Vanillaware's Kamitami: Team's 'Dream' Is To Make Online Game

Author: by Staff, Brandon Sheffield

Talking to Gamasutra as part of an in-depth new interview, Vanillaware head George Kamitami (Odin Sphere, Muramasa) has been discussing his 2D game-focused company's dream to make an "online MMO project". As part of a larger interview, Kamitami -- whose Japan-based firm has just completed 2D Wii title Muramasa: The Demon Blade for U.S. release in September from publisher Ignition -- asked if he could "talk a little about Vanillaware's dream" to Gamasutra. When prompted, he explained: "Well, I worked on [online game] Fantasy Earth for Square Enix a few years ago, and a lot of us on the team want to try our hand at another online MMO project -- 2D, 3D, whatever. We've got Fantasy Earth II running through our minds, all of us." "Before that, though, we'd like to make a few 2D online games first. To make that happen, we need money, but money has a habit of getting spent pretty quickly around the company." Interestingly, later in the interview, the Japanese independent developer head revealed a further interest in real-time strategy games, noting: "I don't know if I'd call it inspiration, but I love playing Warcraft and StarCraft online. A lot of the core Odin Sphere staff were really into StarCraft, sticking around the office to play it after work and everything. "We wanted to put some RTS components into Fantasy Earth, even, but it didn't work out in the end with that project. That's a field I'd definitely like to revisit at some point." The full interview with Vanillaware's Kamitami is now available at Gamasutra, with plenty more detail into the firm's history to date, thoughts on the state of 2D in games, and plans for the future.