pass on the ideas, ways of thinking, and experiences of overcoming obstacles that shaped those productions.

Creating things is not something that can truly be taught by others. Of course, technical knowledge and an understanding of how organizations function are important. But the process of turning inspiration and ideas into reality differs from person to person. The expression, the time required, and the message conveyed are all shaped by the individual's own qualities.

Yet I know how important it is to witness the moment when a small flame appears in an otherwise empty space.

Who lit it? Why was it lit there? How was it lit? ... Because I was never able to see the flames that emerged from the fingertips of those who came before me, I did not know how Mega Man should be approached.

So I had no choice but to find my own way. It may have been wrong. It may have invited ridicule. Even so, I had to light my own fire in the darkness and move forward.

There is a fundamental difference between the dawn of the game industry and the industry as it exists today. We spent our childhoods without knowing what video games were. The idea of creating a fun game simply did not exist in our memories. Yet people like us encountered an entirely unknown medium and somehow built what would become video games.

All of those efforts have now become a massive foundation buried deep beneath the industry. They serve as the bedrock that supports the modern game business. But if you look closely, the stones were piled together in a chaotic manner. Different kinds of stones, with different shapes and sizes, seem to have been forced together without any clear order.

As an industry matures, you begin to appreciate the strength of the foundations built by those who came before. No matter how irregular or tilted they may appear, the results are undeniable. Yet no one tells you how those stones were stacked.

Why was it built this way? Why was this particular stone placed here? How can it remain standing despite leaning so much? If you want to understand the mysteries left behind by those pioneers, try peering through the gaps between the stones. You may find something there that you have long wanted to know...

The articles I write on Patreon are memories glimpsed through those gaps between the unevenly stacked stones. No one truly knows how to make games. There is no formula for success. Rules and conventions are often little more than illusions. What exists is simply a massive, durable pile of stones stacked together in ways that often seem unreasonable.

How you interpret those stones, and how they connect to your own experiences, is left entirely to your own sensibilities.

This Patreon offers two membership support tiers.

“How Rockman Is Made 2”This tier allows access only to articles in the category (collection) “How Rockman Is Made / Creating Megaman.” It is focused specifically on behind-the-scenes stories of Rockman’s development. Two articles are posted each month.

“Member Subscription”In this tier, I share Rockman production stories as well as other topics related to game development, all from my personal perspective. I update at least four articles per month. You can also read about the development progress of the solitaire game, complete with gameplay videos.

I plan to continue these activities going forward.

Once again, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has supported me.

Although many of the articles focus on game development, I believe anyone who has played Mega Man will find them enjoyable. You can also follow the complete development process of the playing-card game (solitaire) that I rather suddenly decided to create. Looking back, the whole thing has a delightfully improvised feel to it. 😂

And if this is your first visit, I hope you will consider joining and experiencing it for yourself.

Thank you for your support.

(Automatic translation by AI)