Interviews// Gaijin Games' Alex Neuse

Gaijin Games hasn't been around for long, but if you're into your niche hardcore games then you already know what it's capable of. An advocate of retro-themed, button-bashing rhythm action, the studio has won many fans on WiiWare with its BIT.TRIP series.

I had the chance to meet Alex Neuse, CEO and Designer of Gaijin Games, and tell him how many times I've felt like running up the wall with BIT.TRIP's intense, unforgiving, but always playable arcade games.

After playing a few levels (badly) of upcoming WiiWare title BIT.TRIP VOID, I spoke to Alex of the nature of the digital download model, why the studio went for WiiWare and the differences between European and American development. Read on...


SPOnG: Hi, Alex, thanks for taking the time to chat with SPOnG. For those who aren't aware of your past works, could you briefly introduce yourself?

Alex Neuse: Hi there! I’m the CEO and Designer at Gaijin Games. We’re the studio behind the BIT.TRIP series and the creators of CommanderVideo. Since Gaijin Games is a young studio, BIT.TRIP is our legacy.

However, each of the Gaijin Games team members has been in the game industry for a while, so newbies we are not [laughs].


SPOnG: The BIT.TRIP series is incredibly addictive and has formed something of a cult following on WiiWare. What inspired you guys to take this unique dot-matrix style approach?

Alex Neuse: It’s exciting for me to hear you say that it’s addictive. We definitely love the BIT.TRIP games, and are completely stoked that we’ve got so many fans out there.

Our inspiration for the series came from my deep love for Atari 2600 games. I find the blocky style especially exciting when I realize that despite the graphics, there are quite a few 2600 games that are genuinely fun. This idea of genuine fun married to simplistic graphics led us to the series’ art style.


SPOnG: At its core, I guess I would say the BIT.TRIP games are more defined as action games inspired by classic arcade machines. But there's a layer of rhythm action involved too. How difficult was it to try and mash the two together?

Alex Neuse: The difficulty in mashing the two styles together came primarily on the engineering side, rather than the conceptual side. Conceptually speaking, music and rhythm have been part of games for a long time, so whether we know it or not, we think of games from many perspectives—music/rhythm being one of them. Making the BIT.TRIP series a music/rhythm game seemed like a natural fit.

On the engineering side of things, we certainly had a fair share of tasks that related to beat-based gameplay, but since we were focused on a music/rhythm experience from the start, we were able to engineer a system that fit our scope and design without too much trouble.


SPOnG: In the past, you've mentioned different philosophies of Eastern and Western game design - specifically working from the "TV outwards" and the "controller inwards". Could you explain that a bit more?

Alex Neuse: Certainly. I can’t remember who came up with that theory, but it wasn’t me. I once heard a Japanese game developer mention the difference between Western and Eastern philosophies and he said that Japanese developers work from the controller in rather than the other way around. This has stuck with me.

I believe that the best games out there actually make your hands feel good, physically. Not in the sense that your hands are being massaged or anything, but more like your hands themselves are having fun. If the controls work and you don’t have to think about them, that to me is successful control design which helps to immerse the player into the game.

Pulling the player into the television (and therefore into the game) via their hands is an excellent and natural way to get the player involved in a deep way. Because of this idea, we try to adopt the controller-in approach with each of our games.


SPOnG: What were the reasons behind going with WiiWare as the platform for the BIT.TRIP games? Would you consider expanding to the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade or PC platforms?

Alex Neuse: We went with WiiWare for the very same reasons described in the controller-in topic. After prototyping the gameplay for BIT.TRIP BEAT using many different control schemes, we settled on the Wii Remote’s control scheme, because it just felt natural and good.

That being said, while WiiWare is where we got our start, we certainly would love to end up on the other platforms at some point. I wouldn’t be too surprised if you see us on one of those platforms relatively soon. But we don’t have plans to jump from WiiWare to something else. We’d rather be on all platforms if we can manage it.