Famicom Detective Club | Emio Devs on Emio – The Smiling Man Being an “Interactive Drama”

With Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club being Nintendo’s big August release for this year, Nintendo has opted to make Emio – The Smiling Man their next covered game, as part of their “Ask the Developer” interview series. Across three chapters, many questions were asked of Producer, Yoshio Sakamoto and Assistant Producer, Kaori Miyachi.

When talking about Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club’s genre, the term “Interactive Drama” came up. Here’s Sakamoto’s and Miyachi’s responses in full:

Emio Devs on Emio – The Smiling Man Being an “Interactive Drama”:

Yoshio Sakamoto: In terms of genre, it’s an adventure game, but based on what you do, it doesn’t simply fit into the scope of what a game is. And since simply calling it a game didn’t feel right, I thought it would be a good idea to give it its own genre – “interactive drama”.

Kaori Miyachi: Like an actual drama, the storyline is the same for everyone… But we wanted players to feel as though they’re the ones in that story talking to the characters in front of them. So, we discussed how “interactive drama” makes sense, since players’ feelings affect the actions they take, and those actions influence the responses they get.

Just the other day, Sakamoto-san and I were talking about how conversations are like living things. They grow in unexpected ways, depending on your exact word choice at any given moment. There are stories scattered throughout this game that can only be heard at specific times. The same is true of real life, right?

There are lines you won’t hear and things you won’t come into contact with if you’re just playing through the game as fast as possible. So I encourage players to try out lots of different things and ask themselves, “If I ask this question right this moment, what kind of response will I get?” or, “What would happen if I looked into this now?”.

For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 12, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club – Chapter 3.

Ask the Developer | Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Participating Developers)

• Yoshio Sakamoto | Producer
• Kaori Miyachi | Assistant Producer