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 the horror and psychological fear aspect of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club, they gave the following responses:
Emio Devs on Famicom Detective Club at its Core:
Yoshio Sakamoto: Even when writing the plot, I try to develop story events while keeping in mind how exactly they’ll be expressed. Once the storyline was set, the next step was to buy a type of wooden doll used for drawing and put it in different poses so that I could create an animatic, or animated storyboard, using various images as backgrounds. Although I’m an art college graduate, I can’t actually draw… So it took a lot of effort, but that’s how I conveyed what I had in mind.
Kaori Miyachi: I was very grateful to Sakamoto-san for showing us the image he had in his mind in a way that we could understand at a glance. I could immediately grasp what he wanted to convey.
Yoshio Sakamoto: In terms of how we direct stories in the Famicom Detective Club series, we always ensure that the killers’ thoughts are also fully portrayed. The stories are never about people who kill for no reason. We’re always careful to depict the background and state of mind that have driven them to kill. This changes how players view the story.
I personally like scary stories, but I don’t like gory depictions of blood splattering about. I find a steady buildup of blood-chilling, unspeakable dread far more interesting. There are scenes where we needed to show blood to fit our intended direction, but I have no intention of making brutality the main focus.
Kaori Miyachi: That’s one of the specific points that Sakamoto-san would never compromise on. I think there are various ways to portray horror, and it wasn’t that we wanted to include a lot of gory scenes. If anything, we both agreed it’d be better to leave room for players’ imagination rather than directly depicting such brutal scenes.
Yoshio Sakamoto: That’s not only for ethical reasons, but also because what I’ve been emphasising in the Famicom Detective Club series is giving players a sense of psychological fear by depicting an event that makes them think it could happen to them. By depicting that fear through careful incorporation of cinematic expressions and choosing the right words, pacing, and music, we managed to develop this game all while maintaining the unique atmosphere of the Famicom Detective Club series.
For the full interview, why not click here to check out Ask the Developer Vol. 12, Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club – Chapter 2.
Ask the Developer | Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club (Participating Developers)
- Yoshio Sakamoto | Producer
- Kaori Miyachi | Assistant Producer
