Shouzou Kaga Announces SRPG Studio Indie Game

Shouzou Kaga is the founder of Fire Emblem Series.

He posts recruitment on his blog in Japanese, and the link is below

If anybody have interest, please take a look. If need translation, I will help throughout.

UPDATE (7/16/15):

6 Likes

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! Huge news! I wrote up a post about it on Serenes Forest, and Iā€™m going to copy it over to here.

Iā€™m sure youā€™ve all been following the recent blossoming of the ā€œKaga Effectā€ with glee.

Keiji Inafune left Capcom in order to produce Mighty No. 9, a spiritual reboot of Inafuneā€™s beloved Mega Man franchise. Recently, it was announced that the creators of Banjo-Kazooie, who gradually left Rare after Microsoft acquired the company, formed their own studio and followed in those same footsteps, announcing their own spiritual reboot Yooka-Laylee, which shattered fundraising records by becoming the fastest video game to reach $1M. Today, weā€™ve got speculation that Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi is also looking to join the trend.

Who set the precedent for the spurned creatorā€™s spiritual reboot? None other than Fire Emblemā€™s own godfather, Shouzou Kaga, of course. Recall the legal troubles Kaga faced after leaving Intelligent Systems to form his own studio, producing a title called ā€œEmblem Sagaā€ exclusively for the rival Playstation console. After lawsuits had run their course, Kagaā€™s game was renamed to TearRing Saga; Nintendoā€™s attempts to stop the gameā€™s release outright ended in failure. These cases have been cited in companiesā€™ recent decisions to allow former employees to develop these spiritual reboots without taking legal action.

Well, thereā€™s some more big news today on that front: the trailblazer himself, Shouzou Kaga, has announced his comeback!

About two weeks ago, I got in touch with VincentASM about some rumors thatā€™d been shared by Japanese members posting on Fire Emblem Universe. It started in a topic about a new SRPG Studio program, which was released on April 10th by Sapphire Studios. The popular theory, it seemed, was that Shouzou Kaga himself was the creator for SRPG Studio.

The first instinct was to scour his blog for clues; Kagaā€™s postings have become more frequent since 2015, which seemed to be another hint towards some sort of comeback. Earlier in the year, Kaga wrote about an unreleased fan game he worked on back in 2010 called Vestaria Chronicle 687-693.

Yesterday, Kaga shed light on his involvement with SRPG Studio in a post on his blog. Kaga explains that he has exchanged messages with the creator of SRPG Studio and expresses his support for the project, then remarks with amusement at the rumors persisting that he was, in fact, the creator.

More surprising yet, the godfather of Fire Emblem indicated that he has already amassed a staff of ten people to work on producing a game with SRPG Studio. Kaga notes that they have limited time and resources to work on the game; he is unable to provide an estimated release date at this time, but promises to share future updates through his blog. The biggest issue Kaga relays is the lack of assets to build the game with (map sprites, battle animations, effects, map tiles, parts, background music, sound effects and background imagesā€“especially the first two).

In lieu of crowd-funding, Kaga has opted for a partnership with SRPG Studio. Itā€™s unsurprising that heā€™d surprise us with an alternative take on soliciting fan support for this comeback project. Kaga seeks to crowd-source the development of resources for his intended new game, outlining the following conditions for contributions:

  1. May be modified by Kaga to fit his gameā€™s stylistic sense.
  2. Will belong to Sapphire Soft by right; everything else still belongs to the author.
  3. Conform with Sapphire Softā€™s terms and conditions.
  4. Be allowed for use in the production of sequels.
  5. Absolutely must not infringe somebody elseā€™s copyrights (eg. taken from another game).

If all of the above have been acknowledged, users may e-mail their contribution in a zip file (the address can be found in an image on his blog), along with any usage conditions. Should the assets be accepted, Kaga will reply back.

Anybody who contributes to the project will receive special thanks in the finished gameā€™s credits roll.

Huge thanks to Vincent for providing the synopsis of Kagaā€™s post (heā€™ll be posting about it on the front page shortly), and to FEU members klono, LetsGoForIt, and MisakaMikoto for keeping us updated on these developments.

tl;dr Based God Kaga is back, everyone, and heā€™s about to put your RPG Maker projects to shame.

3 Likes

So Kaga is basically pulling a Baldo45?

6 Likes

[quote=ā€œAgro, post:3, topic:852ā€]
So Kaga is[/quote][quote]BŠ°ldo45?[/quote]

4 Likes

Oh shit :0

When I first mentioned this to Vincent, I basically felt like the Ancient Aliens guyā€¦

No way Kaga would ever make a comeback, right? :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, uh, isnā€™t it odd that Kagaā€™s suddenly resurfaced again after so many years of nearly zero activity? Why would someone hide for at least ten years and reappear to do something new? What did he spend all those years doing? And that heā€™s relying on whatā€™s basically RPGMaker for SRPGs? RPGMaker can produce commerical-quality games, yes, butā€¦ (If anyoneā€™s used SRPG Studio here, how limited is it? Is it really comparable to RPGMaker?)

Well, I wouldnā€™t say that I kept anyone updatedā€¦ I was just repeating and putting out into the open what Iā€™d heard from other sources and channels. Still, this is an exciting event to hear about!

1 Like

The more I think about it, the more Iā€™m starting to think that Kaga just couldnā€™t pass on participating in this liberated developerā€™s renaissance heā€™d basically set the stage for. But, of course, heā€™s going to do it his own way; not by asking for money, but by using a preexisting engine and soliciting fan support for that engine to acquire more assets. This way, he gets to develop his own game, while simultaneously empowering the creativity of others. On his blog his tagline is basically saying something to the effect of ā€œtake what is useful and forget the rest.ā€ It seems like heā€™s been planning this comeback for a while, and SRPG Studio is giving him a solid starting point, at the very least.

Vincent got a full translation of Kagaā€™s blog post, which clarifies a few more things for us in the English community. Courtesy of The End:

This might be a bit sudden, but I decided to start making a doujin game with some friends, hahaha.

Weā€™ll use the recently released doujin soft SRPG Studio (Ā© SapphireSoft), and once itā€™s done weā€™ll distribute the game for free.

In order to increase the gameā€™s quality, weā€™re looking for runtime graphic contributions we could use for free: unit sprites, battle animations, effects, map tiles, parts, background music, sound effects, background images, etc. Those who have made or obtained (with permission from the original author) such resources, please give us a hand.

Notably, weā€™re in serious need of map sprites and battle animations, as they are sorely insufficient at the present.

So, to those benevolent folks who have made such resources or are bored enough to look around for them:

  • I might adjust some things to match my world view and solve technical issues.
  • Material copyright follows the terms and conditions established by SapphireSoft, but otherwise they belong to their creators.
  • Their use will follow the terms and conditions established by SapphireSoft.
  • Their use will be allowed for future sequels.
  • Absolutely no material infringing a third partyā€™s copyright (eg. taken from another game).

If you undertand those conditions, please compress the file folder and send it as a mail attachment. Use that opportunity to write usage conditions/explanations and wishes, if any. Once I check the content, Iā€™ll reply telling whether Iā€™ll make use of it or not. (Youā€™ll be credited nominally in the credits roll.)

Our staff - myself included - has limited time to work on this, so we have no idea of when weā€™re going to finish this. Should we finish, Iā€™ll post about it in this blog. Please look forward to it if you like retro games (though itā€™ll be hard to get it done if we donā€™t get the materials ^^;).

PS: If you have any questions or whatever, please reply tot his post.
Unit sprites and battle animations must come in a set (exceptions may occur).
Please use colors freely. We intend to use Berwick Saga as reference in that regard.
Weā€™re in particular need of a large number of enemy units.
Dragon knights and the like might require a high level of ability to be made.
I tried looking for the sprite artist, but he went kaboom. Well, I guess it canā€™t be helpedā€¦
These tools seem to be very solidly designed. Iā€™ve only fiddled with them for around 10 hours, but the test map I made didnā€™t leave me a bad impression. We should be able to do interesting things once we add scripts into the mix.
I exchanged some mails with the creator(s), they were very polite and friendly. Of course weā€™re completely unrelated, this is by no means stealth marketing, hahaha.

I heard thereā€™s already a 2ch thread around, and that people are already uploading material to it. I havenā€™t seen it, but I wonder if itā€™s generally high level?

Currently we have 10 people in the staff, pros included. Weā€™re still negotiating with a character designer, but we might just get an amazing artist here.
Music is a future issue, but I already have a name in mind. (Take a guess, haha)

This is basically a project with friends and acquaintances, but weā€™d welcome a sprite artist. Itā€™s our biggest weak point, so weā€™d warmly welcome you if youā€™re enthusiastic.

Hm, why would a former designer (developer? I donā€™t know these things wellā€¦) turn around and make a freeware game? Thatā€™sā€¦ unprecedented. At least, I canā€™t recall any other former developers doing that. Usually itā€™s the other way around. :stuck_out_tongue:

I wonder if anyone here wants to send resources to him, or somethingā€¦ the Serenes thread indicates thereā€™s some interest, at least. Not me, though; I have a loooooong way to goā€¦

Thanks to Mr.Arch, many people noticed this topic.
I really appreciate your enthusiastic action and powerful influence.

You mean that Kagaā€™s post is three months old, or something, but Kagaā€™s still doing this? I donā€™t quite get what youā€™re saying. (If so, why havenā€™t we heard about it until now? Or do you mean that he posted it just now, but heā€™s been working on it for three months?)

(By the way, Iā€™m not a super hacker or anything - I signed up here because Iā€™m a friend of one :stuck_out_tongue: I havenā€™t actually tried hacking yet, sadly. Iā€™ve tried a little spriting, but Iā€™m only a beginnerā€¦ It seems you registered here just to post this topic. Are you involved in the Japanese FE hacking community?)

Hi nameless
I didnā€™t say it correctly. Kaga just had given advice to a certain doujin project.
That three-month-ago project was canceled because they couldnā€™t recruit any painters at that time.

However, that was to be played by himself, so Kaga mentioned that he wonā€™t release the game but show the pictures of playing-through. Kaga is using unused-pictures from TS/BS.
This gameā€™s picture is below
http://zeeksweb.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-77.html
http://zeeksweb.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-79.html
http://zeeksweb.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-80.html

The project in todayā€™s topic is completely new project. Kaga will be going to develop from zero.

Yeah, we actually had a bit of a discussion about Japanese hackers a few months ago, if you havenā€™t heard. Basically, there was a misunderstanding between Western FE hackers and Japanese FE hackers (apparently over a Japanese hacker stealing from one of ours, and the long argument that followed - that actual incident happened long before I got here, but the more recent discussion came about because @MisakaMikoto posted some sort of apology the Japanese hacker made, or something. I kind of forgotā€¦ And yes, it was brought up that the Japanese communityā€¦ isnā€™t really a community - more like a group of competing hackers. Itā€™s apparently not very friendly, unlike here - at least we think weā€™re friendly.

Iā€™m wondering if cultural differences would make working with Kaga difficult if anyone here wants to help him out, to be honest. Apparently at one point the Japanese community was offended by something we (that is, the Western community) wrote in Japanese because the writer came across as rude in Japanese and didnā€™t know that certain sentence structures or the omission of certain words was rude. (I also wonder if us being hackers would make him reject anything we might send himā€¦ Heā€™s not working at a major company anymore, but stillā€¦) Probably not a huge concern for this project, butā€¦

Iā€™m actually learning Japanese myself (Iā€™m ethnically Chinese, but I canā€™t read Chinese at all and speak very little of it; Iā€™m more interested in Japanese for some reason), but Iā€™ve been learning for less than a year so I canā€™t even come close to holding a proper conversation in Japanese, or read anything (mainly because my univeristyā€™s courses donā€™t teach kanji at all until second year to focus more on speaking.) I heard most Japanese people know almost no English even though English is a required subject thereā€¦ do you know how true that is? Since youā€™re capable of communicating with us, youā€™re pretty decent yourself (although you have a long way to go, of course! Languages are hardā€¦)

English is definitely a poorly taught subject in Japan. Itā€™s primarily a written subject and thereā€™s no expectation to speak it in assessments so that doesnā€™t happen often.

I donā€™t think anyone is expecting a long term working relationship with Kaga anyhow. More like ā€œthank you for the sprites, please leave your name and number and Iā€™ll put you in the credits.ā€

namelessRegend

I guess there is no cultural differences in communications so much.
Language problems also doesnā€™t matter, for we can at least read an Academic-Level English.

Oh, one thing which has nothing to do with this topic, butā€¦
We donā€™t POORLY learned English, but did at least an hour a day in the school.
However, we are never able to improve. Funny, do we?

恂悉悉态恋ćŖć‚Šé¢ē™½ć„悓恧恙恭怂

Well, I guess posting on English internet boards is a form of practice ~(ā€™.ā€™ )~

(ā€¦Curious, did you learn American or British English?)