Have you ever dreamed of piercing the veil? Cross the wavering horizon of events and peer wide-eyed into the very soul of creation? You are not alone.
Enhance, a Japanese company that created Tetris effect, Humanityand more recently Lumines: Arisespent decades searching for that same feeling of nirvana. The indie studio creates kinesthetic puzzles that prioritize flow and sensation to deliver an avant-garde experience that is, at its best, completely transcendental.
As Enhance's most dedicated fans know well, the studio's eclectic creativity has an almost religious overtone, and for good reason. During a recent pre-launch interview Lumins ariseStudio founder and CEO Tetsuya Mizuguchi explains that the studio has a slogan:
“Experience is king and synesthesia is queen.”
“But there is something that comes to the fore,” he adds. “The word is 'Kando'.” It means to move emotionally.
Mizuguchi says that experience and synesthesia must exist in perfect synchronicity to create Kando, which the team believes is as close to perfect as possible. “They both must exist, but only when they exist in balance and harmony then you have the real thing, which is Kando, and Kando is God to us,” he continues. “We live by this slogan. And if you don't have Kando, it doesn't matter whether one or the other is big. It just doesn't work.”
Once again we climb the stairs to heaven with Lumins arise was not an easy task.
“We are masters and we are people”
Mizuguchi says “customization” has become a key word in Enhance. It's a process that begins at the very beginning of production, in what he calls the “grand design phase,” which largely consists of intensive discussions about design, conceptualization, and prototyping between Mizuguchi and Enhance's art director and Lumins arise game director Takashi Ishihara.
“It's usually just me and Ishihara, but even at this early stage we end up making music. Everything is in a very rough state at the moment, but we are doing this because the musical element is very important in determining the structure and flow of the narrative,” says Mizuguchi, noting that Hydelic’s longtime musical collaborators are part of this formative process.
“It's also important because once the music is created, we need to break it down into parts because now we start building the scenes. Once we have this big piece of music, we can break it down and determine what sound effects will work with each action – like when we have a block falling – and so if we don't have that piece of music, it will be almost impossible to do. Even if it's rough, it's important to have music so we can identify what's going on with the sound effects. sound like this.”
To determine whether they are on the right track at this early stage, Mizuguchi considers whether these pristine sound effects and sound movements evoke emotion. He says they need to reach a point where they “feel something” before continuing.
Finding these connections is integral to bringing players to life. From this point on, Miziguchi explains the work on Lumins arise It was akin to watching a sculpture take shape.
“You're constantly making these very subtle adjustments to end up with this beautiful piece,” he adds. It requires each member of the roughly 20-person team to work skillfully to unearth the inner intricacies.
Miziguchi believes that this approach requires an “instinctive” understanding of the end goal. It also requires constant communication and, perhaps most importantly, trust.
Ishihara, who directed Lumins arisedescribes the process as “labor-intensive and very complex.”
“Each person's interpretation of a particular thing will be different, and the same happens with me and the team. Each of them are individual creators, designers, artists and programmers, so in order for us to speak the same language and truly understand each other, a huge amount of mutual communication is required,” explains Ishihara.
Ensuring that constant conversation was perhaps the most challenging part of directing, he says. Lumins arise. Then came the next part: communicating with the players.
“Now we understand each other, how can we convey this and make the players understand? I think in order to convey that message and get it across to players, that's where all the Lumines features come into play: sound, light and movement,” he says. “We use these elements to communicate with players, but it really comes down to the parameter of each element and what kind of adjustment – that's the key word – we make.
“We're talking about a 0.01 percent shift here and there. […] This is where the real customization happens and I, as the director, took it upon myself to fine-tune it down to the last detail so that it feels like we are doing this as a craft.”
Ishihara believes that an unwavering commitment to intent is what allows Enhance to create experiences that resonate with players on a human level. “When I say craftsmanship, we are craftsmen and humans. We are not artificial intelligence. I want to believe that the human soul is what drives and configures these parameters down to the smallest detail,” he continues. “I want to believe that when people apply this level of customization, it will never be overwritten by something created by artificial intelligence.”
We suspect some developers in the industry might agree.
