#prope

And now, the long-awaited sequel to the Washing Machine Comic

I'd like to give Yuji Naka sympathy here, but Golden Bolt's video really collected a lot of moments where he didn't seem like the nicest, most caring guy. "Everyone sucks here" is a good way to put it, because I honestly wonder how much of the story Yuji Naka is leaving out in order to make himself look more sympathetic.

His account is that "Oh I just wanted the game to be good and they shut me out :(" which, like, yeah, I imagine Square-Enix and Arzest wanted to stay on schedule and keep to their budget. If you talk to people who actually work in game development, there is a hard cutoff point in every game's production cycle where you have to accept it's never going to be perfect and you just have to let it go.

Matt and Woolie, formerly of Super Best Friends, frame it in their time as professional game testers, where bugs are labeled with certain "classes" or "types" and often only the most critical problems get addressed. Little tweaks and things like that are shuffled to the back burner. Square and Arzest knew what they wanted to accomplish with the game and it seems Naka-san wasn't on the same page.

I'm also curious about what he's not telling us because of this example:

We actually have a prototype of Sonic 1 dated ~6 months before release that has the ring functionality as it is in the final game. Now, benefit of the doubt: it was 30+ years ago, so his memory might be a little faded.

And, speaking as a kind of game developer myself, he is right that last-second changes make all the difference. A lot of game developers will tell you that their games didn't "come together" until literally the last few weeks of development. That's because making a game is 90% setup and 10% execution. You can't really get a big picture view of flow, pacing, or balance until the thing is almost done. In order to put all the pieces in the right place, you need to finish all the pieces first. That last 10% of production is the most critical to a game being good. A lot of games live or die by that last 10%.

But at the same time, he's Yuji Naka. Over the years, he's had a rap sheet develop about his time at Sega, where he was consistently rude, egotistical, and controlling. If he didn't get his way, he would not hesitate to go thermonuclear. He threatened to (and even briefly did) quit Sega of Japan after the release of Sonic 1, and threatened again during the production of Sonic Xtreme.

He actively badmouthed current and former employees, even driving people away from the company. He branded himself as "the father of Sonic" despite only being a programmer among an entire team of artists and designers.

So it's hard not to see this as a kind of "here we go again" situation. Post-Sega, Yuji Naka has not had a great string of luck. There are times where I'm sure he did well enough for himself, but he didn't hit any home runs. And now the idea that Balan Wonderworld suffered a troubled development, after Rodea the Sky Soldier suffered a troubled development, after Sonic the Hedgehog suffered a troubled development...

What's the constant in all of these?

I'm sure Square-Enix has their fair share of problems. In fact, we kind of know they do, because there have been times where they were very public about trying to clean up their development culture and "learn from their mistakes."

And Arzest... well...

The road to hell is paved with the best intentions and I was never surprised by the critical backlash to Balan Wonderworld. Regardless of what's actually true in all of this, I think Yuji Naka is hoping to save his career, but I think his reputation is starting to catch up with him. Even assuming he has probably mellowed out since his time at Sega, Square isn't going to pull him off of a project without having a reason, and this man is dragging around a lot of baggage.

I will be surprised to see who picks him up after this. Maybe he'll just go back to Sega. I mean, maybe it's a coincidence, but NiGHTS HD mysteriously got discounted to $2.99 today. I'm sure Sega fans would welcome the return of Yuji Naka with open arms for better or worse, and he's been gone long enough that the old wounds have long since healed.

i luv prop plane…

I streamed about two hours of Balan right before I moved out of my apartment earlier this year. I always intended to go back to it and stream more and never did.

I also played the demo when that came out, so I've played the game both before and after it was patched. I think the patch does a lot to tighten the game up so it doesn't feel so sluggish.

It's a charming, interesting game, with great character designs... but... I dunno. I don't hate it, but there's something really strange about it, even after the patch.

It is very, very clear that Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima were trying to recapture the magic of NiGHTS. In terms of core gameplay they are nothing alike, but there's a lot of design similarities in terms of visual style, vibe and intent.

But none of it is as tight or as polished. It really does have the feel of, like, a student project or an Xbox Live Arcade game from 2010.

Which goes in to Yuji Naka's complaints, right. That he was pushing to have the game delayed and both Square-Enix and Naoto Ohshima conspired to dump the game and run. Whether or not that's actually true is up for debate, but at the very least, it's an official admission that the game needed more work and did not get it.

It is a lot of interesting ideas and interesting designs and interesting worlds but it fumbles the execution. I'll play more of it some day but obviously I haven't been in any rush.

People probably dogpile on it a little more than it deserves, though. I think there's room for saying "it's not that bad." But I also say that as someone who loves NiGHTS. In the wider scope of gaming, NiGHTS is sometimes seen as kind of a strange and obtuse game by the mainstream, I think.