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Tech

'Galak-Z' Is an Explosion Made of Heavy Duty Anime Nostalgia

I certainly met my maker a few times during my sit-down with the game—or if not death, a constant, shieldless state of peril, my pilot shrieking in wailed anime agony.
​Images: 17-Bit

"This is my happy place, this is my happy face, this is my happy song," sang game maker Jake Kazdal while scanning the PC Engine cartridges at Super Potato, a chain of retro game stores in Japan. It was hard to tell if he was quoting Cannibal! The Musical or the ditty was just a steam valve of earnest glee as he pawed through the vintage games. Considering his upcoming game Galak-Z is billed as "a love letter" on its own site, an homage to the country he's relocated to, there's nothing facetious about Kazdal's outspoken love for Japanese geekdom.

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Galak-Z is a hybrid, a cross between a "shoot 'em up" and a roguelike—the latter, a turn-based game with a lot of random elements. You play as a scrappy, shouty fighter pilot, the last of his fleet after an ambush. Your task is to fly through space, scavenge for parts and supplies to repair the mothership, and get back to Earth in time to warn those at home of an incoming invasion. Standing in your way are hostile space bugs, asteroids, blue-skinned imperial pricks (a space anime staple), pirates, and the fact you're a total rookie.

I certainly met my maker a few times during my sit-down with the game—or if not death, a constant, shieldless state of peril, my pilot shrieking in wailed anime agony. Taking out regular enemy starship troopers was fine. You can hear them a mile away due to their nasally trash talk. But my trigger finger was too itchy with the missiles, forcing me to bob behind space junk during turret encounters, and on multiple occasions I fell for the same gold-baiting booby trap because I'm apparently a video game magpie. But dying, and learning from your deaths, is all part of the fun of the recent roguelike craze.

Kazdal calls roguelikes the Australia of video games, because everything is out to kill you. He thinks developers, particularly indie developers, like working on roguelikes because you can get infinite content with limited assets, and it's nice not to go mad with having to replay the same level you're working on.

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But Kazdal's reason for pursuing Galak-Z, set to be released on PC, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita, wasn't just to get in on a hot genre; it began as an homage to explosion effects—the way he thinks they're supposed to look, anyway.

"I hate 3D-rendered explosions," said Kazdal. "I think they're the dumbest thing in the world. I hate them. I've always hated them. I love hand drawn stuff more than 3D anything. My first-thought for this game, first thing, was that I wanted something with hand drawn anime explosions."

His main point of reference for blast graphics is Macross, the generation-spanning animated space opera. "They don't really make cool anime like that anymore," said Kazdal. "Everything's weird now. I want to make this badass space drama, based directly on my formative years. Once we started rolling it was easy to keep rolling."

A love of Macross is just one of the many reasons why Kazdal has always been drawn to Japan. "I used to wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning to watch Star Blazers," said Kazdal, referring to the American adaptation of Japanese animated show Space Battleship Yamato. "It was actually on Canadian TV, but we got it in Washington State, on KVOS 12. I loved it. I loved Star Blazers, I loved Robotech, I loved Voltron."

Kazdal also grew up surrounded by arcade games. His father owned a pizza parlour with its own game gallery, and when his parents couldn't arrange for a babysitter, a cup of quarters sufficed. He applied to work at Nintendo before he applied for a driver's license—16 being the minimum age for a game tester or hotline staff—and he got the gig. A few years after, in 1993, he moved to Japan for the first time. He was still 19.

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He's moved between America and Japan a few times now, working on games throughout. But this is his first time coming to Japan with his own studio, 17-Bit—not to mention a family. His two kids have already nailed Japanese language, and picked up the national boyhood pastime of bug catching.

Relocating a studio, especially in the middle of a project, isn't easy. 17-Bit's first game, Skulls of the Shogun, made its Japanese influence obvious in the title, but was made stateside. Now, with only one other team member in his current Kyoto office, Kazdal has to coordinate with a crew that's time zones apart—some behind him by over half a day. Q-Games, also expats and creators of the PixelJunk series, are just around the corner, but as far as staff goes Kazdal is nearly alone in Kyoto.

Despite being in Japan, it's unlikely Kazdal's game will see a huge amount of success there. Japanese players have always had niche interests, but the indie and alternative gaming scene hasn't really taken hold the way it has in the West. Home consoles appear to be losing ground to portable games, as well: According to a Famitsu report, eight of the top 10 selling games in Japan last year were on 3DS, including Pokémon, Yokai Watch, and Monster Hunter titles.

"Maybe this game will appeal to people tired of the same stuff," said Kazdal, "Tekken 17 and other stuff that just feel same-y. But I guess I'm mostly making this for westerners. Personally, I just like living in Kyoto. The culture's amazing. Nature is fantastic. It's a great place for my kids to grow up."

It's one thing to make a game based on nostalgia, but it's another thing to haul your operation across the planet to immerse yourself in the culture and country on which your nostalgia is based. Kazdal believes that making his studio more international is essential for the kinds of games he'll be directing.

It's a sort of necessity that Galak-Z will be made here, in his happy destined home, along with his next projects—which, judging by the patterns so far, will have a hefty Japanese influence too. Local artists getting on board would bridge Galak-Z, and whatever otaku thing that's next, between homage and authentic.