Today, I’d like to take a look back and talk a little about how our recently released murder mystery GENBA no Kizuna even came to be.
If you’re following my private Twitter account, you may have already seen the images I’m about to show in this post, but I wanted to share them here as well, and also elaborate a little further on GENBA‘s conception. So, without further ado, let’s get right to it!
It all already started way back in 2015, during SHINRAI‘s development. In late August of that year, I was on a trip through the UK, from Dover all the way up to Montrose (so basically from the very south to the very north). As such, a lot of time was spent on the road, in the back of a driving vehicle. While I had my laptop with me to work on the script for SHINRAI‘s fourth chapter, doing so obviously proved to be quite difficult whenever we were on the go and thus was mostly done during stops and overnight stays.
During the rides, I still kept thinking about SHINRAI though and, one evening very close to Loch Ness, was struck by inspiration and scribbled down some ideas on the only piece of paper I could find. Therefore, I’d like to ask you to please excuse the quality of the paper (as well as my handwriting) in the pictures I’m about to share. Again, it was all that I had and this was all done while driving!
Back then, I had already felt a bit dissatisfied with the amount of interactivity in SHINRAI. Remember: given that it had originally been written as a novel, with no intention of ever turning it into a VN, we didn’t really have much room to add investigation segments.
The story and how it unfolded was set in stone, so all I could do was work within its confines.
That’s why there are only so few point & click sections in the entire game!
I sure would have loved to do much more than that, however, and so, inspired by Edgeworth Investigations, I began to think about a purely investigation-driven VN idea in which the gameplay was at the core. As you can see in the top right corner of the paper, I was also inspired by Trauma Team, a game in the Trauma Center series by Atlus, which featured multiple protagonists, each one working in a specialized medical field. You’ve got a surgeon, a medical examiner, a first response doctor, etc.
Thinking about it, I figured… why not do the same thing, but with crime scene investigation? What if you’ve got a team, each member tackling a completely different task, and the player can swap between them? And thus, “SHINRAI Investigation” was born!
(Looks like I even wanted the SHINRAI logo to be the “S” in “investigation”, haha)
To be honest, when I rediscovered this piece of paper, I was a bit surprised myself by some of the notes on it. For instance, I couldn’t remember that Rei, Himatsu and Nobuhiko had all been there from the start! I do remember, however, that Rei was based (design-wise at least) on a Phantasy Star Online 2 character of mine, a game I was heavily playing at the time, so it does make sense.
The note also mentions a “Satsuki” who’s actually Nobuhiko‘s daughter (and thus Raiko‘s cousin). She was originally supposed to be Raiko‘s deductive rival in Withering Without Hope, fulfilling a similar role to Taiko‘s. This was way back in 2011, so shortly after I had written the initial novel version of SHINRAI and while I was gathering ideas for a sequel. Once I started brainstorming on that 2015 trip, however, I thought about aging Satsuki up and making her the OIC of the case. But in the end, she got axed entirely as her role merged with Hima‘s.
Anyway, these were all very basic first ideas, so there’s nothing to be found about the actual plot or case yet, although what little is there regarding the setup really didn’t change all that much!
From the very beginning, I wanted this to be a story about rookies, because I knew that that was going to give me some more leeway in letting them get away with making mistakes despite being professionals.
I also wanted all suspect characters to be actively involved in the case, each one having done something and lying about certain things, even those who didn’t actually commit the murder, so that aspect didn’t really change all that much, either!
But yeah, that about sums up our quick little look at my very first brainstorming session for GENBA! The dinosaur theme was not yet decided on and, to be honest, I can no longer remember when and why exactly I opted to pursue it. The very first case idea definitely didn’t have anything to do with dinos at all. But given that this was all sparked near Loch Ness… I can’t help but wonder if good old Nessy may have ultimately influenced me there, haha.
Anyway, I’d like to talk about the evolution of the case itself as well, but we’ll save that for next time. It’s really a whole topic on its own!
For now, I’m gonna get back to some behind the scenes work for what’s gonna be next, while you will hopefully enjoy a pleasant remainder of your weekend! Until next Saturday, take care :3
