AusGamers: So to start with, can you tell us a little about the story of how you guys all came together to collaborate on this project? Was it just a matter of good timing -- with you all finishing up things at the same time -- or was it something that you had been planning for a while?

Akira Yamaoka (via personal translator): It did require lots of planning, of course, but all three of us - Mikami and Suda 51 and myself - all had a similar idea of what we wanted to do. So once we started talking to each other, it was really smooth.

AG: Now the theme of Shadows of the Damned has a very crusty punk rock aesthetic to it. Are there any particular punk rock bands whose works have directly inspired the game?

Yamaoka-san: Well the title of the game is Shadows of the Damned, and it has lots of influence the punk rock band called The Damned; this is a UK punk rock band. We couldn’t reveal that until today, but they actually worked together for this title.



I wrote some of the music and with the original members from the punk rock band The Damned, we worked together and actually made something original for this game.This is the first time we have mentioned that.

AG: Alright, excellent! Well that leads straight into my next question actually. Will the game feature a licensed soundtrack of any other famous punk rock or heavy metal bands or is it all original recordings that you guys are creating specifically for the game?

Yamaoka-san: For this project, it was mainly the original band members from The Damned rather than other bands. I was actually here [London] three weeks ago, creating the music; creating the sounds together with the original members of The Damned, but back then I couldn’t mention any of that.

I was always a big fan of the earlier music by The Damned, so I was really happy to actually be able to work with them directly for this project.

So it was purely with The Damned only for this project. As I mentioned, I wrote some of the original music until The Damned got involved and then they created something completely original for this project.



AG: Grasshopper Manufacturer have been sticking to Nintendo Wii development recently and now you’re going to HD platforms with Unreal Engine 3, has that been a difficult transition and what have you found to be the biggest benefits of that change?

Yamaoka-san: Adaption of the Unreal game engine was quite challenging for the team, because the traditional task of the game making process was that you did the design first, then move on to the programming, two independent tasks were involved. But with this new game engine, Unreal, you can do all of that at the same time and that requires lots of teamwork, which we didn’t really have to do in the traditional game making process.

So Unreal is something quite new for us and a well designed engine, but requires much more teamwork. That was the most challenging part of moving from the Wii platform on to HD.

AG: Shadows of the Damned seems to be more action-focused than other horror-themed games. The enemies come on thick and fast and you have a lot of firepower at your disposal. How would you say it differs from other games with that theme, like Resident Evil and Silent Hill?

Yamaoka-san: Compared to previous games we’ve worked on -- I worked on Silent Hill and Mikami was involved with Resident Evil -- This new project, Shadows of the Damned has much more of -- as you mentioned -- the action aspect.

In the very broad sense, this is the same horror action shooting, but it has lots of originality too. It has a similar sort of atmosphere to Silent Hill, but it’s still a completely different project.



AG: Now I’ve noticed that the main character has so much bravado that he doesn’t really ever get scared by anything that’s going on and that tends to dull the scariness of the game. Even though it has all these horror thematic elements. Is that factor why the humour is there?

Yamaoka-san: Yes, when the main character is very strong, it reduces the level of scariness if you like. So that is why we have put the sense of humour, the comedy aspect in this game. because when you have that sense of humour with the right timing it actually makes the game more scary. So you’re quite right, that’s why we put the comedy aspect into it.

AG: Ok, thanks so much for your time today.

Yamaoka-san: Thank you very much.