Word is spreading today that Hidenori Shibao, a veteran writer and game designer, has passed away.
Shibao seems to have had an interesting career, and is perhaps best known in the game industry for writing and directing the RPG Paladin's Quest and its sequel for the Super Nintendo.
A few years back, game dev Zack Wood published a blog post on Gamasutra about why Paladin's Quest is worth studying, in the process contacting Shibao to affirm that PQ is indeed designed to evoke "a strangely enjoyable feeling of alienation within a haunting and totally foreign world."
Shibao is also credited as coming up with the original concept for the PlayStation RPG Legend of Legaia, and has since worked on a number of games. According to his personal website, he was born in 1962 and would thus have been about 56 years old this year.