Siter Skain: Interview with a Japanese Indie Game Developer, Part 1

where we talk about the circle's history, old doujin shops, and creating game engines

Interview with Siter Skain, Part 1
Interview: Douglas Schules
Translation: Douglas Schules and Hugh Wilson Nettelbeck

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Read Part 2

日本語でインタビューを読む

Daedalus Machine
Siter Skain has a long history. According to your website, the group’s first Comiket was C57 back in 1999. Can you tell us a little about the Circle’s background and evolution?

SITER SKAIN
Siter Skain is a group formed by friends during their college days. At the time, it felt more like a bunch of individuals who got together to help each other out rather than a proper circle. As adults, when we completed Kamui, our first game, we formed the circle so that we could participate in Comiket. That’s how we began.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
How did the Circle get its name?
 
SITER SKAIN
It’s derived from the name of a town that appeared in a Tabletop RPG I used to play with friends during college. There was the image that all of the members gathered there, so it was only natural to decide on that name.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
That’s cool. I used to play a few different Tabletop RPGs as well back in high school: D&D, one based on DC superheroes, and one based on TMNT, of all things. What did you play?
 
SITER SKAIN
I think my friend who used to be our game master has played a lot of tabletop RPGs in his time, but actually the only one I’ve ever played is the game he invented: “Tabletalk”. I don’t really know anything about the more famous tabletop RPGs. I think I’m probably a pretty strange case.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
Since Siter Skain was founded, about how many games would you say you’ve developed?
 
SITER SKAIN
We’ve completed three games, and have one in development. Other than that, we have two soundtracks and one book on settings materials. I think that, proportionally, the number of things that we’ve put out compared to how long we’ve been around is low.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
Can you briefly describe a few of them?
 
SITER SKAIN
Kamui, RefleX, and ALLTYNEX Second are vertical scrollers that each have a different game system, but they are games in a series that shares one worldview. Kamui has a low-altitude auto lock system, RefleX has a shield that reflects enemy bullets, and ALLTYNEX Second has a blade used for close combat; the characteristics of the game systems are completely different. What all the games share is the emphasis we put into the game content. The English versions of these three games are sold on Steam by NyuMedia.
 
Currently we’re developing an omnidirectional STG game called “Heavy Dragoon Dragon Arms,” where players control a heavy-type robot.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
Why the variation in the game systems?

SITER SKAIN
The game’s story is connected to the ALLTYNEX series, but when we started we were actually planning to make a standalone title. Our main goal was to make a game that is unique and stands alone in terms of gameplay, regardless of the story. I think we achieved our goal of making a game with lots of unique features, but I’m actually a bit worried that the story is a bit hard to understand because of its connection to previous titles.


Daedalus Machine
In what ways has the indie game scene in Japan changed since Siter Skain has begun developing games?
 
SITER SKAIN
When we began developing back in 1999, it was around the time that homebrew games were finally starting to transition to the Windows game development environment. For about 10 years, there were a lot of shops dealing with doujin software, and at those shops we increased the number of copies we sold by letting them handle it. But still, I think it was a small world where only people who followed these things knew about them. However, in the next 10 years there was a big change in the conditions for games – digital downloading, expansion overseas, indie game development and release by consumers, and so forth – I think that the market, as a whole, has become much bigger. On the other hand, those doujin shops that handled games in the past? Gone.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
I’m not familiar with Japanese doujin shops. Can you give me a little background about them and how they worked? I mean, how common were they and where could you find them? How could people get their games sold there?

SITER SKAIN
I’m not really sure about the origins of doujin stores. Basically, bookstores and other shops that sell computer software started setting aside a portion of their store for enthusiast goods. I think that’s how they started selling doujin games. There were a lot of doujin shops in Japan; most of them were concentrated in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, but there were chains that set up stores all across the country.

Around 2001 on our circle made a request to those doujin stores to carry our games. That could either involve us getting paid as games were sold to customers, or stores buying the games directly for sale, depending on the retailer in question. Unfortunately, around 2010 it started to become impossible for doujin stores to maintain business just by selling doujin games. The popularity of online distribution was on the rise, and as a result, the number of physical retailers that were willing to stock our games dropped significantly.  These days most circles aim to sell their games through Steam instead.


Daedalus Machine
Who are the members of Siter Skain, and what are their roles?
 
SITER SKAIN
Including me, there’re three people. Basically, all the work is completed internally. One person deals completely with programming support (dealing with internal QA).
 
Since I make the things I want to make with the support of the other members, there isn’t a clear division of roles for game development. For example, in Kamui, outside of one part of one picture in the opening and ending, I made it all. In RefleX, I made 80% of the pictures and was in charge of all the music; another member was in charge of the main game. In ALLTYNEX Second, while receiving various help from the programmer, I was in charge of the entire game’s development. I’m making the game currently in development, Heavy Dragoon Dragon Arms, all by myself.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
So Siter Skain makes all its own visual and audio assets, from graphics to score to sound effects. Why did you decide to develop these in-house instead of outsourcing them?
 
SITER SKAIN
We’ve never considered outsourcing those elements of our games. We started out as a group of friends helping each other out. That’s the reason why SITER SKAIN exists today. For elements like music, we really want to create something that reflects our image for the game. That’s why we make everything ourselves.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
What programs do you use to design the graphic and sound assets?

SITER SKAIN
We created the pixel art for Kamui and RefleX using a pixel art editing software that my friend developed.  Since moving towards development of 3D games, we’ve mainly been using Photos[hop and a 3D modelling software called “Metasequoia”.

We’ve been using a pretty old Roland SC-D70 Sound Canvas to create our music.  It’s such an old piece of equipment that the company that made it doesn’t even exist anymore! We’ve definitely been thinking about upgrading to a new model, but we’re already so used to this one, so we just keep using it.
　　
 
Daedalus Machine
What engines have you used to develop your games, and roughly how long did it take to develop them?
 
SITER SKAIN
The game engine is currently completely our own. It’s not that we wanted to create our own engine, but when we started to make games there wasn’t anything good. After our current project is done, we plan to drop our engine and use one like Unity or UE4.
 
The time it takes to develop games can be three years or eight years or whatever, as our real jobs are completely and totally unrelated to making them. Because of work, we sometimes have to completely stop development so we really don’t know the actual time development takes.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
So you made your own engine. That must’ve taken some work, especially to keep it current over the years. What would you say its strengths and limitations were? Why abandon it for Unity or UE4?

SITER SKAIN
The biggest benefit of using our own engine was that we were able to design it to let us make the kinds of games that we wanted to make. If we ever want to add anything new we can freely customize our engine to allow for it. It certainly took a long time to develop though. One of the major limitations of our engine compared to more prominent game engines is the smaller number of functions that are available to us. The engine is limited to the kind of functions that we understood how to implement ourselves. 
 
We’re actually thinking of switching to a pre-existing engine rather than creating our own for our next project. Some of the features we struggled to implement with our last work are standard in Unity and UE4. We’d rather focus on developing the game itself rather than developing our own engine.
 
 
Daedalus Machine
Speaking of Unity and UE4, as long-time developers what do you think the strengths and weaknesses of each engine are? Which would you recommend for beginning developers and why?

SITER SKAIN
Both engines provide all of the basic functions necessary for developing 3D games, which lets developers focus directly on game development from the outset. That’s probably why it’s so easy to develop a prototype using those engines.
 
One of the biggest limitations with working with a pre-existing engine is that it’s much harder to solve problems that arise because of the engine itself. You really need to get familiar with the ins and outs of your chosen engine, or it becomes very difficult to make everything function as intended. 
 
It’s difficult for me to say which is the better engine between UE4 and Unity. If you’re aiming for realistic 3D graphics then UE4 is probably the way to go, but if you’re aiming to make a game that can be played on many different platforms including smartphones, Unity might be the better choice. We haven’t decided which engine we’ll be using for our next project yet.

Continue to Part 2

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