gsk Thanks! That’s an interesting story about Ozma Wars. I am not sure it would be easy to find someone left from that era at SNK to figure out if it’s a true story, but the game was included in the recent SNK 40th Anniversary Collection so it’s possible someone involved in the project (maybe Adam Laatz?) would know if they had to clear up some paperwork when they included the game. Or maybe everyone forgot to check. Oops.
(Honestly not much worse than a lot of dodgy stuff I have seen while I was looking for officially licensed games…)
I suspect Atari’s Le Mans goes in the same “we’ll pretend we did not know there was a trademark” category as Sega’s Monaco GP. Neither of them really uses the official name of the race, in any case. Nowadays, nobody could get away on such technicalities, but I don’t think French racing officials of the mid-70s were super knowledgable about the merits and commercial potential of branding.
I was discussing this topic with a friend earlier today and he remembered reading that Lupin III was indeed considered the first (offically licensed) anime adaptation. While he was looking for the book or magazine in question, he found and sent me a transcript of an interesting conference organized a few years ago by the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, in which Nishikado was invited to discuss the early Taito era among other things. Here is the PDF of the brief segment (page 38) where they talk about Lupin III and its rather unique status as a licensed video game in the market around those times.
「ルパン三世」:版権取りのゲーム
Q:
すいません、今思い付きで恐縮ですけど、「バルーンボンバー」と同時期、ほぼ同時期に「ルパン三世」が出てるんです。版権物をやったのは、何か経緯とか、もしご承知、ご記憶でしたら、当時すごい人気の、こういう版権取ったゲームって珍しい。
西角:
羽鳥に聞いたら、「ルパン三世」のプログラムは清水がメインで、羽鳥が手伝いをしていたようですね。企画は 2 人でやったようで、ボードは基本「スペースインベーダー」の ROM 改造で、追加のカラーRAM ボードも付いているそうです。
They skip to another topic rightaway but in this short answer, Nishikado confirms that Lupin III uses the same mother board as Space Invaders but with an additional Color RAM extension, which explains why the color configuration of the sprites is much more accurate than in other 8080 games of that time.
More importantly, Nishikado also shares the name of the two people who developped the game. The main programmer was 清水 (Shimizu) and he was assisted by 羽鳥 (Hatori). Both names come up a lot elsewhere in the conversation, especially in the Space Invaders Part II segment as this specific game seems to have been quite an ordeal for Nishikado and his team. Hatori also helped Nishikado on Lunar Rescue, while Shimizu developed Space Chaser on his own.
Based on all these hints, it’s pretty easy to figure out that the aforementioned “Hatori” is 羽鳥鉄之助 Hatori Tetsunosuke, Nishikado’s second / assistant on many of his early Taito projects and a frequent character of his many recent anecdotes and interviews. Later in the same conference (in a separate PDF), we learn that:
Q:
その 84 年から 86 年のころは、じゃあ、その現場であと羽鳥さんとか、清水さんとかは、まだ中に。
西角:
羽鳥、清水はもう辞めたというか、別の部署へ行ってましたね。彼はなかなか、やっぱ、ちょっと私が辞めてから、上の者とうまくいかなかったのか、別の部署に行くようになりました、羽鳥は。で、清水はもう管理職みたいな、どっちかというと上のほうになって、もう技術屋でなくなってましたね、私が戻ってきたときはいなかったですね。総務か何か、管理のほうに回ってましたね。
Hatori and Shimizu had already both stopped programming games for Taito around 1984～1986 (note: Elevator Action was released in 1983). Hatori, who was younger than Nishikado, left for another department because he could not get along with one of the higher ups. Shimizu, who was the same age as Nishikado, was transferred to something more clerical, akin to the “General Affairs” division (sorry my knowledge of English terminology for boring paperwork is not on point), presumably as a form of training for a more managerial position.
So, I think the names are just a coincidence, but there is nevertheless a small chance that the Shimizu in question would be 清水 久雄 Shimizu Hisao. That Shimizu later became a producer and kinda important division chief at Taito’s development side in the early Nineties, so the timing could work. You can find his name in several Taito games of the F1/F3 era (incl. Elevator Action Returns). Not the most fun trivia but that Shimizu unfortunately passed away in 2011, at least according to this tweet. Anyway, I think it’s a bit too convenient, and I find weird that Nishikado would not know or would not mention that this Shimizu went back into development later, in a much more senior role. Shimizu’s not that rare of a name in Japan; for instance, there was also a game designer named Shimizu Kei at Taito since the mid-Eighties (he designed Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH and Kuri Kinton among other things). But that’s still a possible lead.
