Trivia Browser
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When asked if there had always been plans to make a Viva Piñata game for the Nintendo DS, producer Paul Machacek stated:
"No, and yes, erm, in that order. In discussions for a follow-on project for DKR DS it became a greater focal point, and in hindsight, seeing what we came up with, it's proven to be a complete no-brainer. We love it."
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Concord is the first video game developed by Firewalk Studios, a company founded in 2018 as a subsidiary of ProbablyMonsters. Concord was originally made in collaboration between the two companies, but this changed in April 2023 after Sony Interactive Entertainment purchased Firewalk Studios, taking over development.
Collection: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger
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Following the release of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan, development started on a fourth entry in the series titled "Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4: Gunyip!". According to series co-creator Steve Stamatiadis, this game would have expanded upon the aerial combat sections featured in Ty 3, featuring a variety of Bunyip-inspired aircraft and factions, as well as both new and returning characters. It was ultimately cancelled around 2007 due to Krome Studios focusing their resources on developing ports for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Stamatiadis would later release a test reel of the game on his Tumblr page, which was later included as a piece of bonus content for Ty 3's PC remaster.
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In an Iwata Asks interview conducted to promote the release of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Takashi Tezuka revealed that the world of Link's Awakening was strongly inspired by the 1990 TV series Twin Peaks. According to Tezuka, he was fascinated by how the show was able to mine drama out of a small cast of "suspicious types" confined to a single town and sought to replicate that approach with Link's Awakening, stating that "while it would be small enough in scope to easily understand, it would have deep and distinctive characteristics."
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One of the Sleep Mode screens, which depicts Mario and Luigi having a picnic in World 4-3, is based on a piece of concept art originally drawn for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and was included in this Game & Watch over two years before the film's 2023 release. The original image is showcased in one of the bonus features on the film's home media release, "Meet the Cast: Charlie Day as Luigi". Among other differences, the concept art features Mario & Luigi sitting on mushrooms instead of blocks and wearing their modern outfits instead of ones matching their in-game sprites.
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Originally, the game was going to be titled "Grim Guardians: Demon Purge", but had to have its name changed due to disputes regarding the trademarked term "Grimguard".
subdirectory_arrow_right Ranma ½: Chounai Gekitou-hen (Game)
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Street Combat was originally released in Japan as Ranma ½: Chounai Gekitou Hen, a tie-in with the anime adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's 1987 manga Ranma ½. The American release stripped out all references to the source material due to its obscurity in the United States at the time, though the in-game sprites for Street Combat's cast are visibly traced over their Ranma ½ counterparts. Additionally, Happosai and Cologne are merged into a single character, Happy, in Street Combat.
The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Street_Combat
Hardcore Gaming 101 article:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/street-combat-ranma-%C2%BD-chounai-gekitouhen/
YouTube video comparing the Japanese and US versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pttH2daFIjM
https://tcrf.net/Street_Combat
Hardcore Gaming 101 article:
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/street-combat-ranma-%C2%BD-chounai-gekitouhen/
YouTube video comparing the Japanese and US versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pttH2daFIjM
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Within the data for Chapter 2 is a placeholder graphic for Queen's arcade cabinet that depicts it with green paneling and the word "XBOX" crudely written on the marquee. Despite the fact that it was never intended to be featured in the normal course of play, the sprite was altered in the version 1.06 update to remove the "XBOX" text, presumably to avoid potential trademark issues.
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Upon its discovery by English-speaking audiences, Kamikuishiki-mura Monogatari was widely speculated to be a propaganda game by Aleph (formerly and more infamously known as Aum Shinrikyo), a Japanese apocalypse cult and terrorist organization most notorious for perpetrating the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995. The game sees the player control Aleph founder Shoko Asahara, who expands the cult's influence throughout the game before eventually carrying out the sarin attack. Successfully carrying out the attack results in the player winning the game, while repeated mismanagement of the cult triggers the apocalypse that Asahara prophesied. Various photographs, propaganda footage, and news coverage tied to Aleph is also featured throughout the game, most prominently on the title screen.
Despite these elements, the idea that the game was created to advertise Aleph was eventually disproven in a 2019 investigation by Vice. According to the article, the game was published shortly after the sarin attacks with the intent of mocking the cult instead of endorsing them. Developer HappySoft's advertising campaign emphasized their hatred of Aleph and highlighted the fact that players could sell Asahara's bodily fluids to "stupid believers." Additionally, the live-action footage featured in the game was picked specifically to demean the cult, as featured news coverage is negative in tone and shows Aleph spokespeople frantically trying to avoid reporters, while the propaganda footage consists of clips that were widely mocked in Japanese media following the sarin attacks. Vice attributed the misconceptions to a combination of language barriers and limited international knowledge about Aleph beyond the sarin attacks.
Despite these elements, the idea that the game was created to advertise Aleph was eventually disproven in a 2019 investigation by Vice. According to the article, the game was published shortly after the sarin attacks with the intent of mocking the cult instead of endorsing them. Developer HappySoft's advertising campaign emphasized their hatred of Aleph and highlighted the fact that players could sell Asahara's bodily fluids to "stupid believers." Additionally, the live-action footage featured in the game was picked specifically to demean the cult, as featured news coverage is negative in tone and shows Aleph spokespeople frantically trying to avoid reporters, while the propaganda footage consists of clips that were widely mocked in Japanese media following the sarin attacks. Vice attributed the misconceptions to a combination of language barriers and limited international knowledge about Aleph beyond the sarin attacks.
Vice article:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vb5k7a/the-true-secret-history-of-the-creepiest-cult-game-ever-made
Advertisement in volume 4 of Game Urara (in Japanese; warning: some of the magazine's content is NSFW):
https://archive.org/details/gameurara-vol4-1995-600DPI/Game%20Urara%20-%20Vol.%204%20%28Searchable%29/page/n187/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/gameurara-vol4-1995-600DPI/Game%20Urara%20-%20Vol.%204%20%28Searchable%29/page/n189/mode/2up
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vb5k7a/the-true-secret-history-of-the-creepiest-cult-game-ever-made
Advertisement in volume 4 of Game Urara (in Japanese; warning: some of the magazine's content is NSFW):
https://archive.org/details/gameurara-vol4-1995-600DPI/Game%20Urara%20-%20Vol.%204%20%28Searchable%29/page/n187/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/gameurara-vol4-1995-600DPI/Game%20Urara%20-%20Vol.%204%20%28Searchable%29/page/n189/mode/2up
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In a tweet made a few months after Chapter 2's release, development staff member Samanthuel Gillson shared an early sprite sheet of Hacker featuring a considerably different design compared to the final game, depicting his body as the shaft of a pointer icon rather than making the entire symbol his head. While these were ultimately done away with after Hacker's design was revised, one sprite depicting him pointing forward is still present in the game's code.Of note is that Hacker's head turning into a click icon is present in the sprite sheet in Gillson's tweet, indicating that this component of Spamton's sidequest (in which the click icon indicates an area that Kris must check in order to access the mansion basement) was already conceived by this point. Consequently, it is unknown what the leftover pointing sprite was made for.
Samanthuel Gillson tweet:
https://twitter.com/splendidland/status/1483603672827314186
The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Deltarune/Chapter_1_%26_2_Demo_(2021)/Unused_Graphics#Miscellaneous
https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Deltarune/Concept_Art/Chapter_2:_A_Cyber%27s_World#Characters
https://twitter.com/splendidland/status/1483603672827314186
The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Deltarune/Chapter_1_%26_2_Demo_(2021)/Unused_Graphics#Miscellaneous
https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Deltarune/Concept_Art/Chapter_2:_A_Cyber%27s_World#Characters
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In 2023, after seeing online backlash towards Garten of Banban for its barebones quality and gameplay, YouTuber UniqueGeese (real name Mason Myers) decided to try recreating the game in a single week to see if game development could be that easy. He would go on to do so over his spring break, and showed the results of his work in a video titled "I Recreated Garten of Banban in One Week", which would go on to become his most popular video. He released the game as "Garten of Banban: Reincarnated", but would later change the name to simply "Reincarnated" per the request of Garten of Banban developers the Euphoric Brothers in order to avoid confusion regarding the original games. The popularity of Reincarnated inspired Myers to create his own unique horror game, resulting in the development of Indigo Park.
"I Recreated Garten of Banban in One Week" video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34HLlRRd2XQ
Q&A video about Indigo Park development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdR6iTbPgHU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34HLlRRd2XQ
Q&A video about Indigo Park development:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdR6iTbPgHU
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In Chapter 2, when Queen challenges Kris to an arcade match, the arcade cabinet presented is so large that Kris is unable to reach the controls. While the released game conveys this solely through narration, its internal data contains an unused animation depicting Kris reaching up towards the cabinet's joysticks. It is unknown why this was removed, given that it fulfills the same function as the textual description.
The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Deltarune/Chapter_1_%26_2_Demo_(2021)/Unused_Graphics#Kris
YouTube video showcasing the cutscene as it normally occurs:
https://youtu.be/Q4VJEHKBtlA?t=5228
https://tcrf.net/Proto:Deltarune/Chapter_1_%26_2_Demo_(2021)/Unused_Graphics#Kris
YouTube video showcasing the cutscene as it normally occurs:
https://youtu.be/Q4VJEHKBtlA?t=5228
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Yoshiro Kimura first came up with the idea for Chulip after visiting Western areas such as London and Switzerland and witnessing couples kissing in public, which does not often occur among Japanese people.
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In the Undertale sixth anniversary livestream, Toby Fox stated that the scene in Chapter 1 where Susie holds off from attacking Kris due to her respect for Toriel was inspired by a real encounter with a bully that he had. According to Fox, the bully knew his mother and stated that they would've beaten him up if she wasn't nice to them.
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Despite Haunted Chocolatier dealing with darker subject matter compared to his previous game Stardew Valley, creator ConcernedApe does not consider the game's subject matter to be negative, as stated in the blog post announcing the game:
"Chocolate represents that which is delightful. The haunted castle represents the allure of the unknown. The ghosts represent the imprint of the past. All of these things are important. However, don’t think for a moment that, because this game features ghosts in a haunted castle, it is an evil or negative game. On the contrary, I intend for this game to be positive, uplifting and life-affirming. However, if Stardew Valley mostly channeled the energy of the sun, Haunted Chocolatier channels the energy of the moon. Both are vital."
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The developers of Purble Place do not recall where the name "Purble" came from, beyond it simply being alliterative and fun to say. During development, devs would frequently mistakenly refer to the game as "Purple Place".
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The Poodle Plush collectible item is based on Percy Poodle, the titular antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy's fangame Playtime with Percy. Rambley alludes to this when presenting the plush to him at the Information Kiosk, noting how it's a "non-Indigo-brand toy", and claiming that it would "make playtime special for a child with poor taste".
Indigo Park - collectible descriptions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6w3-7zYPJk?t=172
Playtime with Percy trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laxkoLgecVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6w3-7zYPJk?t=172
Playtime with Percy trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laxkoLgecVs
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One of the game's dual protagonists Yasuke, an African samurai, is the first main character in the Assassin's Creed series to be based on a real historical figure, but his real-life identity and status serving under Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga has been the subject of a contentious debate among historians. There are few scholarly/historical resources available describing him and his life, as well as no known resources from the time he was alive that refer to him as a samurai, with the most common conclusion being his title was a retainer to Nobunaga.
His reveal as a main character in the game on May 15, 2024 caused polarizing reactions worldwide on social media. Fans critical of the decision claimed Ubisoft were going against the series' penchant for accurate historical backgrounds and misrepresented Japan, which had never been covered in-depth in the globally-spanning game series, by inflating Yasuke's role in history and not having both protagonists be Japanese (the other protagonist, Naoe, is Japanese), claiming that Yasuke was not actually a samurai. Fans in support of Yasuke's role claiming that he was actually a samurai called these objections racist and based on narrow-minded arguments and inferences, with some going so far as to claim that Asian samurai protagonists in media were oversaturated and that critics would give the same complaints if it were a game set in Africa starring an African protagonist. This intense fighting led to an edit war on Yasuke's English Wikipedia article, with administrators publicly calling the article's Talk page "a complete dumpster fire". As of May 30, the consensus that was reached on the Talk page appears to be that the available resources are inconclusive, and there is still no historical evidence confirming that Yasuke was or was not a samurai. Reflecting this, the article does not call him a samurai when covering his documented life.
The lack of clarity on his life allowed popular culture and media to take creative liberties in speculating who he was, often depicting him in adaptations as a high-ranking samurai, and Ubisoft seemed to be going in a similar direction. The advertising for the game at its announcement described Yasuke as a "samurai of historical legend", and a press release stated:
While the header for this section of the press release is called "Yasuke: A Real-Life Samurai", this description seems to be carefully worded to stop short of directly calling him a samurai, with the use of "historical legend" elsewhere suggesting that they were aware of the unconfirmed status and were fictionalizing Yasuke for the game.
In a set of developer interviews with Famitsu published on May 15, creative director Jonathan Dumont elaborated that they also chose Yasuke to fit with the game's story of a foreigner who fights off oppressing forces, like the Portuguese slave trade's effects on Japan, while exploring a country unknown to him alongside the player, stating that they were "first looking for "our samurai," someone who could be our non-Japanese eyes". The following day, the Famitsu article was edited to change developer quotes in the interviews that either directly or contextually referred to Yasuke as an "outsider" to being a "foreign-born samurai", and also removed the aforementioned Jonathan Dumont quote, for unknown reasons.
His reveal as a main character in the game on May 15, 2024 caused polarizing reactions worldwide on social media. Fans critical of the decision claimed Ubisoft were going against the series' penchant for accurate historical backgrounds and misrepresented Japan, which had never been covered in-depth in the globally-spanning game series, by inflating Yasuke's role in history and not having both protagonists be Japanese (the other protagonist, Naoe, is Japanese), claiming that Yasuke was not actually a samurai. Fans in support of Yasuke's role claiming that he was actually a samurai called these objections racist and based on narrow-minded arguments and inferences, with some going so far as to claim that Asian samurai protagonists in media were oversaturated and that critics would give the same complaints if it were a game set in Africa starring an African protagonist. This intense fighting led to an edit war on Yasuke's English Wikipedia article, with administrators publicly calling the article's Talk page "a complete dumpster fire". As of May 30, the consensus that was reached on the Talk page appears to be that the available resources are inconclusive, and there is still no historical evidence confirming that Yasuke was or was not a samurai. Reflecting this, the article does not call him a samurai when covering his documented life.
The lack of clarity on his life allowed popular culture and media to take creative liberties in speculating who he was, often depicting him in adaptations as a high-ranking samurai, and Ubisoft seemed to be going in a similar direction. The advertising for the game at its announcement described Yasuke as a "samurai of historical legend", and a press release stated:
"Ubisoft Quebec wanted to include a Samurai, and Yasuke's story was open-ended enough to allow for creativity; there are still plenty of questions and speculation surrounding him. The fascinating facts, though, were undisputable: of African origin, he arrived in Japan enslaved by the Portuguese; he impressed with size, strength, and wits; he served under the Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga. There must have been something exceptional about Yasuke to succeed in the service of a personality like Nobunaga's, [...] and the goal has been to expound on this in Assassin's Creed Shadows through his curiosity, openness, respect for values and tradition, valor, warmth, and charisma."
While the header for this section of the press release is called "Yasuke: A Real-Life Samurai", this description seems to be carefully worded to stop short of directly calling him a samurai, with the use of "historical legend" elsewhere suggesting that they were aware of the unconfirmed status and were fictionalizing Yasuke for the game.
In a set of developer interviews with Famitsu published on May 15, creative director Jonathan Dumont elaborated that they also chose Yasuke to fit with the game's story of a foreigner who fights off oppressing forces, like the Portuguese slave trade's effects on Japan, while exploring a country unknown to him alongside the player, stating that they were "first looking for "our samurai," someone who could be our non-Japanese eyes". The following day, the Famitsu article was edited to change developer quotes in the interviews that either directly or contextually referred to Yasuke as an "outsider" to being a "foreign-born samurai", and also removed the aforementioned Jonathan Dumont quote, for unknown reasons.
Game website with "samurai of historical legend" quote:
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/shadows
Ubisoft press release:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2LH4Ael4X1TlNJY3B3aYg5/assassins-creed-shadows-launches-november-15-features-dual-protagonists-in-feudal-japan
Ubisoft article with several videos explaining historical backgrounds behind previous Assassin's Creed games:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/6d4zQXyH0VF6z75Ab7jfss/discover-the-real-history-behind-every-assassins-creed
IGN articles:
https://www.ign.com/articles/when-and-where-is-assassins-creed-shadows-set
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist
TheGamer article:
https://www.thegamer.com/african-assassins-creed-shadows-controversy/
Time article:
https://time.com/6978997/assassins-creed-shadow-yasuke-controversy/
Forbes article mentioning Wikipedia edit war and international reactions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2024/05/15/japanese-fans-are-puzzled-that-yasuke-is-in-assassins-creed-shadows/
Yasuke English Wikipedia article (Note: while much of this controversy occurred on English language Wikipedia, bear in mind that Wikipedia articles by themselves are not reliable sources for historical research, and the English article is not a uniform representation of the information on Yasuke across the different language versions of Wikipedia that have this article. There are varying primary, secondary, historical and pop culture sources suggested for and used in all of these articles either backing up verified information about him, or making different claims that may not be accurate.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke
Wikipedia administrator discussion:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518220622/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Talk:Yasuke_is_a_complete_dumpster_fire
Earliest archive of original Famitsu interview (in Japanese; English machine translations for all archives of this article compared between Google Translate and DeepL prior to publishing this submission. Deleted quote in Japanese is "まず“私たちの侍”、つまり日本人ではない私たちの目になれる人物を探していましたが、これは") (May 15):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240515185159/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Archived edited interview (May 16):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240516194746/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Latest archived edit (May 18):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518034336/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/shadows
Ubisoft press release:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/2LH4Ael4X1TlNJY3B3aYg5/assassins-creed-shadows-launches-november-15-features-dual-protagonists-in-feudal-japan
Ubisoft article with several videos explaining historical backgrounds behind previous Assassin's Creed games:
https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/6d4zQXyH0VF6z75Ab7jfss/discover-the-real-history-behind-every-assassins-creed
IGN articles:
https://www.ign.com/articles/when-and-where-is-assassins-creed-shadows-set
https://www.ign.com/articles/assassins-creed-shadows-yasuke-asian-protagonist
TheGamer article:
https://www.thegamer.com/african-assassins-creed-shadows-controversy/
Time article:
https://time.com/6978997/assassins-creed-shadow-yasuke-controversy/
Forbes article mentioning Wikipedia edit war and international reactions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2024/05/15/japanese-fans-are-puzzled-that-yasuke-is-in-assassins-creed-shadows/
Yasuke English Wikipedia article (Note: while much of this controversy occurred on English language Wikipedia, bear in mind that Wikipedia articles by themselves are not reliable sources for historical research, and the English article is not a uniform representation of the information on Yasuke across the different language versions of Wikipedia that have this article. There are varying primary, secondary, historical and pop culture sources suggested for and used in all of these articles either backing up verified information about him, or making different claims that may not be accurate.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasuke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke
Wikipedia administrator discussion:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518220622/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Talk:Yasuke_is_a_complete_dumpster_fire
Earliest archive of original Famitsu interview (in Japanese; English machine translations for all archives of this article compared between Google Translate and DeepL prior to publishing this submission. Deleted quote in Japanese is "まず“私たちの侍”、つまり日本人ではない私たちの目になれる人物を探していましたが、これは") (May 15):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240515185159/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Archived edited interview (May 16):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240516194746/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
Latest archived edit (May 18):
https://web.archive.org/web/20240518034336/https://www.famitsu.com/article/202405/5194
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The game's creator David O'Reilly was friends with Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, also known as the "Daniels", the two writers and directors of the 2022 film "Everything Everywhere All at Once". During the climax of the film, protagonist Evelyn Wang and antagonist Jobu Tupaki appear in an alternate universe where they are both rocks overlooking a vista. In an interview with the Daniels, they revealed that this scene had two major influences. One being the children's book "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" (about a donkey who turns into a rock and is isolated from his family), while the other inspiration was the core concept of O'Reilly's video game Everything, where the player can play as "literally anything". They described it as follows:
Kwan: "Literally, you can be a toenail clipping, you can be a fire hydrant, you can be an antelope, you can be a rock. And there’s maybe a dozen different kind of rocks you can be. Just rolling around —"
Scheinert: "— just feels good."
Kwan: "It feels good and that is really beautiful. The whole purpose of the game is you have to look at it and not press anything. It's a game where the longer you don't press anything —"
Scheinert: "— the more you progress."
Kwan: "He called it a relax-'em-up instead of a shoot-'em-up."
Scheinert: "— just feels good."
Kwan: "It feels good and that is really beautiful. The whole purpose of the game is you have to look at it and not press anything. It's a game where the longer you don't press anything —"
Scheinert: "— the more you progress."
Kwan: "He called it a relax-'em-up instead of a shoot-'em-up."
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