While at GDC last week, I had the opportunity to interview Kotaro Uchikosi (Director, Planner, and Scenario writer of the Zero Escape series) and Akira Okada (Game Designer of Zero Time Dilemma) of Spike Chunsoft about their latest and possibly strangest adventure game, AI: The Somnium Files. It was a short but fascinating discussion about what looks to be one of the most unique games of the year.
Spencer: For this game, you’re doing this “viral marketing” with YouTube and social media. Is that brand new to you? Was it an interesting experience, and would you think of doing it again?
Uchikosi-san: In our story, A-Set actually is a YouTuber, which is why this idea came up. It is actually pretty fun using it as promotional material, and it’s still going to go on a little bit longer. I think it came out really well, so if I get another chance, maybe I might do this kind of marketing again.
Were there any specific challenges in developing AI when compared to previous games you directed, whether because of the story or themes, or was it pretty familiar?
Uchikosi-san: All-in-all, it was a little more different than difficult story-wise. I think that the Somnium parts are the harder parts. Okada-san?
Okada-san: In the Somnium parts, you actually go into a suspect’s mind to look through their eyes, to see their memories to get some information about the case. It’s actually a puzzling sort of thing, so for me that part was difficult because we had twists and turns, but some twists and turns didn’t work, and we’d have to start from scratch again. So those were my difficulties in creating this game.
The idea of a story based around YouTubers or social media influencers hasn’t been done very often in gaming. What inspired you to approach this more modern concept when you were creating this story?
Uchikosi-san: I actually wrote this story before the boom in Japan of V-Tubers happened. So this was a real coincidence that this boom happened and was working well, so we decided to use YouTube as a platform for PR. Even though we say she(A-Set)’s a V-tuber, she’s actually a real person doing a YouTube video. And that’s what we wanted to push.
I want to thank Uchikosi-san and Okada-san for taking the time to talk to us at GDC. AI: The Somnium Files releases for the PS4, Switch, and PC on July 25th worldwide. For more information on the game, check out our preview from GDC.
