Developer interview

Special interview with Tim of Walaber Entertainment, creator of Parking Garage Rally Circuit

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You may remember us reporting on Parking Garage Rally Circuit, an upcoming indie racing game coming soon to Steam, which is styled after a Sega Saturn game and could actually become a Saturn game if it gets enough sales on Steam. After that article, I have reached out to Tim of Walaber Entertainment, the studio developing Parking Garage Rally Circuit, for an interview with the man behind the game. He has kindly taken time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about the game for all our readers.

Join us after the break to hear about Tim’s history with Sega Saturn, his inspirations for Parking Garage Rally Circuit, and a bit more of what we can expect to see in this game when it launches on Steam sometime this year.

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Special interview with Ross Kilgariff, the creator of Harlequest!

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Many of you probably remember the announcement of Harlequest!, a brand new action RPG in development for Sega Dreamcast that is now live on Kickstarter. As of this writing, there are 5 days remaining for the Kickstarter to raise as much money as possible.

Since I have written that article, I have gotten the opportunity to speak with the game’s main creator, Ross Kilgariff (ross:codes) to learn more about him and the inspirations behind Harlequest! Check in after the break to hear more from the man himself. Special thanks goes to Ross for reaching out to us for this opportunity.

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Exclusive: Panzer Dragoon Remake interview with Producer Benjamin Anseaume

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For over a year, we’ve been anticipating each bit of word, footage, and image of MegaPixel, Forever Entertainment, TA Publishing, and SEGA’s from the ground up remake of Panzer Dragoon. For those unfamiliar, Panzer Dragoon was an early SEGA Saturn title that gained acclaim for its unique setting, shake-ups in the rail shooter genre, and challenging gameplay. It spawned two more rail shooter sequels and a full role-playing game before being put to rest with the series finale, Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox. For the nearly two decades since, fans have wanted to return to that science fiction fantasy world and see the series brought back with as much aplomb as possible.

Then, at the end of 2018, it was revealed that a little-known French-based publishing company and development house MegaPixel Studio were set to release remakes of Panzer Dragoon, and its sequel, Panzer Dragoon Zwei. Since then, we’ve seen art, we’ve seen gameplay, we’ve seen its due arrival on Switch and Steam, but we still had burning questions. To sate our (and especially my) own curiosity, I reached out to Benjamin Anseaume, producer on the remake project, to ask him several things. Learn about extra game content, the process of getting the game into the developer’s hands, and even get a glimpse at what the original creator of Panzer Dragoon, Yukio Futatsugi, thinks of the new project!

All this and more, after the jump!

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Project Sakura Wars Developer Interview: Project’s Beginnings, Tite Kubo, and More

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In a recent interview on Famitsu, Project Sakura Wars development leads, Takaharu Terada (series director), Tetsu Katano (producer), and Tetsuya Ootsubo (development director), talks about on how the development for Project Sakura Wars began after the SEGA Fes 2016 fan poll, reaching out to Tite Kubo, known as the author of the Bleach manga series, to do character designs, enhanced gameplay mechanics taken from the original games and more.

The development team also stated that they wanted to reboot the series instead of making a sequel to the original games as the last game in the series Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love was released 10 years ago. You can check the entire Famitsu interview by hitting the jump!

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Interview: Gistix, team lead on fan made Sonic ’06 Unity

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gistix

What do you say when the words “fan-made Sonic 2006 PC port” jump at you? What sort of images, reactions, and most importantly, questions, pop into your head when this prospect meets your mind? Is it perplexing? Audacious? Blasphemous? These were of course all reactions I saw when news broke of a demo for a full fan-made recreation of the ill-fated and infamous Sonic 06 in Unity. However, much against others’ reactions, mine was of…curiosity.

Rather than stick with a few fleeting moments of “hey that’s a thing”, the very idea stuck to me so hard that it gave me a jolt of energy. Not because I like Sonic 06, god no, but because I am a huge lover of weird games and weird ports. And to me, a Unity port of this maligned title was far too weird to pass up. So, faced with a lack of information, and a thirst to spread the good will of odd, ambitious projects, I went straight to the source. Ladies and gentlemen and others, I present to you, hopefully everything you’d want to know about the ins and outs of the Sonic 2006 PC port, from the mouth of its current leader, Gistix!

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Yakuza 5 developer interview part 2: Hostess Clubs and more

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Just over a month later, we get the second of three developer interviews where Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi and Yakuza 5 producer Masayoshi Yokoyama are asked questions by Playstation’s Gio Corsi. In this interview the people behind SEGA’s gangster brawler are asked about what inspired the hostess clubs in the game and how they came about to design the series protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, amongst other questions. It’s been a long time coming, but it seems almost surreal we live in a world where Yakuza 5 has finally be localised and Shenmue 3 has been kickstarter, what a time to be alive.

With only one more interview left, let’s hope that we’ll hear a solid release date soon. Yakuza 5 is set to launch for the Playstation 3 this fall, get ready to crack some skulls and manage some idols.

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Sega Blog posts Q&A with Rise of Nightmares developers

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Today saw the release of Rise of Nightmares in North America, and to help satisfy our craving for zombie craziness, SEGA has posted an interview with the game’s producer and director (Satoshi Ito and Ryuta Ueda, respectively) to their blog. The interview covers a wide range of topics, such as those discussing the target audience, the aims of the development team, the game’s lack of firearms, the composition of the music, as well as the title’s similarities to House of the Dead.

Rise of Nightmares is being created by the team behind House of the Dead, what similarities can we expect?

Ito: Actually, I’m the only one in the Rise of Nightmares team who used to be a member of the House of the Dead team, and I worked for the first original House of the Dead title. As for “similarities” with House of the Dead, there are lots they have in common; such as: having the player stand while gameplay, first-person view, and life-size zombies are coming closer, but the major similarity is that developing a Kinect title is much alike with developing an arcade game (AC), which is one of SEGA ‘s greatest talent. When developing a new title for AC, we usually think about what to carry (or to ride on), where to place the buttons, and how to play the game. At the first phase of House of the Dead development, we have tested various things like implementing a mechanic where the player can kick by pedaling. House of the Dead has ultimately turned out to be a simple game, but we have made use of those trial-and-error experiences for this title.

The rest of the interview can be found at Sega.com.

The game comes out in Europe on Friday September 9th.

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