Anton was originally created as series creator Tony Grayson's profile picture for a forum when he was 9 years old in 2007, under the name "Red Guy". Because the first Antonball was black and white, Red Guy was renamed to Anton. One of the Anton variant characters in Antonball Deluxe is named after Red Guy.
Akio Otsuka voiced the series main antagonist, Nobunaga Oda, in the Japanese dub of Onimusha: Warlords, and would reprise the role for three more games in the series until 2004. He would also later go on to voice and lend his likeness to Miyamoto Musashi, the protagonist of the 2024 "Onimusha" ONA series.
On April 1st, 2024, Shady Lewd Kart added Wild Woody from the game of the same name as a free DLC character. Notably, it was revealed in a comment on the DLC's announcement trailer that Sega did not actually own the rights to the Wild Woody IP, instead being owned by the original creators. This was further emphasized on the DLC's Steam page, which includes a disclaimer that Shady Corner Games was in no way associated with Sega, and that they were given permission to add Wild Woody to the game by the creators of the IP. Wild Woody's original voice actor Joseph Kerska also reprised his role for the appearance and a story campaign, and that despite the date it was released, the DLC was not considered an April Fools joke.
According to Fruit Ninja creator Luke Muscat in a comment on a YouTube video comparing the 1993 and 2023 Super Mario Bros. movies, there was a massive push following Fruit Ninja's success to have it be adapted for TV or cinema, something he attributed to other members of the studio feeling that the other 2 mediums were more "legitimate" in the face of an era where games were not taken as seriously. All of the characters and stories added to Fruit Ninja were made for the purpose of facilitating these unmade adaptations, something Muscat described as "divisive" and compared to having to try and adapt a film that does not exist into a game rather than the other way around.
Comment archived in case it gets deleted (YouTube link contains a comment hyperlink tag): "Great video Patrick and team. I was the designer / creator of Fruit Ninja, which obviously had absolutely ZERO story or character development. After the huge success of the game, (and as I was leaving the project), a push started to get film and TV adaptions made. For some at the studio, getting an adaptation made the whole thing more legitimate, like the property had "made it". Games were still struggling to be taken seriously despite being such a huge global business, but film and TV didn't have that problem. But given how narratively thin the source material was, new characters and story started getting added into the game specifically to support those future jumps to film and TV (and merch I guess). This was very... divisive. It was like having to adapt a film into an existing game... except the film didn't exist yet. It was a time."
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BMB is a Russian video game studio known for making bootleg Sega Genesis games that feature violent content in their game over and continue screens. Some of the most graphic instances of this plagiarized fan content depict characters such as Mario, Felix the Cat, Iron Man, and Ben 10 as either being bloodied, their head decomposed into a skull, or in more gruesome scenarios like Felix's skin being peeled off of his face. Oftentimes this is accompanied by text directly alluding towards the featured characters' deaths and the consequences of the villains' victories. The background music for these scenes is typically reused in each game, either using the title theme from UWOL: The Quest for Money and/or Corneria's theme from Star Fox. Additionally, while not a game over, BMB's bootleg hack of Angry Birds Star Wars ends with Darth Vader's mask being lifted to unveil a bloodied Bad Piggy.
The "Woohoo!" sound effect played when rescuing a Bikini Bottomite in Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition appears to be a plagiarized, sped-up sound effect of Homer Simpson from The Simpsons.
During a Q&A with Kotaku in 2015, it was noted that both Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair had a female character that appeared to have been designed to be the player/main character's favorite, the former game having Kyoko Kirigiri and the latter game having Chiaki Nanami. When asked if this was intentional, series creator Kazutaka Kodaka stated:
"For number one, I didn't really specifically think of any female characters as the heroine. In regards to Kyoko Kirigiri specifically, it was just the idea that she was a detective and she had a good thought process that drove her to be perceived in that role for the player. On the other hand, wanting to specifically create a heroine is what drove Chiaki's creation."
Upon its reveal, Pepper Grinder was compared by some gaming outlets to Game Freak's Drill Dozer, owing to a shared theme of drilling, some similar gameplay mechanics, and a ponytailed main character design very loosely resembling Drill Dozer's Jill. The game's solo developer Riv Hester did say that Drill Dozer was an influence on the game, but it was not intended as an outright spiritual successor, as he did not play it until after work had begun on Pepper Grinder.
The final twist in the game, where it's revealed that Spoiler:the entire Danganronpa franchise was actually a reality television show spanning fifty-three seasons, was made with the intention to "bring a more interesting idea to the fans". As noted by Kazutaka Kodaka:
"We put what we felt would be fun and interesting into a game and this goes for Danganronpa V3 too. We don’t think about making a game that would fit what fans would expect. We are proud of the ending because lately there aren’t many games that have fans debate over the ending.
The Western culture really likes Spoiler:reality TV and it’s really popular there. Because of that, I feel the Western culture will have different views on the ending and I’m excited to see if the Western gamers would be able to accept the ending more compared to Japan who is focused on the characters and character popularity. If you are focused on the characters you might find the ending strange or very sad."
As a pre-order bonus, Bandai sent Japanese players who ordered the game via the official PlayStation website with a memory card holder shaped like the golden box of the Sagittarius Cloth, which was described in the game as the "most powerful item in the universe".
In an attempt to surprise players, Kazutaka Kodaka decided to have Sayaka Maizono, who was promoted as the game's heroine, Spoiler:be killed off in the first chapter. Afterwards, it would then be revealed that she had planned to Spoiler:frame Makoto Naegi for a murder she had attempted to commit. This was intended to have a major impact on not just the player, but also the character Makoto, as it would result in him developing bad feelings about how he would be treated.
BFDIA 5b marks the second time in the Battle for Dream Island series where a copyrighted character is used in a way beyond simply being a recommended character (fan characters that are submitted to the production team by fans of the series to potentially appear in official content). Specifically, the 31st level in the game "Encounter" features Lego Brick, who first appeared as a recommended character in the Battle for Dream Island episode "Vomitaco" and is a reference to the LEGO toy brand. The first instance was in the episode "Reveal Novum", where Dora (a stick figure based on the titular character from the animated series "Dora the Explorer" who also first appeared in the episode "Vomitaco") was one of the recommended characters who had a chance to join the competition, but failed due to only having nine votes: she would, however, compete in the show's second season "Battle for Dream Island Again". Additionally, a copyrighted character appearing in a major role would not happen again until years after BFDIA 5b's release, with the release of the spinoff series "BFDI Mini Replicas". In that series, one of the contestants is Ender Rocky, a variant of the main series contestant Rocky who first appeared as a recommended character in the season one finale "Return of the Hang Glider" and is based on the Endermen from Minecraft.
Baldur's Gate 3 was originally revealed with a CGI trailer at a conference for the Google Stadia cloud gaming service in June 2019 as part of an Early Access exclusivity deal that would ultimately be cancelled when Stadia was shut down in 2023. The game's director Swen Vincke touted the service at the time for its purported accessibility, and the potential for in-game community feedback to directly affect the game's development and playthroughs via Stadia's Crowd Choice feature. However, Vincke later expressed regret over having the game be revealed this way, calling it "a really stupid deal" due to the challenges of releasing an Early Access build to a second platform, but that "it allowed me to pay for the CGI."
The 2019 release of Moon: Remix RPG Adventure for modern consoles marks the first time the game received an official English translation, being released almost a year after the Japanese release. Notably, the English translation was written by Tim Rogers, a video game journalist who used to work for the site Kotaku before resigning and becoming independent.
To promote the release of Lock's Quest, THQ released a promotional mini comic set in the game's universe called "Lock's Quest: A Source of Hope" during San Diego Comic-Con 2008. The art for the comic was done by Edison Yan, the art director for Lock's Quest.
Normally, the player is required to defeat the MERV enemies in "Welcome to Planktopolis... Minions" either with the Sonic Wave Guitar or by deflecting their missiles with the upgraded Karate Spin. However, they can also be attacked by walking directly underneath them, which deactivates their lasers and allows SpongeBob to hit them with the Bash. This typically goes unnoticed in normal gameplay, as MERVs' lasers try to repel the player if they get too close; additionally, the Mini-MERV enemies encountered earlier in "Shell City, Dead Ahead" instantly repel the player if they get even closer, meaning that there would be no opportunity to discover this alternate strategy in advance.
During Palworld's development, Pocket Pair hired over forty additional employees on a budget of one billion yen. Some of the staff hired notably came about under varied circumstances. For example, the character animator (despite having no prior industry experience) was hired by Takuro Mizobe after seeing his works on YouTube, where he posted combat animation videos and fan content based on the game Girls' Frontline as a hobbyist animator. Likewise, the director applied for the role during a Twitter recruitment run despite already lining up for a position at NetEase at the time. Finally, the main character designer for the game's Pals was initially rejected during a separate recruitment drive dedicated to finding illustrators that occurred in October 2020, but was ultimately hired after reapplying in February 2021.
On March 25, 2024, Nikson revealed that the game's title was being changed from "The Joy of Creation: Ignited Collection" to "THE JOY OF CREATION". This meant the game was no longer a bundle, but drawing inspiration from the original Story Mode and Reborn titles to make THE JOY OF CREATION its own game in the series. Nikson claimed that the first title never fully resonated with him after deciding against including the Classic mode as a part of the games to remake. He made the change to emphasize that it was an entirely new project re-imagining elements of earlier games in the series instead of a remaster or update, which he felt did not quite capture the essence of the game.
Throughout 2022, there were several leaks in regards to the existence of Silent Hill: The Short Message. First, screenshots were leaked of a playable teaser for the game, where it was known under the working title "Silent Hill: Sakura". Then, in both September and December of that year, the game received age ratings in both South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. Additionally, when Konami began hiring for upcoming projects based on Silent Hill, one of the projects was an unannounced in-house game, which would later turn out to be Silent Hill: The Short Message.
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In March 2022, a YouTube video released by People Make Games included various allegations from former employees of Funomena claiming that company co-founder Robin Hunicke was emotionally abusive towards the staff, going as far as to bring up sensitive information about their personal lives during workplace discussions regarding performance. In a now-deleted series of tweets, Hunicke acknowledged and apologized that people had been hurt by her actions, and that she would be taking a break (it's worth noting, however, that she did not respond to any specific contents from the initial report). Two weeks after the report's release, it was stated that Funomena would be shutting down.
However, in May 2022, it was discovered through an additional report that the Funomena employees were unsure if the studio was actually closing or if they had managed to acquire outside funding, as they had started making efforts to gain funds via working as a work-for-hire company for companies that make games in Roblox. The report also revealed that, two days after Hunicke's Twitter apology, she and fellow co-founder Martin Middleton had told the staff that there would be layoffs at the studio, and that it was likely Funomena would have to close due to People Make Games' video making it more difficult to secure outside funding.
The "Woohoo!" sound effect played when rescuing a Bikini Bottomite in Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition appears to be a plagiarized, sped-up sound effect of Homer Simpson from The Simpsons.
Normally, the player is required to defeat the MERV enemies in "Welcome to Planktopolis... Minions" either with the Sonic Wave Guitar or by deflecting their missiles with the upgraded Karate Spin. However, they can also be attacked by walking directly underneath them, which deactivates their lasers and allows SpongeBob to hit them with the Bash. This typically goes unnoticed in normal gameplay, as MERVs' lasers try to repel the player if they get too close; additionally, the Mini-MERV enemies encountered earlier in "Shell City, Dead Ahead" instantly repel the player if they get even closer, meaning that there would be no opportunity to discover this alternate strategy in advance.
