Kotaro Uchikoshi

Kotaro Uchikoshi
Native name 打越 鋼太郎
Born (1973-11-17) November 17, 1973
Higashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Other names Hagane Tsukishio[lower-alpha 1] (pseudonym)[1]
Occupation Game director, planner, scenario writer
Years active 1998–present
Employer KID (1998–2001)
Chunsoft/Spike Chunsoft (2007–)
Notable work Infinity series
Zero Escape series

Kotaro Uchikoshi (Japanese: 打越 鋼太郎 Hepburn: Uchikoshi Kōtarō), born November 17, 1973, is a Japanese video game director and scenario writer. He is known for co-writing the visual novel series Infinity with its director Takumi Nakazawa while working for KID, and directing and writing the visual novel adventure game series Zero Escape at Chunsoft.

Early life

Uchikoshi was born on November 17, 1973, in Higashimurayama, a city in the western part of the Tokyo Metropolis.[1][2] Almost immediately after his birth, he began choking on amniotic fluid, and claims that if his doctor had not patted his back, he would have died. Uchikoshi was also born with torticollis and required surgery when he was three years old.[3] While in middle school, he began reading gamebooks written by Steve Jackson, which led him to become more interested in visual novels and adventure games as opposed to other genres.[4] He studied management engineering in college, but dropped out. After spending a year without a job, Uchikoshi then enrolled in the vocational school Vantan Design Institute, where he studied video game planning, 3D modelling, 2D art, sound, and programming. Vantan was founded as a school for clothes design, and only branched into video game development later; according to Uchikoshi, the teachers were not well versed in this, which led to uninteresting courses and many students dropping out. Eventually, only Uchikoshi and a few others attended classes, which resulted in the teachers being able to better focus and taking care of the smaller group of students who still attended; because of this, Uchikoshi says that he and the other remaining students were able to achieve a higher level of proficiency.[5]

Career

Uchikoshi's first job was at the video game developer KID.

Uchikoshi's first job came in 1998 when he joined the video game development company KID.[5] The company was known for creating bishōjo games, which are visual novels that focused on conversations with attractive girls, as well as video game versions of board games; he originally joined KID because of these board game projects, as he was interested in making simple games that a lot of people would be able to enjoy.[6] His first project at KID however, was designing 3D models for the 1999 action game Pepsiman.[5] Sometime after the release of Pepsiman, the producer at KID asked him to write a scenario for an upcoming bishōjo game. Uchikoshi believes that the reason the producer thought he would be a good scenario writer was because he had seen him writing things such as design documents, and because of his easygoing personality.[6] The first visual novel he worked on was Memories Off in 1999, which was followed by Never 7: The End of Infinity, the first entry in the Infinity series, and Memories Off 2nd in 2000. While writing Never 7: The End of Infinity, Uchikoshi wanted to include science fiction themes, but was instructed by his superiors to instead focus on the relationships between the game's characters.[5]

In 2001, he left KID and became a freelance writer and developer;[7] he did this because he wanted independence, and the ability to work for other companies besides KID.[5] During this time he wrote the visual novel Close To: Inori no Oka in 2001, and the next two Infinity titles, Ever 17: The Out of Infinity in 2002 and Remember 11: The Age of Infinity in 2004. He also wrote two erotic visual novels, the first being a 2003 game which he was uncredited for and whose title he says he does not remember, and the second being Eve: New Generation in 2006. He started doing work for the video game developer Chunsoft in 2004, after they contacted him and asked him to write visual novels for them. According to Chunsoft, they had found success in visual novels, but wanted to "create a new category" that could be received more broadly.[6] He stopped freelancing in 2007, because he had a wife and a daughter at this point and wanted a stable income, and joined Chunsoft.[8][5] There, he planned, wrote, and directed the visual novel-adventure game hybrid series Zero Escape, which consists of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors for Nintendo DS, and Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.[7] The third game in the series, Zero Time Dilemma, was put on hold indefinitely due to low Japanese sales for the previous two games,[9] but in 2015, the project was announced to have been resumed.[10] In November 2014, it was announced that Uchikoshi was the writer for the TV anime series Punch Line,[11] which premiered on April 9, 2015, on Fuji TV's Noitamina block.[12] He also worked on a Punch Line video game, which features different endings from the anime.[13]

Accolades

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward received widespread acclaim, winning GameSpot's "Handheld Game of the Year" award for 2012,[14] and IGN's "Best of 2012 Best 3DS/DS story" award.[15]

Works

Video games

Year Title Role(s) Ref.
1999 Pepsiman 3D modeller [5]
1999 Memories Off Planner, scenario writer [5]
2000 Never 7: The End of Infinity Planner, scenario writer [5]
2000 Memories Off 2nd Planner, scenario writer [5]
2001 Close To: Inori no Oka Scenario writer [16]
2002 Ever 17: The Out of Infinity Planner, scenario writer [5]
2003 Unknown erotic visual novel Scenario writer [5]
2004 Remember 11: The Age of Infinity Planner, scenario writer [5]
2006 Eve: New Generation Planner, scenario writer [5]
2006 Kamaitachi no Yoru Niwango-ban Scenario writer [5]
2008 12Riven: The Psi-Climinal of Integral Planner, scenario writer [5]
2009 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors Planner, director, scenario writer [5]
2012 Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward Planner, director, scenario writer [5]
2013 Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram Scenario writer for one scenario [5]
2016 Punch Line Scenario writer [17]
2016 Zero Time Dilemma Director, scenario writer [18]

Other works

Year Title Media Role(s) Ref.
2015 Punch Line Anime Writer [12]
2015 Punch Line Max Manga Original concept [19]

Notes

  1. ↑ Hagane Tsukishio (槻潮 鋼 Tsukishio Hagane)

References

  1. 1 2 Uchikoshi, Kotaro (May 2, 1998). "プロフィール". Mechb.net. Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  2. ↑ Holmes, Jonathan. "Interview: Kotaro Uchikoshi". NF Magazine. No. 22. NF Publishing. pp. 66–67.
  3. ↑ Holmes, Jonathan (May 30, 2016). "Zero Time Dilemma's creator likes to joke about being a failure in bed". Destructoid. Modern Method. Archived from the original on August 28, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
  4. ↑ Drake, Audrey (April 22, 2013). "Down The Rabbit Hole: The Narritive Genius Of Virtue's Last Reward". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on March 24, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Szczepaniak, John (August 11, 2014). The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers. 1. SMG Szczepaniak. pp. 298–313. ISBN 978-0992926007.
  6. 1 2 3 Parish, Jeremy (February 13, 2014). "Inside the Genesis of Virtue's Last Reward and the Challenges of Visual Novels". USgamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on May 14, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  7. 1 2 Nutt, Christian (January 11, 2013). "The Storytelling Secrets of Virtue's Last Reward". Gamasutra. UBM plc. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  8. ↑ Spencer (September 3, 2010). "999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors Interview Gets Philosophical, Then Personal". Siliconera. Archived from the original on December 29, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  9. ↑ Smith, Carly (February 14, 2014). "Zero Escape Conclusion Put on Hold Indefinitely". The Escapist. Defy Media. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  10. ↑ Sarkar, Samit (July 6, 2015). "Zero Escape 3 coming to Vita and 3DS next summer". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved August 30, 2016.
  11. ↑ "Noitamina announces Punch Line original anime". Anime News Network. November 27, 2014. Archived from the original on July 15, 2016. Retrieved November 27, 2014.
  12. 1 2 "Crunchyroll to Stream Noitamina's Punch Line Anime". Anime News Network. April 2, 2015. Archived from the original on July 10, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  13. ↑ "【先出し週刊ファミ通】ゲーム版『パンチライン』PS Vita、PS4で発売決定！　テレビアニメ版とは異なる結末に！？（2015年6月25日発売号）". Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. June 23, 2015. Archived from the original on January 13, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  14. ↑ Bauman, Andy (December 17, 2012). "Handheld Game of the Year: The Winner". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Best 3DS/DS Story – Best of 2012". IGN. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on November 30, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2016.
  16. ↑ KID (2001). Close To: Inori no Oka. Level/area: Credits.
  17. ↑ Romano, Sal (January 8, 2016). "Punch Line game launches April 28 in Japan". Gematsu. Archived from the original on August 11, 2016. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
  18. ↑ Allegra, Frank (2015-10-31). "Zero Escape 3 has a new, official name". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 2015-11-29. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
  19. ↑ "Punch Line TV Anime Gets Manga This Fall". Anime News Network. August 8, 2015. Archived from the original on July 10, 2016. Retrieved August 8, 2015.

External links

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