SKOOTA GAMES Journey So Far Part 3

Our participation in the TOKYO INDIE GAMES SUMMIT was filled with joy, especially because we received unexpectedly positive reactions to “ももっとクラッシュ“. It was great to see concrete feedback at the event, as without that kind of response, it’s easy to get lost in what we’re doing.

While we were thrilled with the positive feedback, it was time to move on to the next step: playtesting. By the way, “playtesting” is a bit of industry jargon, isn’t it? When I first heard it orally, I was like “huh?”. However, once I looked at the kanji, it became clear. Anyway, SKOOTA GAMES must truly create a game and dive into BitSummit! The event is in July, giving us about four months to prepare. Oh, we have four months? That gives us some leeway. Surely there’s nothing we can’t do in four months… or at least that’s what we should be able to do. However, no one in our company has actually made a game before! So, it’s also true that it’s easier to say “We can do it, right?” when no one has experience yet.

Regarding the visual novel game, I’ve heard there’s a plugin called 宴 for Unity, so I quickly got it and started tentatively working on “ネゴラブ”. While researching and working on it, the game gradually started taking shape. Naturally, since we were using the default functions from 宴, the visuals were right off the “standard form”. Things were starting to take shape, but nobody could solidify the vision of the finished product. Additionally, the most talked-about game, “ももクラ”, isn’t a visual novel, so it feels a bit too challenging for us to make it on our own at this stage.

At the venue, we frequently received questions like, “So, you’re an anime studio, but you’re making games?” To that, my straightforward answer is “Yes.” I believe it’s meaningless if we don’t create it ourselves. Many of our members might belong to a generation where they grew up playing games rather than watching movies or dramas; thus, even when trying to come up with anime projects, they often end up resembling game-like worlds. Yet, now that we’ve centered our activities around creating original projects through games instead of making anime, there’s no option but to launch our projects ourselves!

Thus, it feels a bit like an old-fashioned slogan to say “If we try, we can do it” and “What we’ve accomplished so far is everything we are”, but honestly, isn’t it fun to shape our own projects with our hands? It’s gotta be fun, right?

【ネゴラブチームです】 #BitSummitDrift 用のゲームを作ることになりました。
本日も進捗をあげていきます🤸🤸🤸🤸 #Unity初心者 #ゲーム制作 #Unity #ネゴラブ

本日はビルドをしていきます！！
アイコンの設定とタイトル名、バージョン名、書き出しサイズなどが出来ました。… pic.twitter.com/kpbuuxhgOR

— 【公式】SKOOTA GAMES🎮TGS2024 Hall 10-W05 (@SKOOTAGAMES) June 6, 2024

Here’s a post from that time! We were all about embracing the trial and error process. Looking back, it might have been nice to include this in the main SKOOTA series. (I’ll gather it into a summary article at some point!) This series continued all the way to the day of BitSummit since the plan was to provide playtesting at the event.

In preparation for BitSummit, we also decided to advance the development of “ヒメゴト”. “ヒメゴト” surprisingly resonated with a core audience more than we initially imagined, which encouraged us a lot because there are many people who are looking forward to it. (I mean, it is genuinely heartwarming to hear the reactions of the general public at such an early stage.) So, we’ve prioritized development and are pushing forward with it.

The challenges of creating a game are pretty much as expected, so there’s nothing to do but go as far as we can go!

Another struggle we faced was, “Isn’t participating in a trade fair in Kyoto quite far?” It’s quite tough for a small Tokyo-based company to bring everything needed for the event. Equipment rental is exceedingly expensive.

Bringing a huge LCD monitor would be too difficult, so we decided to conduct playtesting with a laptop. I began thinking about how to maximize the experience in a limited booth space and decided to fix the laptops to music stands. I think this worked out quite well.

Also, our identity as “video creators” was something we wanted to showcase, so we had to insist on having a large screen! However, renting a large monitor would cost about double what our booth does.

That’s definitely not happening.

Come to think of it, last year’s BitSummit venue was very dim. If it’s that dark, wouldn’t a projector work well here?

That said, we only reserved one slot. How were we going to project in such a limited space? What about the screen? We thought a lot about it and came up with the idea of utilizing “height”. This means lifting the screen above the back panel. When I confirmed with the event organizers, they said it was OK! So I came up with a design for a lightweight, compact, and portable screen. Well, we are video creators after all.

This is the result. I apologize for the haphazard way the screen was put up; it was simply me being lazy on-site. The bigger issue was that the venue itself was far too bright! There was quite a struggle of requests to lower the lighting, or at least turn off the lights directly above us, making it tough to focus on screen installation! While the booth in front of us was overly bright, the entire room was too bright overall, so it seems turning the booth lights on and off didn’t significantly impact things. Well, it can’t be helped. (Since this isn’t an event log, I’ll stop there.)

Despite various challenges, our installation for our first remote event somehow worked out! That’s the story.

However, there’s one problem.

Transporting equipment by Shinkansen from Tokyo, we set things up to kick off the next day. There were three members. No backup! Naturally, everyone was busy! By the time I realized it, we had no photos from the venue during the event. I deeply regret not being able to think of that while there. What a shame.

Regardless, SKOOTA GAMES showcased playable versions of three titles at BitSummit: “ももクラ”, “ヒメゴト”, and “ネゴラブ”! It’s amazing to showcase three titles for our first playtest! (Self-praise)

By the way, I’m intentionally avoiding discussing the development of “ももクラ”. There are exciting encounters with talented game creators and various development stories, which I’ll summarize in a separate article!

Thank you to all the players who tried our games and provided warm feedback. Due to your support, we’ve identified various challenges (of course). There’s nothing like watching people play, hearing their impressions, and discussing with them. It significantly raises our understanding.

There were many international attendees who showed interest in our games. This was genuinely wonderful. I could get a sense of which titles resonate with which cultural backgrounds. Several individuals kept returning to our booth, playing repeatedly, and pointing out considerations for international expansion, which was truly helpful.

I was also glad to report to Kimura-san from room6, “We brought everything!” The next stop is the Tokyo Game Show!

SKOOTA GAMES will exhibit in the indie game corner! We’ll be sharing updates on X, so please follow us and turn on notifications to await further news!

At the venue, you can playtest the following three titles!