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Strange Creators of Outer World/Let's Look Back At I&MP-PoFV-StB

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萃/花/文
振り返りインタビュー
I&MP / PoFV / StB
Looking-Back Interview
「永夜抄」以降の数年間は、東方Projectの中でも、
バラエティ豊かな作品の発表が続く、揺籃期とも言うべき期間となっている。
改めて作者のZUN氏に振り返ってもらった。
The years since Imperishable Night have been characterized as the "cradle period" of Touhou Project,
a period during which a wide variety of works have been released.
We asked ZUN, the creator himself, to take a look back on this period.
「萃夢想」 Immaterial and Missing Power
「萃夢想」は、いろいろなことが初めてでどうなるか全くわからなかったぶん、思い入れがありますね。黄昏フロンティアの人たちがどういう人たちなのかも全くわからなかったし。なんとなく「Eternal Fighter Zero」(※美少女ゲームブランド Key および同スタッフが手掛けたゲームのヒロインたちが総登場する格闘ゲーム)が上手く行ってるように見えたので、ちゃんとした人たちなのかなと思ってたんですけど……(笑)。当時、あまり僕自身はそのゲームを遊んでませんでしたけれど、当時勤めていた会社では遊んでる人たちがいっぱいいたんです。昼休みに集まって対戦してて、社内でも有名でした。 Immaterial and Missing Power is very personal to me because it was a first time experience for me in so many ways, and I had no idea how it was going to turn out. I had no idea who the people at Tasogare Frontier were. I thought they might be decent people because "Eternal Fighter Zero" (※a fighting game starring various heroines from games created by the Bishoujo brand Key, along with other games made by Key's staff) seemed to be doing well... (haha).
I myself didn't play the game much back then, but there were a lot of people playing it at the company I worked for at the time. We would get together at lunchtime and play against each other, and we were famous even within the company.
黄昏さんが最初に持ってきた案は、細かいことは覚えてないけど、外の世界から人が入ってくるようなものがいいと。そのストーリーでどうやって対戦につなげていくんだろうかと思ったんだけど……。やっぱり東方の世界観で何かしようと考えた時に最初に考えるのは外から誰かが入って、そのキャラの視点で物語が進むっていうパターンなんでしょうね。まあ結局また自分でストーリーを書くことになるんですけど、最初にあった企画案の一つにお酒を集めるっていうものがあって、僕が引き継いだ後も微妙に残ってるんです。結局「酒」っていう部分だけが残って、宴会を開くこととか、たまに会話に出てくるくらいになった。「萃夢想」は「永夜抄」と同時に出る予定だったから登場キャラも今みたいな感じになってますけど、最初から「永夜抄」の後に出る予定だったら「永夜抄」のキャラも入れたかったですよね。発売時期が変わるということは、そういうことが起こるわけです。でも、今ほど作品ごとのストーリーが繋がっていないから、あまり問題ではなかった。 I don't remember the details of Tasofro's initial idea, but I remember that they suggested something that would involve people coming in from the Outside World. I wondered how that story would've lead to fighting matches...I suppose the first thing I think of when deciding to do something with the Touhou universe is to have someone enter from the outside and have the story progress from that character's point of view. In the end, I ended up writing the story myself, but one of the first ideas I had was to collect saké, and even after I took over the project, that part remained subtle. In the end, only the word "saké" remained, and it came up only occasionally in conversations, such as holding a banquet.
Immaterial and Missing Power was scheduled to be released at the same time as Imperishable Night, hence why characters that appear in that game are the same as they are now. However, if it had been scheduled to be released after Imperishable Night from the onset, I would have wanted to include characters from Imperishable Night. That's what happens when you change the release date. Though it wasn't much of a problem because the stories of each game were not as connected as they are now.
格闘ゲームじゃないものを作りたいっていう目標もありました。当時、シューティングゲームと同じように格ゲーも「こうでなければならない」っていう思い込みが作り手側にもプレイヤー側にもあって、そこからズレてる作品が出たら叩かれるんです。だったら、最初から格闘ゲームって言わなきゃいいということで「萃夢想」は「弾幕アクションゲーム」と名乗ってる。当時シューティングでも弾幕すら文化として認められていなくて、あんなゲームは許せない、あんなものはシューティングとは認めない、みたいな人たちがすごくいっぱいいた。だから、東方では弾幕というものを逆に推し出して「弾幕シューティングである」って名乗ることにしたんですね。黄昏さんにも同じ考えを共有してもらって、これは格ゲーではない、対戦弾幕アクションであるっていうことにしてもらった。 I also wanted to create something that was not a fighting game. At the time, there was a belief among both creators and players that fighting games--much like shooting games--had to be designed a certain way, and any deviation from this belief would be met with criticism. Immaterial and Missing Power was called a "danmaku action game" because it wasn't meant to be labeled as a fighting game in the first place. Even back then, bullet hells were not recognized as part of the shooting game culture; there were many people who said that such games were unacceptable, and that they would not be recognized as shooting games. So in Touhou, I decided to push back against the idea of danmaku and call it a "danmaku shooting game". I asked Tasofro to share the same idea, and we decided that this was not a fighting game, but a danmaku action game to be played against other players.
あと、これは「萃夢想」以降の黄昏さんとの作品でもそうなんだけど、各キャラに1個新しい属性を持たせようとしてる。「天気」とか「オカルト」みたいに、別の属性を付与することでちょっとだけ違うキャラクターにしている。そうしたほうがキャラクターを見るときにワクワクするんじゃないかなって。黄昏さんの作品は公式だけど二次創作でもある、「公式二次創作」という扱いで、二次創作と公式の境目があいまいになっていく今の流れの中にあるわけなんです。ナンバリングの小数点表記に関しては、僕の中でも二次創作感が強い。小数点がある時は自分のゲームも含めて二次創作をしてる気持ちですね。 Also--and this has been the case with my works with Tasofro since Immaterial and Missing Power--but I try to give each character one new attribute, like "weather" or "occult", for instance. I think it makes the characters more exciting to play with. Tasofro's works are treated as an "official derivative work", which means that it is both an official work and a derivative work. This is part of the current trend where the line between derivative works and official works is becoming blurred. Regarding the decimal point designation in the numbering, the sense of derivative works is strong in my mind as well. When I place a decimal point, I feel like I am creating a derivative work based on my own games.
「花映塚」 Phantasmagoria of Flower View
ちょうど二次創作をする人がすごく増えてきたので「ずるい、僕も二次創作したい」ってタイミングだった(笑)。そうして昔作った「『ティンクルスター』っぽいゲーム」ができた。「ティンクルスター」はすごくいい、とても独特なゲームなんですが、ああいうのをオマージュしたかったんですね。しかもちょうど同じタイミングで「ティンクルスター」の続編が出てさ。出るなんて全く知らなかったんだけど、本当にタイミングもほぼ同じでびっくりしましたよ。 As the number of people creating derivative works was increasing, I thought, "It's not fair, I want to create a derivative work, too" (haha). That's how I came up with the "Twinkle Star Sprites"-like game I had made a long time ago. Twinkle Star is a very good, very unique game, and I wanted to pay homage to that. And the sequel to Twinkle Star came out right around the same time. I had no idea it was coming out, and I was really surprised that the timing was almost the same.
「花映塚」ではあまり他のゲームにピックアップされていないキャラを使おうと思って。基準は「萃夢想」と被らないようにということと、既にストーリーが決まっていたから60年以上生きていないキャラクターか、もしくはちょっとお馬鹿なキャラクターである必要があったんです。あまり強いキャラを入れるとストーリーが破たんするし、できる限り事の次第を知らないキャラを選ぶことに。 For Phantasmagoria of Flower View, I wanted to use characters that haven't been picked up by many other games. The criteria were not to feature the same characters as in Immaterial and Missing Power, and since the story was already set, the characters had to either be no older than 60 years, or be a bit silly. If I put in too strong a character, it would ruin the story, so I decided to choose characters who knew as little as possible about what was going on.
「花映塚」は登場キャラが多いのも大変だったけど、そのキャラ用にストーリーをたくさん作らなきゃいけないのが大変でした。マッチモードのセリフも膨大だし。同キャラ対戦とかは意外と面白いというか、ふざけられるしメタ感が出せて遊べるから面白く作れるんです。でも、むやみにキャラクターを増やせばいいもんじゃないなあと学びました。 Phantasmagoria of Flower View was difficult not only because of the large number of characters, but also because of the many stories that had to be created for each of them. The amount of dialogue in match mode is also extensive. I think it's surprisingly fun to play with the same characters in a match mode, and you can joke around with them and create a meta sort of feeling, which makes it fun to play. But as I learned, it's not enough to just add more characters.
開発してる途中に「三月精」の連載も始まるし、書籍の「文花帖」も作ってるし、そもそも普通に会社に勤めてる。箸休み的なつもりで「花映塚」に手を付けたら大やけどですよ(笑)。でも単純に忙しさで言えば今のほうが上ですね。 While I was developing the game, I started the serialization of "Touhou Sangetsusei", and "Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red" was also in production, not to mention I was working at my regular job. If I had started working on Phantasmagoria of Flower View as a kind of intermezzo, I would have been severely burned (haha). But speaking simply of how busy things were, I'd say I'm much busier now than before.
でも、おかげで「花映塚」に出てるキャラは一部を覗いてはまあまあ使いやすく仕上がってくれた。文も「花映塚」のキャラだし小町とかも使いやすい。幽香は、キャラの選択の幅という意味で出てもらいました。過去のキャラを出す時っていうのは、単純にネタ切れなんです。 However, it's thanks to this that the characters in Phantasmagoria of Flower View were made fairly easy to use, with a few exceptions. Aya is a character also featured in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and she and Komachi are very easy to handle. Yuuka was chosen to be in the game because of her wide range of options. When introducing a character from the past, it is simply because I ran out of ideas.
「花映塚」では、ネットワーク経由でリアルタイムで対戦したり、対戦している当人たち以外にも見せたりしたかったんです。ゲームセンターで上手い人がプレイしていると、自然と周りに人が集まってくる。その人の輪を「ギャラリー」って呼ぶんですが、あれをリアルタイムでネット上で再現することができたらすごく面白いじゃないかって思っていて、その先駆けとして「花映塚」あたりでそれ用にプログラムを作ってたんですよ。なんでゲーセンにシューティングを遊びに行くんだろうって考えると、やっぱり見てくっる人の存在は大きいから、家でもそれを再現できたらいいな、そうすればもっと東方が拡がるかもしれないなって。そうしたら、ニコニコ動画とかが登場して、リアルタイムで動画が配信できるようになってきた。「あ、これで全て解決じゃん」って(笑)。当時はそんなにネット回線が太くなると思っていなかったですからね。 With Phantasmagoria of Flower View, I wanted to allow people to play against each other in real time over the network, and to let others outside the matches see the battles. When someone is playing well in an arcade center, others will naturally gather around that person. I thought it would be very interesting if I could reproduce this circle of people in real time on the Internet, and around the time of Phantasmagoria of Flower View, I was working on a program to pioneer such a project. When I think about why people go to the arcade to play shooting games, the presence of people watching them is a big factor, so I thought it would be great if I could reproduce that at home, and if I did that, Touhou might spread even more. Then NicoNicoDouga came along, and it became possible to distribute videos in real time. I thought, "Oh, this solves everything" (haha). At the time, I didn't think that Internet connections would grow that large.
「花映塚」のストーリーも今の東方にすごく繋がるような内容で、世界観が完成してきたことを感じます。外の世界とかメタな要素を作品に取り入れるタイミングで。ちょうど戦後60年だったからああいう内容になったんだけど、あとスマトラ沖で地震があったりして世紀末感というか無情感があって、そのあたりから輪廻を引き合いに仏教観が入っている作品になりましたね。ゲームを楽しもうと思うと「うるさいなぁ」っていう感じのゲームが多いけど(笑)。 The storyline of Phantasmagoria of Flower View is very much connected to present-day Tokyo, and I feel that its worldview is now complete. It was the right time to introduce the outside world and meta elements into the game. The content was chosen because it was the 60th anniversary since the end of World War II, and there was also an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra. It gave off a sense of "fin-de-siècle" or heartlessness, and it was around this time that I started to include a Buddhist perspective, citing reincarnation in the game. I enjoy playing games, but there are many out there that make me think, "Man, that's so annoying" when I'm trying to play them (haha).
「文花帖」 Shoot the Bullet
ネットワークに目を向けた結果、「号外」を後から配信するっていう目論見もあったけど、できなかったよね。途中でやる意味を感じなくなってさ(笑)。 I had planned to distribute a "newspaper extra" later as a result of looking at the network, but I couldn't do it, could I? I didn't see the point of doing that in the middle of the project (haha).
「文花帖」でやりたいことは明確で、実は「永夜抄」開発のころからネタがありました。なぜ「紅魔郷」で弾幕に名前を付けたかというと、弾幕をパッケージ化してキャラクター性を持たせたかったわけです。それをさらに突き詰めて、美しさが無いとキャラクター性が無い、じゃあ美しさをどう判定するか、ってときに瞬間を切り取りたかったんです。「永夜抄」の時には画面をキャプチャーして、どうこうするっていうシステムのアイデアはあったんですが、ゲームには全然活かせなくってどうしたらいいんだろう。美しさを点数に変換するにはどうすればいいんだろうって考えていたら、おあつらえ向きに写真を撮るキャラが出てきた。写真を撮って弾を消せればゲームとしても成立しそうだ、みたいな考え方で見切り発車で開発しました。 What I wanted to do with "Shoot the Bullet" was clear, and in fact, the idea had been in the works since the development of Imperishable Night. The reason why I named the danmaku patterns in the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil is because I wanted to package it and give it personality. I wanted to push it further and capture a moment when I thought, "Without beauty, there is no character, so how do you judge beauty?" With Imperishable Night, I had an idea for a system to snap images of the screen and then do something with them, but I couldn't apply it to the game at all, so I wondered how I could do it. I was thinking about how to convert beauty into points, and then I came up with a character that takes pictures, which was just what I needed. I thought, "If you take a picture and make the bullets disappear, that could work as a game," and so I took a chance and developed the game.
最初はとにかくつまらなくて大変でした。避けられないような弾を出して、カメラで撮影してみて「あ、消えた消えた……で? これ面白いのか?」って(笑)。でも、こういう方向でやるって決めたから、面白くなるまでがんばっていろいろなアイデアをこねくり回して作ったんです。弾を消すだけじゃなくて本人を撮影する、近くに行かなきゃ撮れないようにする、近くに行かせないような弾を出そう……そうしてアイデアが積み重なって、なんとか作り上げることが出来ました。 At first it was just so boring and difficult. I'd shoot out a bullet that seemed unavoidable and then try to shoot it with the camera and say, "Oh, it's gone, it's gone...then what? Is this entertaining?" (haha). But I decided on this direction, so I worked hard and mixed and matched various ideas until I got it to be interesting. Not only to make the bullets disappear, but also to shoot the subject, to make it impossible to shoot without getting close to the subject, and to create bullets that would make it impossible to get close to the subject...Then ideas piled up, and I somehow managed to finish the game.
とにかく弾幕を切り取って点数をつける、というアイデアだけを膨らませたゲームでした。それを単純にそのシステムだけで説明しちゃうと「弾幕を四角く消すゲーム」ってなっちゃうんだけど、そこに新聞記者のキャラを出すことによってストーリー的にちゃんと意味ができて、面白さも出てくる。各キャラクターの写真をパシャパシャ撮っていく、ということにしたんです。 Anyway, it was a game that only expanded on the idea of scoring points by erasing danmaku. If I were to explain the game simply by its system, it would just be "a game about clearing out danmaku squares," but by adding a newspaper reporter character to the game, the story would make more sense and be more interesting. I decided to take quick photos of each character.
なかなか僕の中では面白いシステムでした。作ってて楽しかったですね。見たことも無いものを作ってる感じがして、自分の中では習作みたいなものだから、イベント限定での販売のつもりだったんです。主人公だって霊夢でもないし。コミケ直前に発表して「こんなんでもよければ、ぜひ」くらいのノリだったんだけど、すごくたくさんの人が並んじゃって。あれ、むしろこういうのが大好物でしたか? って。 It was quite an interesting system in my opinion. It was fun to make. I felt like I was making something I had never seen before, and it was like a study in my mind, so I intended to sell it only at events. Even the main character wasn't Reimu. I announced it just before Comiket and was just like, "If you don't mind this, please come and see it," but so many people lined up to see it. "Is this the kind of thing you like?" is what I thought.
自分なりの実験だったことが大切だったように思います。全てが弾幕から出発していて、それをキャラクターの魅力に結び付ける。そして、結果的にそれがゲームの魅力になる。その文法を確認するために作ったようなものです。 It seemed important to me that it was an experiment in my own way. Everything starts from the danmaku, and then I tie it to the charm of the characters. And as a result, that becomes the charm of the game. It was kind of like I made this to confirm that grammar.