THE MAKING OF LUMINES

FOR OVER 20 YEARS, TETSUYA MIZUGUCHI HAS CHASED THE DREAM OF SYNESTHETIC GAMING WITH SUCH TITLES AS REZ, CHILD OF EDEN, TETRIS EFFECT AND LUMINES. WITH LUMINES ARISE JUST WEEKS AWAY, WE TALK TO THE LEGENDARY GAME CREATOR ABOUT THE MAKING OF HIS ORIGINAL MUSICAL PUZZLER

- JAMES TOCCHIO

From his very first experience with videogames, playing the black-and-white Pong at a friend's house, Tetsuya Mizuguchi has always believed in the power of games to bring joy in ways unmatched by other media. “The gaming industry was just beginning,” Mizuguchi tells us. He's speaking with us via video call from somewhere in Japan. While it's afternoon for him, our local time is fast approaching midnight yet we're happily sacrificing sleep to speak with the legendary games creator. “I studied media aesthetics,” he says, “and I could foresee a future in which 3D technology will come, and real-time computer graphics, and maybe even a virtual reality type of technology, and I thought videogames might be an amazing new form, a new media, a very experiential medium.”

During and after university, this nascent feeling that games were the new media was bolstered by a handful of formative experiences. The Bitmap Brothers' Xenon 2 shaped Mizuguchi's belief that games, like the music videos of the Eighties which he so loved, could be a new vehicle for music and art. At the same time, the game centers of Japan hinted at a future in which games weren't just an audiovisual medium but could provide a fully immersive multi-sensory experience.

Sega's R360, an arcade cabinet from 1990, epitomised this idea. This unusual and innovative sit-down machine featured a ball-shaped cockpit which could rotate 360 degrees, and its four-point safety harness allowed players to strap in and rotate completely upside down to match the onscreen action. This motion simulator, paired with the cabinet's giant video screen and raucous sound system, brought incredible immersion to Sega's flight sim and racing games. Mizuguchi was impressed, telling us, “All the coolest arcade cabinets had the Sega logo, so I wanted to work with Sega.”