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Mikame and Me

CRV 14:07, 24 July 2010 (UTC) [permalink] [comments]

Shunichi Mikame

Back in December and January, I had the chance to talk to Shunichi Mikame, a man who previously worked for a Japanese game company and is now living in America. Given his unique life story, I just had to contact him and learn more.

A 1986 graduate of what is now known as the Shobi College of Music, Mikame was hired by Culture Brain that same year to work as a computer music composer. His music turned up in several Famicom/NES titles you might remember: Super Chinese/Kung Fu Heroes, Hiryuu no Ken: Ougi no Sho/Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll, and Arabian Dream Scheherazade/The Magic of Scheherazade. Using his own music equipment (sequencers and synthesizers and such), he recorded his compositions to audio tape and submitted them for approval. Some made the cut - others did not. After approval, he converted the music to assembly language and passed it along to Culture Brain's programmers. In total, he composed about 150 pieces of music during his time there.

Mikame shared with me some memories of the game producer (the owner of Culture Brain). He was a difficult man and was sometimes violent with one or two sales guys who were his childhood friends or old classmates. (This became such a challenge that some of the game/graphic designers left for Sega.) But at the same time, he was also passionate about making games and had lots of excellent ideas. He would give them (Mikame and the game/graphic designers) money to go down to the arcade and play games and study them. All the Famicom games they wanted to play were bought and provided by the company for the same reason (to study them).

When Mikame was hired into Culture Brain, it was actually still called Nihon Game. Founded in 1980, Nihon Game had been responsible for several arcade games such as Monster Zero, SF-X/Skelagon, and Hokuha Shourin Hiryuu no Ken/Shanghai Kid. The company name was changed to Culture Brain in 1987 and a US branch was eventually opened. The US branch closed in the 1990s, but Culture Brain continues on in its home country making DS games.

Back to Mikame, he got into an argument with the aforementioned game producer/owner one cold winter day and was fired (as Mikame had hoped). (This was in 1987, just after the release of Hiryuu no Ken but before the release of Arabian Dream Scheherazade.) He dabbled in different things afterwards like making sound effects and music for commercials and traveling. He learned English with American friends he had at the US Navy base in Yokosuka and decided to pursue his dream of coming to the States. He left Japan in 1991 and studied computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He eventually ended up in Texas, where he is now working as a network security engineer/consultant.

Mikame has a website. On his profile, you can find out more about him and listen to some of his game and non-game musical compositions.

My thanks to Mr. Mikame for his time.


Trans-Asian Tidbits

CRV 13:19, 24 July 2010 (UTC) [permalink] [comments]

More stuff courtesy of "Derboo." It looks like outsourcing to South Korea was more prevalent than I might have previously thought.

  • The Game Boy version of Capcom's The Little Mermaid was programmed by Sunmok Jang. He apparently did this for a company called Great. Jang (and Sanghun Lee [see earlier post]) came to Japan to work. Programming took three months from June 1992. Jang previously worked on Clover's MSX conversion of Altered Beast. (Interview with Jang mentioning The Little Mermaid)
  • When Taito needed to convert its Master System version of Bubble Bobble to the Game Gear, it turned to Open. Among the Game Gear staff were the Jung brothers, Chanyong and Chanil, formerly of Namu, a company that merged with Open in 1993. Namu started out as a team called MbitM, which was responsible for two Bubble Bobble knockoffs published by Zemina.
  • Return of Jelda for the MSX2, part of Carry Lab's Jelda series of 3D shooters, was done by Softmen.
  • The initial staff of Softmax was part of a team called KBM from 1990 to 1993. This team did "8-bit game software" outsourced from Japanese companies. The article "Derboo" got this information from mentions "Game Gear software" but no specific titles.

Not Korea-related, but I'll just throw it in here:

  • Some of The Adventures of Gilligan's Island for the NES, primarily developed by Human, appears to have been outsourced to another part of Asia. The "sub programmers" are "Sun Shu Fai" and "Koo Wai San."

For more Korean gaming history, check out "Derboo"'s feature on Hardcore Gaming 101.


Seoul Train

CRV 14:16, 26 May 2010 (UTC) [permalink] [comments]

Sanghun Lee

The amount of stuff we Westerners know about Korean games could fill a space the size of a headlight on a Kia. But that's all changing thanks to the ongoing research of one "Derboo," who's writing about gaming in South Korea for Hardcore Gaming 101. Because of said research, more has been learned about gamemaker Sanghun Lee (or Lee Sanghun; see right), who has been discussed on this blog before.

Let's start from the beginning...

(more...)


Please Excuse Our Dust

CRV 13:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC) [permalink] [comments]

I feel the urge to put up one of those old "Under Construction" GIFs, but I won't. A few points for those who might be wondering what's going on around here:

  • The company entries are gradually being fixed up and moved into the "Companies" category. Same goes for the people entries. The interviews are slated to be re-edited as well.
  • The target date for "construction" completion is our fifth annivesary in August 2011. I was going to reveal here what else might be in store for our fifth anniversary, but I think I'll hold off on that.
  • I have decided to discontinue the forums. That decision is final unless there's some giant outcry for them to be brought back. I was against having forums, but I caved in. As I suspected, there just isn't the traffic or "community" to warrant them.


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