I love this game and would like a little more history on its influences. I’ve read comparisons to Suda51’s games, specifically No More Heroes, but I’ve only played Killer 7 and Killer is Dead (barely).
If I like PMA is it worth going back to NMH? Is there any other media PMA reminds y’all of?
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Paging @Chopemon
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From the UK, I believe.
And from our dreams.
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Not answering the question but Kaizen Game Works put out a printable file to make your own little paper to-fu figure. Made it a few weeks ago and had it in the shelf above my desk, it fell down behind my monitors last night and I’ve been seeing this from the corner of my eye
(ignore the fact that i use a dirty piece of fabric as a mousepad)
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this is actually a really good question, @bill_valentine . i am struggling to come up with any answers besides the obvious ones. there’s clearly a lot of yakuza/LAD DNA in there, from the management sim style gameplay, the structure and tone of the dialogue being similar to some sub stories, and one of the voice actors, shuhei yoshida, used to work at playstation which famously was one of the many platforms for yakuza games.
one slightly less obvious thing i think of when playing this game is attack of the friday monsters. this is due to the showa-esque setting, the card game mechanic (and how you level those cards up), and just the general vibe. i’m not suggesting that’s a direct influence, but i would not be surprised if the good people at kaizen game works were fans of millennium kitchen.
anyway, as i’ve made clear in other threads, i absolutely love this game too. very happy to see it have its own thread!
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The obvious answer here is Paradise Killer, Kaizen’s previous work. It’s quite different stylistically and thematically. But you can notice obvious similarities: Big Open World, “gamey” traversal with no actual adversary/combat, codec conversations, apartment buildings with things on the roof, etc.
(Current 35th best game of all time. “Better than Rez” according to me.)
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The more you folks talk about this game, the less I understand what it is and at this point I don’t want to open the Steam page so that I can continue to enjoy this esoteric mythos in making.
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Thanks for all of this. The game feels so original that comparisons won’t help someone understand the game, but it’s not scared to hide its influences. I think the writing really makes the game shine the most and makes it beyond comparison, except possibly to Paradise Killer.
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I played Paradise Killer a bit but I was intimidated by the detective work. I should give it another try, possibly with a guide so I don’t spend all of my time wondering around the world feeling frustrated.
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Use the built-in feature that sorts the evidence for you! Makes it a breeze!
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Oh awesome, I’ll do that when I finish PMA which I don’t think will be much longer now. This game has its hooks in me.
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So I admittedly haven’t played PMA yet, but I played Paradise Killer. Suda51 games do feel like a line of yarn on the concspiracy board here, and I’d also tie one to Kojima. There’s an aesthetic similarity in naming conventions that I see happening.
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For better or worse, I found the investigating in Paradise Killer to be more like watching a detective movie. They mysteries drive the plot, but aren’t a huge gameplay challenge.
Hi gang, long time no see!
Someone mailed me about this thread, asking if I’d jump in to answer where the inspiration came from. So here I am.
The original idea for PMA came from our art director, Rachel. She wanted to make a 2D Kairosoft-like about managing mascots. Myself and our tech director wanted to make a bigger, open world story based game. I was writing the pitch deck for it and had to send it the next day. We didn’t have a story yet, so I threw in ‘exiled yakuza has to run a mascot agency and solve a conspiracy’. Rachel was not a fan of that, so I said we’d change it later. The game got signed and then we finished Paradise Killer. During some time off, we got an email asking if we wanted to work with Ikumi Nakamura. We said yes and at that point things moved so quickly that the yakuza thing stuck and here we are, 4.5 years later.
So, games that provided inspiration to how we designed PMA:
- Kairosoft games - specifically Cafeteria Nipponica, Ventrue Town and Sushi Spinnery
- No More Heroes - dude in a red jacket explores a dead/dying town, speaking to NPCs that never move from their position, has a otherworldly feel through the juxtaposition of mundanity and bizarre characters that everyone is chill with
- Yakuza - Specifically the PS3 era. Modern LAD games don’t let you discover anything for yourself and the dialogue has lost all edge
- Deadly Premonition - a disconcerting town, interesting characters, a die hard commitment to the vision
- PS2 hangout games - these are games on the PS2 that you hangout and do stuff in: Steambot Chronicles, Disaster Report and Raw Danger, Way of the Samurai 1, Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, Shinobido, PS2 and PS3 era Yakuza games
- Pachi Paradise - Irem made some pachinko games on the PS2 where you hangout in a town and meet people and do quests and stuff. I have never played them because they haven’t been translated, but part of the PMA inspiration is imaging what wonders could await in them. Similarly, part of PK’s design was based on imagining how good Germs Newaramachi probably is
Non-interactive media:
- Yakuza Apocalypse - movie where yakuza fight a frog mascot
- Sanctuary - manga about the collision of yakuza and politics
- Akumetsu - manga about a vigilante inflicting Hard Murder Justice on corrupt old men politicians
- Coin Locker Babies and Hits of the Showa Era - Ryu Murakami novels that have an otherworldly feel
- Japanese news, cultural happenings etc
- A youtube channel where a dude drives to remote vending machines in Japan to hangout with the people that fill them while lounge jazz plays
- Twin Peaks
Part of the reason PMA feels unique/whatever is that for the entirety of development, there was a friction between the management simulation and story. The management simulation doesn’t have a perfect gameplay curve like you would expect from a normal sim game because it bends to accommodate the story, which in places bends to accommodate the simulation. The simulation fluctuates in difficulty, meaning and value based on story events. Some people don’t like this. I think it provides an interesting texture, and I value interesting texture above most things in games. ALSO, this was the hardest project of my life and I did 99% of the writing, almost all gameplay scripting, most of the world dressing, setup all of the animations and hellish scripting on the mascot battles, co-designed the simulation, co-designed the narrative, made all of the items, heroes etc etc etc, battled depression and anxiety, suffer from burnout and stress, and all of that contributes to what the end product feels like. The simulation is at different times welcoming, inscrutable, well balanced, uneven, meaningful, meaningless and so on. It has flavour and texture, which is all I wanted. I’m not entirely sure that will help us keep the company going, but at least we released a PS2-like in 2025.
Thank you to everyone on the forums that has played it, said nice things about it and cared enough to participate in this thread!
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I and everybody else in the thread is gonna need a link to this channel, thanks
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In the Insert Credit parlance: “A very smokable youtube channel”
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This feels like such a rich space for getting creative. I love this! Thank you for writing about how this game came to be!
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A long time ago I was talking (probably here?) about games that feel like “stuff just happened and kept happening” on the concept creation and development and how games that feel that way are some of my favorites. Really got that vibe when I played PMA and from what Chopemon said this kinda seems like happened on this game. Cool. Love PMA.
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Glad to see you coming back. I hope the game sells well because it’s fun and unique as heck.
Also, yeah, it’s interesting you say the PS2 hangout games (Boku no Natsuyasumi 2) because that’s the vibe I got when I was able to get absolutely anywhere at the beginning of the game and I was able to glide whenever I could.
PS: This is my opinion, but while there are some frictions that I didn’t enjoy, I think everything ends up working together specially because of the hangout structure and the writing, so, there’s that. I’m sorry to hear you had all those struggles, but at the same time I’m glad I was able to play this and have so much fun.
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