Blinx 2 Developer Interview:
Building a Game for Game Fans

By Jason Carl

There's no rest for the weary game designer, but Artoon's Takuya Matsumoto, creative director and program lead, took time out from his busy schedule to answers our questions about his new platformer, Blinx 2: Masters of Time & Space.

Xbox.com: Welcome to the Xbox.com interview! Thank you for joining us. For the benefit of our readers, please tell us who you are and what you do at Artoon, and give us some background on Artoon.

Matsumoto: Let me introduce four core members of the Blinx 2 dev team.

I'm Takuya Matsumoto, one of the creative directors of Blinx 2. I was responsible for the Tom Tom Gang, Versus mode creation, and game design as well as serving as the overall program lead.

Naoto Ohshima is the other creative director for the game. He was responsible for the Time Sweepers, the Versus mode creation, and game design. He's also the managing director of Artoon and is responsible for the management of all of Artoon's projects.

Masamichi Harada is the art director for Blinx 2. He was responsible for the "look" and actual creation of all the game worlds and environments in the game.

Noriko Omizo is the character art director. She was responsible for managing the design of all the playable characters, making the character settings in the customization feature, and creating of all the enemies in the game.

Artoon is a game developer located in Japan with 60 employees. We are by no means a large organization, but headed by our CEO, Yoji Ishii, we have a pool of talented people with great experience, from management to finance. Within this secure environment, the game development team is allowed to take on new challenges. If I do say so myself, working at Artoon is one of the great joys in life.

A cat for all seasons.

Xbox.com: In Blinx 2, the characters manipulate both time and space. Please tell us something about how you approached this in the overall gameplay design.

Matsumoto: We started work on the sequel with two different goals: to improve Blinx: The Time Sweeper and to meet the challenge of creating something entirely new. To improve the game, we relied heavily on feedback from our development team, Microsoft, and players from around the world. As a result, we improved player controls, made the game less linear, made time controls easier and more intuitive, and enriched the story, just to name a few.

Although Blinx 2 is a sequel, we wanted to incorporate so many new features that we could have called it Blinx 3. With Versus mode, two-player Co-op mode, the Tom Tom Gang's stealth gameplay and character customization, it felt like we were creating a totally new game. It was extremely exciting.

Xbox.com: Blinx 2 seems like a game that's designed for people who really love games. What were some of the specific ways in which you wanted players to enjoy the gameplay?

Matsumoto: Thank you, we’re delighted to hear that. We love games and nothing makes us happier than to know that our love of games came through when players enjoy our work.

One goal was to allow even less experienced gamers to enjoy the game. To achieve this, difficulty levels were set so those players could actually complete the Story mode. To please hardcore gamers, we added tougher difficulty settings and created features such as battle mode, team development, mini-games, and numerous types of collectables. Make sure you take the time to explore these aspects of the game. Then, there's two-player Co-op mode. Even if you're an inexperienced player, you can still have a lot of fun.

Xbox.com: The game has very strong cooperative play features. Can you please tell us how designing the two-player Co-op mode differed from creating the Story mode?


Matsumoto: To be honest, this was a real challenge for us. If you compare the single-player mode of Blinx 2 with the original Blinx, our sequel is far more complex, with non-linear mission structure in the rounds that require multiple conditions to be met for an event to occur. Then, look at the two-player Co-op mode; the conditions are, mathematically speaking, more than simply squaring the single-player conditions. With so many conditions to track at once, the game designer and programmer were balancing the game right up until the very end of the development cycle, to ensure that the game could be played through to the end, even in two-player Co-op mode.

When the team playtested the finished Co-op mode levels, it turned out to be a blast! There are some incredibly fun puzzles that can only be solved with two players. Be sure you check them out!

Xbox.com: Blinx 2 sets a new platform genre standard in character customization. Were there any special challenges in designing this feature?

Matsumoto: During the initial stages of development, we considered having Blinx as the only player character. But, after considering the story's theme, we decided to give players a variety of characters to follow, instead of spotlighting a single hero. We wanted to focus on how the group is more powerful than the individual. This is how the "customization" featured evolved. We wanted players to feel empathy for their character. To do this, we gave the players the ability to create their own characters, with features they've selected themselves.

This feature was a great challenge for the artists. They had to create mass quantities of outfits and features and then combine them in all possible configurations and ensure that they matched. About halfway into the project, an artist was tasked with creating pre-made characters. This person spent all day selecting and matching various body types and outfits, then adjusting the textures, patterns, and proportions. They said it was hard work. It just looked like fun to me.

Xbox.com: What would you like Blinx 2 players to know about the character design process?

Matsumoto: It's easy to start by adjusting the facial features or hair color. Once you get the hang of it, try adjusting the width of the shoulders and hips. This will dramatically change how your character appears, making the character look either super muscular or puny. Also, in customizing the cats, you can even change the tail tip size of the cat's tail.

We see certain patterns in our development team. Sometimes we like to create a character that looks exactly like Blinx, the main character from the first version. Other times we try hard to re-create characters that look like other well-known cartoon characters. It was difficult to wean ourselves away from building characters when we had to get back to actual work …

It's a good day to be a pig!

Xbox.com: What were some of the most important challenges in the development cycle?

Matsumoto: There were two major challenges. The first was for us to accept that there were the flaws in the first Blinx. It wasn't easy for us to accept. But, our efforts alone really wouldn't have been enough to make the right improvements. We managed to create Blinx 2 because we had the opportunity to listen to the feedback from people who had played the first game.

The second challenge was how to merge together—in a cohesive package—all of the new components added to Blinx 2. While it's a sequel, we wanted to include lots of new elements not found in the original game. A major challenge midway through production was just how to incorporate all these new components into a cohesive game.

Xbox.com: What other Xbox games do you admire?

Matsumoto: Xbox has lots of great games we love. We often play, both at the office and at home, Halo 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2. And, personally, I really like Conker a lot, too.

Xbox.com: What kind of Xbox game would you like to make next?

Matsumoto: For Blinx and Blinx 2, we took on the challenge of creating a game with a key gameplay feature, Time Control, that required utilizing the Xbox hard drive. Maybe it's because I'm a programmer, but for the next game, I'd also like to deliver a game that really exploits the hardware capabilities.

Xbox.com: Thank you for taking time to answer these interview questions, Takuya.

Matsumoto: Thank you for the interview. We hope that everyone enjoys Blinx 2, and we look forward to hearing opinions from players about our game!