Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: drag mud money

When the picture and sound effects of the game are getting better and better, we may be able to appeal to other feelings.

From racing to music, Mizuchi always takes "bringing players a full range of sensory experience" as a design concept. After Space Channel 5, he came up with a game that is related to music and mobilizes players' synesthesia experience-"Rez".

The design and experience of "beyond the times" in Rez failed to achieve good results that year, but it still attracted a group of core players, so much so that Mizuchi was able to stick to himself and constantly challenge the use of new technologies in the next 20 years of his gaming career. In this era when the development of VR and AR is becoming more and more mature, games are no longer satisfied with sight and hearing. Mizuchi and his games have also ushered in new opportunities.

Before the transcendental "Rez" entered the game industry, Mizuchi was impressed by two shooting games, "Iron Plate" in high school and "Xenon 2 Megablast" in college. Both games have excellent soundtrack and sound effects, which makes Mizuchi feel like "playing music" in STG.

Mizuchi also has good taste in music. The soundtrack of "Iron Plate Arena" was performed by Hiroshi Hosono, a Bass player from the famous Japanese electronic band YMO. After joining Sega, Mizuchi also had a lot of opportunities to travel to Europe. In 1997, he attended the famous Electronic Music Carnival in Zurich and was impressed by the Techno music scene. Thousands of people danced to the laser lights and bass rhythm, and DJ gradually directed the mood of the audience to the best part, and the whole audience reveled together. In this atmosphere, Mizuchi also thought of Russian artist Kandinsky's paintings of "Synesthesia". Kandinsky used oil paintings to express the "sounds he saw and the colors he heard". The experience of the electronic music festival made Mizuchi realize that music performance is also a synesthesia experience-participants not only listen to the music, but also watch the laser lights changing with the rhythm, while dancing to the music. while using the body to feel the "roar" and "resonance" brought by the heavy bass.

In Kandinsky's works, Kandinsky has the ability of synesthesia, which is an involuntary neurological phenomenon that allows people to connect several senses. In Kandinsky's mind, hearing is closely related to vision, sound and color, so he can "see" music. These experiences have contributed to Mizuchi's desire to make a game that combines music and shooting elements. Like electronic music performances, to bring synesthesia to players, to put players in the rhythm, this is the origin of "Rez".

After the establishment of the "Rez" project, Mizuchi and the team also began to draw various prototypes, repeatedly discussing how the game should be presented. The process is not smooth, there is no similar game for "Rez" reference, Mizuchi Zhe and the team can only start from scratch.

At first, the team used music with stage projection lights to repeatedly test whether players could have a "sound-picture synesthesia" experience; on the other hand, they created a Demo with only simple sound effects and geometry to test whether players could "play music" during the game. The breakthrough in the sense of performance comes from Mizuchi's discovery of the beat in the sequencer. when he integrates all the sound effects into the same beat, the sound effects and feedback sound effects produced by the operation sound like a melody created by the players. and it sounds a little good.

But just "creating melodies" over and over again does not attract players, and the game needs a core point that makes players feel interesting. As a game inspired by the electronic music festival, Mizuchi finally found a breakthrough from the DJ performance. In his view, whether DJ or off-stage dancers, people indulge in the Loop of electronic music and love its rich changes, so "Rez" adds a mechanism: a ball of light will suddenly appear in the picture at a critical moment, and as soon as the player hits eight balls of light, the background music of the game will change-this is the core of "Rez".

In the process of the birth of "Rez", not only the internal development team often hit a brick wall, the external Sega company is also ushering in great changes. After the DreamCast console announced the suspension of sales, Sega stopped running its own console and instead provided games for other platforms. Rez is Sega's first game to log on to PlayStation as a "game publisher". At Sony's PlayStation Party, Mizuchi also showed it in the form of a performance-on the dimly lit stage, Mizuchi also played live "Rez" and hand close-ups of operating the handle on the big screen, and the strong party-style music and visual effects of "Rez" turned the presentation into a "musical performance" without saying a word. This unique game is full of praise from Shigeo Maruyama, founder and chairman of Sony computer Entertainment.

Mizuchi also dyed his silver hair specially for this demonstration, perhaps to demonstrate the "sense of the future" of "Rez".

Shigeo Maruyama, the founder of the famous music label Epic Sony Japan, can get his approval, which shows that the music and presentation pictures of "Rez" are really good. In November 2001, "Rez" went on sale in Japan and went on sale in Europe and the United States the following year. The game has been well received by the industry, and some players are deeply infatuated with this unique play experience. Although sales are mediocre (which makes Mizuchi a little disappointed), no one can deny that this is a game that surpasses the times and is unique. Mizuchi also has concepts of senses, music and Synesthesia that have been verified in Rez and will continue to run through his works in various forms in the future.

In 2004, Sega was acquired by Sammy and began to reform the company structure drastically, and UGA was disbanded. However, Mizuchi also left Sega in 2003 and co-founded a new company, Q Entertainment, to continue to develop games. At that time, the competition in the console game market became more and more fierce, and the wrestling of big companies created a living space for small teams. Tetsuya Mizuchi, who yearns for a Hollywood-style independent producer system, hopes to develop games around creative projects in smaller companies.

During the Q Entertainment, Mizuchi's masterpiece is the "Lumines" series of games on PSP, which combines elimination and music elements, and is loved by the majority of players with excellent music and obsessive play. At that time, Mizuchi also learned that Sony's upcoming PSP had the best graphics capabilities, screen quality and 3.5mm stereo headphone interface in the history of the handset. He thought it was the first portable game device that could allow players to enjoy excellent music anytime, anywhere, and immediately decided to develop games for PSP.

PSP released in 2004, at that time has excellent multimedia performance, thanks to its popularity, there are many domestic players who love "music box" at the beginning, Shuikou Zhe also hopes to do a music theme of "Tetris" game, but one year of development time is not enough to complete the complex authorization process, had to design a new game mechanism from scratch, "music box" was born.

"Music Box" has launched several sequels since then, and has been launched on the new platform one after another. As a box elimination and decryption game, its playing method has stood the test of time. "Music Box" and its sequel music selections have won unanimous praise from players, with bright rhythm and ear grabbing. In terms of play, it also continues Rez's concept of sensory, rhythm and operation feedback (Call and Respond), but it is easier and easier to understand. The commercial success of the game has also given Q Entertainment the opportunity to work with Ubisoft, a major game company in Europe and the United States.

During the cooperation with Ubisoft, Mizuchi also developed a spiritual sequel to "Rez", "Child of Eden", based on the newly launched somatosensory peripheral Kinect. Like "Rez", this game has gorgeous and even psychedelic visual effects, immersive melodies, and shooting-like games. The biggest difference is that players do not need a handle, but use the motion capture of the Kinect camera to operate the game.

The game screen is very gorgeous, and Mizuchi Zhe also worked very hard at the Ubisoft E3 press conference. Unfortunately, Kinect did not become a leading technology. The 2011 listing of "son of Eden" continued the style of "Rez" in form, but did not inherit the soul of "Rez". On the one hand, the novelty and breakthrough brought by Kinect as a new technology is limited, on the other hand, the design of "son of Eden" is not as deliberate as "Rez". In the end, there was no breakthrough in its sales and influence.

Mizuchi also left Q Entertainment in 2012, hoping to have a free creative environment and began to set up his own studio and distribution company.

Fifteen years later, VR, which was still in the mirror and in the water when Shuikouzhe entered Sega, ushered in a big explosion in 2014. Facebook spent a lot of money to acquire Oculus, and Sony announced its own VR head Show, codenamed "Morpheus". The latter means relying on the success of PS4, VR games have a very mature group of mainframe players in the business of commercial games. Tetsuya Mizuchi, who has been looking forward to VR for many years, immediately decided to VR the "Rez" to achieve the "ideal game experience" that was limited by technology more than 10 years ago.

Mizuchi also began to raise development funds, contacted and authorized by Sega, and set up a development team with his old colleague Xiaomi attack during the Sega period. "Rez" has previously had an overweight version of "Rez HD" on Xbox 360s, providing a higher definition picture and 5.1 surround sound. This VR version will realize the original vision of "Rez"-a 360-degree immersed audio-visual environment around players. In addition, there is a new level, Area X, which is more seamless, freer and more gorgeous than the story mode in the play experience.

The picture after this reproduction is more gorgeous than all previous versions, and it is closer to what Mizuchi has in mind. The development process of VR version is relatively smooth, and it also makes Mizuchi successfully practice the expected development model of "forming a partnership team around the project". The small team of less than 15 people completed the game in 15 months at a cost of 250 million yen ($1.8 million, including marketing expenses). The VR version, eventually named "Rez Infinity" (Rez Infinite), was launched in October 2016 as one of PlayStation VR's debut games. "Rez Infinity" was well received by players and the media, and sold very well, winning several best VR game awards that year, including the Game Awards (TGA). The experience that we hope to bring to the players when designing "Rez" 15 years ago has finally been fully implemented and realized on "Rez Infinity", which also proves that Mizuchi's game design and game concept has surpassed the times.

The immersion brought by VR makes Shuikouzhe and the game mechanism carefully set up by the team to play a stronger appeal. When the gorgeous particle special effects dance rhythmically with the players' operation and music around their ears, the players wrapped in the virtual space may feel that they are in a dream.

The VR experience of "Rez Infinity" is difficult to describe in words. When you have the opportunity, you must try to be reborn not only by the game "Rez", but also by a peripheral that enhances the feeling of players. When "Rez" was released, it also launched a peripheral called Trance Vibrator, which is an external vibration device that players connect to the host and put it in their pocket to feel stronger vibrations synchronized with audio and video in the game, resulting in a more intuitive synesthesia experience. This peripheral didn't make much splash at that time, but Shuikou Zhe never gave up the idea. When developing the son of Eden, he tried to tie a few Xbox handles to his body to enhance the vibration experience when playing.

The peripheral Trance Vibrator that made people feel a little confused at that time

The idea of providing players with stronger physical feedback through handle vibration has finally been carried forward on Switch's "music box reproduction". When playing in handheld mode, players can connect up to six additional JoyCon, put them in their pockets or tie them to the body, and feel the linkage between the vibration and the game operation to develop "Rez Infinity". Mizuchi also developed the synesthesia kit (Synesthesia Suit) in cooperation with the Media Lab of Keio University. This one-piece suit has 26 vibrating motors placed all over the body, and different parts will feel different vibrations. When players wear it to play "Rez Infinity", the music, operation feedback and visual effects in the game will be fed back to the body in different forms.

Synesthesia costumes enhance players' sensory experience through dimensions other than audio-visual, and it is hard to say whether the future development direction of game peripherals will be such a device. Mizuchi also demonstrated "Rez" on PlayStation Party. 15 years later, wearing synesthesia costumes, he once again appeared on the stage of PlayStation Experience 2015 and demonstrated "Rez Infinity". With the blessing of new technologies and devices, "Rez Infinity" and synesthesia have pushed the sensory experience of the game to a new dimension.

Fifteen years later, the remade "Rez Infinity" still pioneered the synesthesia suit and later added a more complex LED lighting system, in which the wearer's body movements were sketched through the lights, giving viewers a brand new picture related to the game. In addition to transmitting the vibration to the user, it also allows the audience to feel every step of the game operation through visual synchronization. The synesthesia costume shows the unique sensory experience that originally exists only in the game in a special form-the player also becomes a performer.

Against the backdrop of the gorgeous high-sky night view of Rachigi in Tokyo, several spectators sat on special chairs that can vibrate and glow synchronously with the game, watching Mizuchi in synesthesia suit also play "Rez Infinity"-- the game has become an interactive performance in the game industry, and there are many examples of remaking old games, but there are few like "Rez Infinity" to "Rez". It is only after 15 years that the technology is mature, the original game concept is fully presented and the success is achieved. Mizuchi has always believed that "Rez" and synesthesia have the charm of surpassing time in the game experience, coupled with decades of continuous exploration from various angles through the creation of other game works, as well as a heartfelt love and belief in new technology from a young age, resulting in "Rez Infinity", a masterpiece that crosses the times.

After the release of "Rez Infinity" in 2016, Mizuchi's gaming business has once again entered a period of growth. In 2018, Enhance, an independent company of Zhe Ye, Shuikou, produced and released the Tetris effect, which also made up for the regret that it did not have time to obtain the license of Tetris when it was developed. Tetris effect has been a great success by using a large number of VR effects and synesthesia experience designs that have won praise in Rez Infinity, as well as the newly created "Zone" Tetris rule design.

The mechanically fascinating "Tetris", coupled with gorgeous visual effects and rich music and sound effects, is even a little psychedelic. At the same time, Mizuchi is also exploring the application of synesthesia outside the game. The experimental installation art-like equipment Synesthesia X1-2.44 and the interactive exhibition Rezonance came out successively to look for new modes of interaction and experience beyond games.

Synesthesia X1-2.44. in recent years, we often say that "games are also an art". Compared with a number of well-known players with technical background, Mizuchi also has the temperament of artists in music and interaction. Before entering the game industry, Mizuchi began to explore new interactions and how people perceive the world. After entering the game industry, the game has become the carrier for him to practice his ideas. From Sega Rally to Rez Infinity, Mizuchi has been using new devices and technologies to bring new games to players around the "sensory experience". The feelings that we feel happy and exciting in real life can be reproduced in his game through some ingenious design.

In 2023, Mizuchi also released the game "Humanity", which he collaborated with famous designer Yongo Nakamura. Unlike previous works with strong audio-visual impact, the game uses decryption and control to guide the crowd to attract players to immerse themselves in it.

"Human" has an indescribable but very "charming" temperament, perhaps hoping to create a game that is as fascinating as Tetris itself, among many senior Japanese gamers, in terms of popularity or work sales and influence, Mizuchi is not among the most famous. But decades of exploration of synesthesia and constant attempts to bring new sensory experiences to players in the game have made his work always worth recommending to more players.

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