With a few weeks’ delay in schedule, we’re ready to offer ours. Interview with the Centennial Case team: A Shijima Story. It’s an unusual title for the current state of the industry, but it’s managed to grab a variety of attention. Together with producer Ehara and director Ito, we tried to solve various problems.
return to a genre
A mystery game with live-action footage isn’t something you see every day these days. How did the idea for The Centennial Case come about?
Mr. Ehara: He was born because we love mystery games. Also, since Mr. Tachibana was working with us, we quickly thought we could make a better game if we used live-action techniques.
Mr. Ito: As you said, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story might not be the kind of game you come across very often. We were well aware of this, so we thought this would be a worthwhile challenge. We believed we could create a game unlike anything people had experienced before. The first thing we did was think of all the tricks and surprises that can only be created in live action.
Square Enix is experimenting a lot, mixing genres and creating new IPs. How much creative freedom did you have during the development process?
Mr. Ehara: Yes, we have been given a lot of freedom. Obviously there were some practical limitations, but I think we were able to adapt and manage things well on that front as well.
Can you tell us about your main inspirations behind The Centennial Story? (both from movies and other games)
Mr. Ehara: Our main inspiration was the game series Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, as well as Netflix’s Black Mirror series.
Mr. Ito: The predecessor of an ancient family in the Japanese countryside that has passed down ancient traditions for hundreds of years, inspired by the Kosuke Kindaichi film series directed by Kon Ichikawa and based on the original novels by Seishi Yokomizo. While they don’t have a direct impact on the story of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, I love games that tell a long story, like Dragon Quest V where the stick is passed from parent to child.
way of realization
We smelled Agatha Christie while watching the trailer. Are you a fan of his work?
Mr. Ehara: Of course, I love your work!
Mr. Ito: Now that you’ve said that, I think Eiji and Haruka kind of look like a Tommy and Tuppence couple.
We reviewed The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story and noticed a very different structure. Can you sample?
Mr. Ehara: We came up with various ideas to get rid of every moment when the actor only watches a cutscene. The necessary information for your reasoning will be constantly shown in the video. Players will have to think carefully about everything while playing.
Mr. Ito: Each chapter consists of three parts: the event phase, the reasoning phase, and the resolution phase. During the event phase, you will watch the details of a murder that unfolds throughout the approximately 30-minute video. In the reasoning phase, you will use your brain and controller to piece together hypotheses to deduce the truth. In the solution phase, you will use the assumptions you have put together as a weapon to reveal the murderer and the trick behind the murder. Each episode has roughly two to three hours of gameplay, with more than five murder victims in the game. There is also an overall story that develops in the intervals between episodes.
Production of a live action game
How do shooting scenes change knowing you have to shoot many different versions of the same story? How did the players react to this?
This placed a greater burden on the actors than on the production team. There were some scenes where they had to switch personalities between the different versions, which meant it was quite difficult for them to combine the emotions between the scenes. After some discussion with the actors, we came up with an approach to film all the right path back-to-back first and then film the other versions for each dialogue option. However, this required the actors to go back and remember the emotional state of each situation, which was a pretty grueling experience for the cast.
What are the pros and cons of creating a detective game with live action footage? What are the limits and possibilities?
Mr. Ehara: I’m afraid I can’t go into this without spoilers. Sorry! Speaking more broadly, not specifically in terms of a detective game, I hope people pay attention to the detailed wording and nice commentary of the cast.
Mr. Ito: One of the main differences and difficulties in the development process of live action games compared to regular games is that the story must be absolutely complete before filming begins. On the other hand, I feel that live action has a certain appeal that you won’t find in photorealistic CGI graphics. At this point, I think it’s even easier to portray the thin eyes, breath, and skin warmth of a character filmed live. When one of the themes is life and death, I also find it helpful to use real actors to act out the story.
I’m sure you had a lot of fun in the production with such a project. Do you have any particularly exciting moments you would like to share with us?
Mr. Ehara: It was really fun to think about all the different foresight elements we could add to entertain the player.
Mr. Ito: It wasn’t exciting in a good way, but there was a moment during the shoot where I was as white as a sheet! Filming that day had taken a particularly long time, and both the cast and crew were exhausted. No one noticed that we forgot to shoot a really important scene. When we realized it later, we rushed to get the actors to shoot the scene on a green screen and then stitched it together in the background. I will not easily forget the anxiety I felt at that moment!
Source: Multiplayer
