Interviews// CAVE: Yukihiro Masaki

It’s clear that online portal CAVE WORLD benefits from Masaki’s guidance - in our presence he’s laid back, friendly and as bubbly as his DoDonPachi Resurrection iPhone soundtrack. This affable personality is translated well into the official CAVE blog that he helps maintain, and this direct communication with the studio’s fans is something that the producer relishes.

“I’m really happy to be able to keep in touch with our foreign users, in particular,” he says with a grin. “Before, CAVE wasn’t really able to get much information from non-Japanese users, but with CAVE WORLD and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, it is easier for us to have a conversation and hopefully using the knowledge we get to add some spice to our future games.”

This response naturally lead me to enquire about the amount of games that will be released via the portal in the near future. While it seems that CAVE has no plans to cease its rise in the mobile world, it is taking a slow and steady approach. One game, Bug Princess, is on track to be released on the iTunes Store before the year is out, while one more is planned for the beginning of next year.

“The name of the other game? Er...” Masaki suddenly pauses, laughs and winces ever so slightly. “All I can say is that our long-time fans will be happy with this upcoming game. And I personally am happy it’s coming out too!”

One game that might be getting an iPhone adaptation is Akai Katana Shin, which is heading for an Xbox 360 and PlayStation Vita release early next year. “We’re currently investigating that one. We’re looking at data from users playing Deathsmiles right now, and seeing how that title is working out first.” Which makes sense, as the gothic shooter could set a precedent for how CAVE develops horizontal bullet hell games in the future.

“Our idea is to manipulate the gameplay elements we’ve adapted into Deathsmiles into any possible port of Akai Katana,” Masaki adds. “But we’re not entirely sure yet on that one.” I can imagine that CAVE probably wants to get the home console versions sorted out first before worrying about a mobile port.

With CAVE generating a lot of attention for itself with its mobile gaming strategy, does CAVE WORLD represent the future of the company? “It’s one of our futures, I think, but not everything is concentrated there. We have arcade games, Xbox 360 titles, online games, and we’ve recently started exploring social games on Facebook too. We see a chance in developing for any platform that has a large amount of users.” Masaki refers to a Facebook title developed by another CAVE department called Derby Classics, and said that in the future the company may make more games for the platform.

I took the opportunity at the end of the interview to ask how Masaki feels about the studio’s growing fanbase in the West. It seems that the company have some very big ideas. “We understand that we are getting a lot of attention and gratitude from international users. We really want to do something big with them and we’re doing our best to follow through on that. We had an idea to stage a big convention, like Apple does with its WorldWide Developer Conference, and just have a big shooting tournament. Unfortunately that didn’t come to pass in the end.

“But maybe in the future we will start finding more ideas to service our fans overseas. My main goal is to figure out how to show respect to all the foreign users that have been playing our games in the past. It’s a big passion of mine. I want more users to understand about CAVE itself, not only through the gaming but as a company and what our philosophy is,” Masaki exclaimed, adding with a big laugh, “I’m always willing to go to your place and showcase things, so please invite me!”

You heard the man - somebody get on that.