Magna Johannes -
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You’ve
said you believe a person should experience many different things in life
to become a good creator, and your goal is to become one. Do you feel
like you’re missing out by having a time-consuming job?
The main perk to being a game creator is that I’m given a few months to research right after the master up. I try hard to use this time to experience as much as possible. I draw inspiration from everything: movies, games, animations, resin figures, musicals, plays, public performances. Even a single line of dialogue helps me. And as you know, I like hanging out downtown with my Nikon D100.
So what do you like most about your job?
Definitely the pleasure I get from creating something totally new. Of course it’s also true that all works depend on creation, but I think there are few jobs that put the creator this close to his creations.
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With
Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata successfully released in Korea
and Japan, what are you working on now?
Well, things are less busy -- I even went to Europe on vacation in January. At the moment I’m working on the North American and European releases of Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata. We haven’t fully decided on the specific directions for our next project yet but it’ll probably be a RPG console game.
Any idea when we can expect to see these two releases?
Hmm… I can’t say… I don’t really know the details as I’m not responsible for that specific area. But the staff at Softmax is doing their best to release the game as soon as possible.
In our previous Io interview you said you want to produce a game that can visually convey emotions to people. Does Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata achieve this?
Since I don’t participate directly in the planning and the decision of themes for the games, I have to admit that my knowledge in evoking emotions in gamers is rather limited. I hope to learn little by little how to communicate with the gamers through the next game and the games after. Hopefully I’ll achieve this goal with a lot of effort.
In your opinion what’s one game that has managed to achieve this?
Actually I’d have to say that the recent Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata comes to mind. Even from an objective user’s point of view, I believe the game is very impressive.
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Is
there a change in the art direction of Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata
compared to your previous work on Magna Carta: The Phantom of Avalanche?
The biggest change would probably be the platform of the games. Most of Softmax’s previous games are for the PC, but Magna Carta: Crimson Stigmata is actually the first game we developed for the PS2. So the game system and technical parts show many differences accordingly.
But since the concept for the art was inherited overall, the two games
are similar in art and design.