Mojib-Ribbon "Unveiling Tea Party"

## Overview

On October 9th, 2003, a tea party was held in the Yasushi Gallery in Tokyo by SCEJ to unveil the game Mojib-Ribbon. Steamed buns, maple and tea were given out, and the people there were given the opportunity to play both Mojib-Ribbon and Vib-Ribbon, and to see what Masaya Matsuura and Seiko Ito had to say about the game. Kiri Matsuura also appeared and drew sumi-e art of Mojibri.

## Speech

According to Mr. Matsuura, it took three and a half years from the time he came up with the idea of "something like this. In fact, we introduced it once in our magazine when it was exhibited at the Game Developers Conference a year and a half ago. If you look at the screenshots from that time, you'll see that it looks much the same as it does now. The production of the game started two years before that, so it must have been quite a difficult production.

　When asked, "Why rap? I thought it would be interesting to hear the "voices" when they pressed the buttons and came back. It has a rhythm and a meaning. For "PaRappa the Rapper," I used English, but I wanted to use Japanese because it is the language we use everyday and I wanted to grasp the meaning. But when you're doing things on a computer, Japanese is hard to handle. But someone has to do it," and so the production began.

　The reason for this was the research of two basic technologies (of course, there were probably other difficulties as well). One was speech synthesis, and the other was a Japanese input system. The first was speech synthesis, and the second was a Japanese input system, which was very difficult because it wrapped the input text with voice. The basic principle of text-to-speech is that the smoothness of a speech synthesizer is determined by how finely it can calculate the data between successive words as they transition. In other words, there is a huge amount of data processing involved, and even the PlayStation 2 could not keep up with the processing speed. In the case of "Mojib Ribbon," they had to break the song after two bars and calculate the next data in the background.

　There was a lot of hard work involved, but during the development process, Matsuura was convinced that he could do it when he inputted a lyric from a rapper in the "Mojib Ribbon" system, and it turned out to be the same as what the rapper was singing.

　As for the other aspect of Japanese input, Mr. Matsuura was adamant that the keyboard input, which has been used by many, was "impossible. This led to the development of a new interface, and an input method using the two analog sticks as shown above was devised.

　Once the research on the basic technology had been completed, it was time to ask Mr. Seiko Ito for a job. Mr. Seiko Ito commented on the creation of the game, "Japanese has many homonyms, so I was careful not to misunderstand them. Since kanji cannot be used in the game, the text had to be understood before and after. In addition, it has to rhyme. I was also worried about whether the player's understanding would be able to keep up with the flow of the text. Mr. Matsuura responded by saying, "It depends on the player's Japanese ability.

The reason why I asked Mr. Ito for the scenario is that "Game work is a work that has many restrictions and stress builds up. I think that he is a person who can withstand the load and can write interesting stories. I asked him to write a wonderful story. " In response, Mr. Ito commented, "I like trying to deal with things that have many hurdles. I enjoyed working very much." Regarding the character limit and content of the recorded rap story, it seems that it went smoothly without any major problems.

　In addition, Mr. Matsuura said that he had a hard time adjusting the wording and pronunciation without discomfort in developing this work, saying, "We paid attention to very small details such as nuances that can not be conveyed by letters alone. I'm making it. "

　Finally, Mr. Matsuura described this work as "a rugged game that doesn't look gorgeous, but puts a lot of effort into the basics." Mr. Ito said, "In the game genre, it is" rhythm action ", but it is equipped with a system that has various possibilities such as character input method using sticks and voice synthesis. Not to mention game lovers, the future I think it's an irresistible work for those who like the atmosphere that has the potential of, and that something amazing will happen. " I am very much looking forward to the release of "Mojib-Ribbon," which is equipped with the latest technology that can be used not only for games but also for other genres.

There is also a detailed system to swallow the differences between players.

　However, Mr. Matsuura thought that it must be possible to rap not only fixed phrases, but also phrases that users input by themselves. At this time, there is a function that automatically raps the text that is entered, but there is also a function that allows the user to set the accent in detail. You can also add triplets and rests to create pauses and rhymes.

　This feature was initially opposed by the development team. At first, the development team was opposed to this feature, because they felt that it would be "regressive" (in terms of the software's functionality) to have the user set up a feature that automatically raps.

　Regarding this, Mr. Matsuura said, "There are many words in Japanese that we do not know. This is to accommodate such words," he said. When we use words to express our feelings, the meaning of the same word changes depending on the intonation and the rise and fall of the end of the word. In addition, there are dialects, so the function was included to flexibly respond to words.

　Mr. Seiko Ito said, "There are times when you can't convey your feelings in writing, and expressions such as "(laugh)" appear to fill in the gaps. To make up for this frustration, I have wondered if it would be possible to create an interface where the size of the characters changes depending on how hard you hit the keyboard. Mr. Matsuura was wondering the same thing, and this system is the result.

Mr. Seiko Ito: "There is no challenge in games".

　Mr. Matsuura said of "Mojib Ribbon", "I talked about difficult things, but the game is easy. This game is a rugged game. What he meant was, "Today's games have great graphics and movement. For "Mojib Ribbon," I spent a lot of time developing the basic technology, but I didn't pay that much attention to the appearance.

　In response, Seiko Ito said, "A lot of amazing technology is packed into one game. I think it's good for people who like the possibilities of the future. I can feel the potential," he said, adding, "In this day and age, I don't think it's good to have a completed work. He continued, "In this day and age, I don't think it's good to have a finished work of art; it's better to have an unfinished work that users can get involved in and enjoy in ways that the creators can't imagine.

"I'm not good at communicating something with just letters, such as e-mail. I thought it would be easier to convey details such as nuances when the sound was heard," said Matsuura.

Mr. Ito commented on the recorded story, "Because it is Japanese rap, I wrote the scenario with an emphasis on the fun of rhyming in Japanese and the fun of the story."

　Finally, Mr. Matsuura said, "Music production is being replaced by digital (software), but there is no software that can fundamentally change the way we think about music production. In that sense, I feel that we are regressing with the shift to digital. In that sense, there is no point in creating software unless we can create software that will cause structural changes," he said strongly, appealing to the innovative nature of "Mojib Ribbon.

　In response, Seiko Ito said, "I feel that games these days are stagnant. We need more challenging games like this.