Klonoa Chronicles #33
Klonoa Chronicles is a series of tweets by Klonoa’s original creator, Hideo Yoshizawa, that give insights into the development of the games he had a hand in making. Below is a translation along with the original Japanese text.
クロノアクロニクル第３３回！
今週もビジュアルのエピソードを。
Klonoa Chronicles #33! For this episode, we’ll discuss the visuals some more.
ビジュアルスタッフには、風、水、木、炎などの各国のモチーフから連想される形を考えてもらいました。
デザインが上がってくるとわたしに見せにきてくれるんですが、なんか他のゲームでもよくあるデザインアイデアだったりするとＮＧにしてましたね。
I asked the visual staff to come up with shapes associated with the motifs of each village, such as wind, water, wood, and fire.
When they came up with a design, they would show it to me, but if it was a design idea that was common in other games, I would reject it.
とにかく「なにこれ！」って見た事ないもの、驚くような形、へぇーと思う仕掛け、そういうのをひたすら求め続けました。だからスタッフは最終的に採用されたものの１０倍ぐらいいろいろなデザインを描いてくれていたと思います。
Anyway, I kept looking for things that I had never seen before. I kept looking for something like a surprising shape, or a device that would make me think, “Wow!”. That’s why I think the staff drew about 10 times as many different designs as the ones that were eventually adopted.
例えば水の国の船は巻貝の形をした船で、よく見るとドクロの旗が立っているので聞くと、
貝賊船なんですよ！ とキラキラした目で嬉しそうに言うわけです。するとわたしも嬉しくなって「いいね～」って。
For example, a ship in the Water Kingdom would be shaped like a conch, and if you look closely, you can see a skull flag on it.
It’s a shell pirate ship! I asked the team about it. Then I got happy when they said, "That’s great!”.
わたしも負けじと木の国の城として、背中に大きな歯車を背負った形の絵を描いてみせたり、お互いに相手の創造を上回ろうとして張り合ってました。
その甲斐あってクロノアのデザインは結構独創的な世界になったと思います。
I also drew a picture of a wooden castle with a large gear on its back, and we both tried to outdo each other’s creations.
As a result, I think the designs in Klonoa are quite original.
ビジュアルのＴくんがムゥの原型を描いて見せてくれた時、そのバリエーションで空飛ぶムゥとか盾を持ったムゥとかも描いてあって、そこから３０００年前にいたムゥの祖先がいてそこから進化したらおもしろいね、って言いました。
When T-kun, the visual artist, showed me the prototype of the Moo enemy, he had drawn variations of it, such as a flying Moo and a Moo with a shield, and I said it would be interesting to see if there was an ancestor of the Moo that existed 3000 years ago and evolved from there.
そしたら早速ムカシムゥからの進化の過程図を作って来てくれました。
こういう膨らみ方が理想だと思うんですよね。つづく
Then he immediately came up with a diagram of the evolutionary process from Mukashi Moo*. I think this is the ideal way to expand. To be continued.
*This is the name of the octopus-like Moo
frozen in an ice stalactite, which can only be seen briefly in Vision 4-2 of Door to Phantomile and as artwork in a guide book for the game. The evolutionary diagram can be seen here.
