Life After Slitterhead
What comes next?
In an interesting interview with Silent Hill and Slitterhead creator Keiichiro Toyama in Japanese video games website Famitsu, the industry veteran had something to say about exhibiting art from his latest game as well as what’s up for him and Bokeh Game Studio.
At an exhibit for the art of Slitterhead, Mr. Toyama explained that this latest game didn’t quite reach the broad audience he had hoped. He feels that Slitterhead had perhaps left possible fans confused as to whether the game was a horror or action title, and that might have contributed by the game not yet reaching the sells number that Bokeh might have hoped for. However the nature of games being what they are, a title can go on selling copies over time, and it’s those ongoing sells that can see titles come green, as it were—this is doubly true for games with smaller budgets. And for Mr. Toyama, the chance to make a title with creative freedomwas also important to him, and he feels Bokeh certainly achieved that with Slitterhead, even if financial concerns meant that not everything made it into the final release of the game.
Mr. Toyama also spoke about the next game that Bokeh is making, saying that the game will require the strength of the whole studio behind it, even at the cost of smaller titles that he had originally planned the young staff at Bokeh would bring to life with their new ideas and inspirations. The new game will not be a sequel to Slitterhead, but it seems that Bokeh is endeavouring to put their all into this next game.
Playing videogames, writing about videogames, considering videogames—that about sums it up. Videogames are the one hobby that I’ve kept since I was only little, zapping ducks on the NES or knocking out MR. X. And when I’m not enjoying classics from the bit generation of games or checking out those earliest of polygons, I’m probably playing something from today’s age of modern gaming: if I’m not complaining about it. Fiddling with the Lenovo Legion Go.
