Questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

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JaySevenZero
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Questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by JaySevenZero »

We've managed to bag ourselves an interview with the gentleman who brought us Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian.

If you have any questions you'd like to put to Ueda-san about his games, Gen Design etc. leave them in this thread.

The cut-off date will be June 11th.
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Stanshall
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda

Post by Stanshall »

No questions but nice coup! Bravo, lads.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by KSubzero1000 »

First of all, I'm really happy to hear about you guys being able to interview such a high-profile guest and I would love to hear a bit more about how this came to be, if possible.

1. Your games always stand out to me as being very philosophically-driven. Are there any specific works of literature or thinkers that you could name as some of your primary inspirations?

2. For example, I feel like Shadow of the Colossus is deeply influenced by Taoist values about respecting the beauty and inherent balance of Nature, as well as serving as a cautionary tale of the dangers of Man overstepping his boundaries. My interpretation of The Last Guardian on the other hand is very much centered around Aristotle's views on Friendship. Are these the kind of themes you considered during the writing process?

3. Speaking of your trademark "design by subtraction", could you give a concrete example of a fully functional large-scale feature you decided to remove from one of your games? How did it change the final product for the better?

4. Are there any genres other than action-adventure you'd be interested in working on in the future? If so, which ones and why?

5. What's up with the horns?

Definitely looking forward to this one!


PS: Sorry for getting so oddly specific in #2, but that is exactly what I want to ask him! :)
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Alex79 »

That's insane! What a bag for the podcast! I'll definitely try to think of a question.
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Stanshall
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Stanshall »

KSubzero1000 wrote: May 22nd, 2018, 9:01 pm 2. For example, I feel like Shadow of the Colossus is deeply influenced by Taoist values about respecting the beauty and inherent balance of Nature, as well as serving as a cautionary tale of the dangers of Man overstepping his boundaries. My interpretation of The Last Guardian on the other hand is very much centered around Aristotle's views on Friendship. Are these the kind of themes you considered during the writing process?
Very intriguing question to me, someone who hasn't played the game but is 'into Taoism', for want of a less shit phrase.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Stanshall wrote: May 22nd, 2018, 9:28 pm Very intriguing question to me, someone who hasn't played the game
Might wanna take a break from pressing Y for an evening or two and rectify that, bro.
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Stanshall »

(If you'd played HW, you'd know you can't just 'take a break'...but yep, SotC now on my mental shopping list!)
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Scrustle
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Scrustle »

Holy shit, you guys got Ueda!? That's amazing! Usually when it comes to asking questions to creators I have respect for, I tend to draw a blank, but I think I've been able to come up with a few that would be interesting to hear the answers to.

1. If you were to create an artistic project on the same kind of scale as your games, but in another medium, what would it be?

2. If you could collaborate on a game project with any other person from the games industry, who would it be and what would you like to make?
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by ratsoalbion »

Just to be clear, this will be a written interview rather than a podcast interview, as sadly my Japanese isn't so good.
Jay's wife Chi is kindly doing the hard translation work for us.
:)
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by duskvstweak »

My question is, in something like Shadow of the Colossus, how do you create a world that feels lonely, but not empty?
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Alex79 »

I think SotC does feel empty, but I also think it's meant to...
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Quiet Paul »

Bloody good work lads! I’ll be keeping a keen eye out for this. Roughly speaking, when can we expect this to be published? Late June/July?

Questions:

What are your future plans, creatively? Would you tell us more about the teased project currently being worked on?

If you could venture inside of one world that you’ve helped create, which one would you go for? And what would you get up to?

If you had a hand in creating one other game/series of games, which one would you have liked to have been a part of?

Sorry the questions are a bit poo but if I think of better ones I’ll add them later. Big fan of Ueda’s work and personally if I could live in any of his worlds it’d be either SoTC, to challenge the giants or ICO, to save the lassie. 8-)
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by seansthomas »

Scoop! Awesome news.

ICO and SoTC got me back into gaming... Not sure these are interesting enough, but my two penneth:

I adore the sense of his worlds feeling like there was once a thriving, sophisticated civilisation that had fallen into ruin, and I spent hours traveling around both and piecing together my own theoretical narrative about what that might have once looked like. Was there much thought given to those ruined areas and did he conceive a back story for it at the conceptual phase?

Also, Shadow of the Colossus is the only game I can think of that I've considered stopping playing because of how shameful I felt playing the main character in it. There are games where I've disliked the themes, gore or characters and gave up, but no others that questioned my motives and actions. I even spent ages trying to progress in the game without resorting to killing the colossi. But eventually I realised I had to slay yet another beautiful beast. Was the overall aim of SOTC to question why it is that most games are about killing and how we have grown so comfortable doing so in a virtual existence?
Sellardohr

Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Sellardohr »

Yaaayyyy! This is sooo cool!

I'd ask:

What games from other developers do you see as most inspired by your own work? For example, I always thought the climbing mechanics in Dragon's Dogma were shamelessly ripped from Shadow of the Colossus. Are there any developers who have directly told you they were inspired by your work?

Another great indie example: Titan Souls.
SnakeyDave

Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by SnakeyDave »

Wow, what a coup! Congrats!

Questions:

the protagonists in ico, sotc, and the last guardian are all to some extent young, slight, vulnerable, and inelegant. Personally, i love how they contrast against typically more empowering protagonists and accentuate the grand scale of the games they're in. What it is about this type of protagonist that appeals to you? And what other types of protagonists would you be interested in portraying in the future?

Are there any major elements of the games you have worked in that you would like to change if you could?

(Slightly trite question I know) What are some of the key influences on your games? More specifically, what made you want to include some of the biblical references* in sotc?

One of the things I loved most about sotc is the audio design, which alternates between no score with light diagetic sounds and huge bombast- Something i love whenever it's done, from the original tomb raider to dark souls. Was this always intended, or was there at one point music in the open world?

That's probably enough.... Congrats again on getting the interview.

(*dormin is nimrod backwards. Nimrod wore bull horns, was also scattered across the land in pieces, became a sun god. Big tower seems like it could be a ref to tower of babel)
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by caponeadam »

My question;

During development of both SOTC and TLG there were times when multiplayer appears to have been rumoured but for whatever reason just never worked out. What are the biggest challenges you encounter when designing multiplayer aspects of your games?
Sellardohr

Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Sellardohr »

Oh, I have one more! Have you read any written fiction based on your games? What did you think? I read the Ico novel by Miyuki Miyabe after finding it in my local library and really enjoyed it, but I wondered about some of the liberties it seemed to be taking with the game. If you read it, how did you feel about it?

Do you ever have ideas for stories in media other than video games, like books, or a graphic novel, or something else?
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Alex79 »

I'd just like to ask whether he considers the Team Ico trilogy to be part of a shared universe, and whether he'd like to give any insight in to how the games may be connected, story-wise.
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by Sam_What »

Great job guys, I'm super impressed you've bagged an interview with one of my favourite designers :)
(I hope I'm not too late to submit a question...)

I was so impressed and inspired to hear that Fumito Ueda had an art background but soon became the leader of his own, original game IP. This is something of a dream of mine but this kind of thing just doesn't seem to happen in the western world and so...

I would love to ask him if he believes that the trust placed in more art-focused directors, rather than, say, marketers, programmers, or business people, is a characteristic specific to the Japanese game design/development culture? Does he feel that the professional (AAA) scene in Japan is more open, or mature, than in the west when it comes to creating original games?
To clarify, I don't imagine many fine art graduates landing positions at big development studios and quickly becoming directors outside of Japan. The game dev environment within Japan, from what I have seen, seems to fascilitate more artistically-led, auteured projects than in the west, where AAA projects feel led by committee.

Does that make sense..? :)
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Re: Your questions for Fumito Ueda (Ico, SotC, The Last Guardian)

Post by JaySevenZero »

Sam_What wrote: June 3rd, 2018, 6:53 pm Great job guys, I'm super impressed you've bagged an interview with one of my favourite designers :)
(I hope I'm not too late to submit a question...)
Thanks Sam, you're not, we needed the questions to be submitted by next Monday (11th June) so you're okay! :)
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