Chibi-Robo! – 2005 Developer Interview

Kenichi Nishi - Director
Kiyoko Yokote - Assistant Director
Tooru Hashimoto - Balancing
Hirofumi Taniguchi - Composer

How Dad and Mom Met

Nishi: Dad had been in bands since high school, and after graduating college, he formed a group called "Rainbow Water." Meanwhile, Mom, five years younger, started following Rainbow Water around when she was twenty. Her crush was actually the male vocalist. But Mom got dumped by that guy, so she ended up hooking up with Dad, who was the drummer. That's how Jenny was born. By the way, Dad was 33 and Mom was 28.

The developer of Chibi-Robo is Japanese-American.

Nishi: The person who developed Chibi-Robo and Giga-Robo is George Ebisu, a Japanese-American working at the high-tech company Orange. In America, he's known as Dr. Joy Ebisu. Hmmm… isn't this info kind of irrelevant? (laugh) Anyway, Dr. Ebisu is a legendary researcher, and Dad admired him so much that he applied to Orange, but unfortunately, he didn't get in. So he joined rival company Grape Inc. and created Spider, a robot meant to be Chibi-Robo's friend. But Grape Inc.'s executives wanted to destroy the wildly popular Chibi-Robo, so they reprogrammed Spider to be evil and released it. As a father, he couldn't tolerate that, got into a fight with the company, and ended up refusing to go to work.

Mom's Feelings Toward Dad

Nishi: Of course, sometimes I feel like saying, "What's wrong with you!? Not working, just buying toys, and lounging around the house all day!" Plus, the electric bill keeps going up, and the bills keep coming in… We didn't mention it in the game, but Mom definitely has a secret savings. That's how the family has been scraping by, on Mom's stash. And that's where the game starts: life is getting tough, and Mom is starting to get irritable.

Why does Jenny speak Frog Language...?

Nishi: One day, Jenny, who is always watching TV, got scolded by her Mom. Being eight years old and at a sensitive age, Jenny stopped talking altogether to express her "I hate Mom" feelings. The whole "frog curse" thing? She saw a scene on TV where a witch cast a spell and just convinced herself it happened. That's why she sometimes slips and speaks normally in her lines.

At work, we call her "Fushigi-chan" ("Weirdo"). (laughs) We actually made the anime that influenced Jenny, but in the end, it didn't make it into the game.

Jenny's Room

Yokote: I did consider a room filled with frogs, but it felt too over-the-top, so I changed it. I thought tomatoes might be cute too, but then she'd be the "Tomato Princess," and that's too close to a certain older game. (laughs) So I settled on an interior themed around her bear, Sunshine.

The Origin of Sanpuu's Name

Yokote: When you think of teddy bears, "Pooh-san" is the first thing comes to mind, right? Pooh-sanPooh-sanPooh-san…just repeating it over and over to myself like that, I came up with Sanpuu. (laughs)

Chibi-Robo without Chibi-Robo?!

Nishi: Originally, Chibi-Robo was being developed by a different team. Due to various circumstances, however, Miyamoto came to us and asked if we wanted to make it. That's how we got involved.

Chibi-Robo is an incredibly cute character. Normally I would never touch a character like that. It's almost annoyingly cute, you know, so I kept coming up with weird ideas in an attempt to subvert that. Like making a game about the process of completing Chibi-Robo… in total, I came up with about five ideas, and none of them featured the Chibi-Robo character at all. (laughs) Nintendo said "no way" and scrapped them all. (laugh)

Chibi-Robo isn't just cute!

Nishi: There are a ton of ways to make a cute little robot look even cuter. For example, if you make it tilt its head cutely and strike a "huh?" pose, it's guaranteed to be adorable. But some people might find that too precious and actually get turned off. So I avoid those kinds of movements as much as possible. But then, just for fun, I tried putting a costume on it, and man, it was ridiculously cute. Even a grinch like myself couldn't help but say "ooo, this could be cute!" (laugh)

But if we just kept pushing the cute angle without any twists, it would be too one-dimensional. So I wanted to give this little guy a surprising fate, or a dilemma of some sort. I came up with the idea that the harder he works for his family, the more electricity he consumes, putting a strain on the household finances. That's when Chibi-Robo became someone I could love.

The Message Behind Chibi-Robo

Nishi: We're currently burning through Earth's energy resources like oil, and it's a foregone conclusion that these will eventually run out. That's where "energy conservation" initiatives come in, but ultimately that's just kicking the can down the road.

Of course, things like adjusting our air conditioner settings or initiatives like Cool Biz are important, but they can't possibly sustain the current population of 6.4 billion. Honestly, unless aliens come and give us infinite energy, it's hopeless… But even playing games uses electricity, so if we're determined to save energy, it's hard to avoid the conclusion of "don't play games." It even leads to "Don't make games"… We hate that idea, so this game contains a cry from the soul: we want the aliens to come!!!

The Reason for Introducing Giga-Robo

Nishi: Giga-Robo was created as a contrast with Chibi-Robo. Just like cell phones, as time goes by and technology progresses, performance improves and devices get smaller. Power consumption also decreases. Chibi-Robo, using only one-thousandth the electricity of Giga-Robo, became hugely popular. But since it sold a thousand times more, the total power consumption became enormous. Humans keep repeating this endless cycle, and Giga-Robo is there to underline the question "what are we going to do about it?"

Is the voice we hear in the basement Giga-Robo's?

Nishi: It's not a voice so much as a cry of pain, something that can only be heard between robots. Thus the Sanderson family cannot hear it.

Chibi-Robo's Dilemma

Nishi: Right at the very end of the development, we had a discussion with Nintendo. There was a proposal that Chibi-Robo's electricity costs should be paid from the money he saved up. While many people thought this would add a bit of tension to the game and make it more interesting, I absolutely hated the idea. I felt that Chibi-Robo's dilemma--that the harder he worked, the more trouble he caused his family--was absolutely essential to this game.

Putting the Cord on his Head

Nishi: There was an illustration from the original Bandai development that showed Chibi-Robo carrying the cord on his head, and Miyamoto had said he liked that image. So I asked him how he wanted us to incorporate it into the game, and he said "Just make it cute." (laughs) Ultimately we used it for his running animation.

Chibi-Robo has a girlfriend?!

Nishi: At one point in the development we had a girl Chibi-Robo, called Chibi-Robo-Ko, with pigtails and ribbons in her hair. (laughs) She had a female mouth, and when Chibi-Robo combined with her, her face would blush a little. (laughs) Unfortunately this got cut.

The Origin of Tao's Name

Nishi: This is the name of my actual dog. He has black and white fur on opposite sides of his face, with black whiskers growing from the white areas and white whiskers from the black areas. I named him after the Tao symbol from Taoism. He was originally called Ussy, though. (laugh). He's come over from "moon" to appear in my game.

Lessons from Nintendo

Nishi: There are three main lessons that Nintendo producer Kensuke Tanabe instilled in me. The first is ensuring the game remains playable after the ending. This stems from lessons learned with our previous title, Giftpia. Second, increase player freedom. He was very insistent about the design of the item system. Third, focus on tactile feel. He pointed out that since simply talking to characters in Giftpia felt so satisfying, adding climbing and descending to Chibi-Robo would make it even better. He also emphasized making it enjoyable for young children, even if all they're doing is walking around or cleaning the floor.

The Reason for Chibi-Door

Nishi: The reason is simple: Tanabe asked me to put it in. (laughs) I get that having Chibi-Doors scattered around the room makes the game more fun… but personally, I didn't want players to be left puzzling about who made these doors and for what purpose.

But Tanabe said, "Just trust me and put it in." (laughs) He said, "If it's unpopular, we'll remove it," so I tried making one… and it turned out to be really fun to play with. (laughs) Having a Chibi Door near the ceiling shows you can climb up to it, so in that sense, I'm glad we kept it. But I really wanted to give it a reason to be there! (laugh)

Why would Telly sing?

Nishi: He's doing his best to support Chibi-Robo, but I figured he must have dreams of his own too. At meals he says "I don't have a mouth…", but he talks just fine! So I figured he could sing too. (laugh)

Why does the washpan fall on Chibi-Robo?

Nishi: I gave up trying to figure out why. (laughs) We kind of went with the idea that Mr. Prongs did it in secret… or something like that… again Tanabe said, "Just trust me." (laughs). I didn't want to use such a cliché gag, but once we made it, even our composer Hirofumi Taniguchi, who was really critical of it, came around…

Yokote: He was laughing hysterically when it hit the basin. (laughs)

Hashimoto: Initially, it wasn't decided that it would fall at the outlet. It was like, "now where should we drop this…" (laughs) But my 4-year-old kid does a "Fall! Fall! Fall!" chant every time I plug it in to charge. (laughs)

The GameCube Mic

Nishi: President Iwata gave the order himself to make Chibi-Robo compatible with the GameCube mic. (laughs) He said it would make Mario Party 6 owners happy. I wanted to add a minigame if time allowed, but if we went overboard, people without a microphone would get bored. So we kept it simple. If you shout "Chibi-Robo!" into the mic, he turns to face you. His reaction changes in three stages depending on how loud you shout, so give it a try.

Sound Effects

Taniguchi: I had been involved with the sound for Chibi-Robo since the original Bandai version. Back then, there were a lot of robotic, clanking sounds—like "clink, clank" when his joints moved. Miyamoto told me, "I want you to think of something different," so we revisited it and tried various approaches. We decided to use musical scales. Furthermore, we matched the walking tempo with the BGM tempo. The BGM consists of rhythm and backing, while the walking sound is the melody. When you run with the cord tail on your head, the song's pitch also speeds up.

Taniguchi the Voice Actor

Nishi: Hey Taniguchi, try doing Tonpie's voice now!

Taniguchi: Seriously? Ah, this is embarrassing. (laughs) (puts finger to lips) "Too-ee, Too-ee". (laughs) My voice is actually in quite a bit of Chibi-Robo. I processed it and used it for several other characters as well. I also recorded Gicchoman's (Space Hunter Drake) song at the office…

Nishi: When I came in on Sunday, he was there singing "shining on black iron~" all by himself. (laughs) So I went over to his seat, and he was like, "Whoa! I didn't know you were here!?", totally surprised. He kept saying how embarassed he was, so I told him, "Hey, this is way more embarrassing for me." (laughs)

Taniguchi: I really didn't want people to hear me. (laughs)

Hashimoto: That's why you recorded the song after everyone else had left (laughs)

Taniguchi: But there's always someone trying to take a power nap and keep working late. So I told them, "if you're just going to sleep, you might as well go home early!" (laughs)

Chibi-Robo House's Computer Voice

Nishi: Since it's a computer, just making it go "bleep bloop" would have been fine, but that's boring. So I jokingly programmed that "Welcome~" and it ended up fitting the melody. Then, when I observed the staff's reactions in secret, someone said, "hey, didn't it just say ‘Welcome~’?" I thought it was nice that some people noticed. So I made it say "We look forward to your next visit~" when it ends, and "Thank you~" when it does something. It might be hard to understand because it talks fast.

Backyard Sound Effects

Taniguchi: There are birds, and cars too. There are several types of cars, including sedans and trucks. If you listen on stereo, you can hear them moving left and right. There's also new construction going on in the neighborhood. You might hear the whine of an electric saw, followed by the thud-thud-thud of a hammer. In the distance, you can hear the neighbors mowing their lawn. Then after a while, they start sweeping with a broom, making that swish-swish sound.

Hashimoto: It's not just ordinary background music; it's the sounds of daily life, so it really gives you that sense of stepping outside your house.

Taniguchi: I made so many sounds for the backyard that the data storage is completely full. (laugh)

Sound effect for scrubbing the floor

Taniguchi: Honestly, I had planned to replace the sound of scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush later. I just strummed a guitar to make a rough melody. But it ended up surviving in the final version (laughs). I thought if we used an actual scrubbing sound like "shh-shh," it would make the cleaning feel like hard labor.

Nishi: A lot of people said that once they heard that sound during cleaning, they knew Chibi-Robo was going to be great. Even the folks at Nintendo said the cleaning alone is really fun.

Message from Toru Hashimoto

I was involved in the production of Chibi-Robo, in the role of tuning.

Typically, game tuning involves small suggestions to improve the game's quality. Things like "if we change this part here, it'll be more fun." But with Chibi-Robo, we went way beyond that (laughs). Take events, for example. For last year's "Nintendo World" event held in five cities across Japan, we first made a booklet and T-shirts. Not satisfied with just that, we ended up going to every venue to distribute the booklets ourselves.

What motivated us to do all that…? I think it's the sheer brilliance of the Chibi-Robo project itself, combined with the incredible dedication of the development team, Skip Ltd., led by Mr. Nishi. It's a testament of sorts to what a great project and team this is. We want as many people as possible to see this game, to play it, and to take home that feeling of happiness. That's why we feel this way.

I see Chibi-Robo as a "digital picture book." At first glance, it looks like a game for kids. Picking up rubbish, cleaning up messes… Of course, that alone is plenty of fun, but the individual episodes with family and toys are actually really deep. That's what really gets you. I almost cried during the ending (apparently I did cry…). Enjoy the story like reading a picture book, and when you get tired of reading, maybe do a little cleaning. (laugh) That kind of play is part of what makes Chibi-Robo great. I say this not as someone involved, but as a player myself.

Thank you Skip and everyone for creating a game I truly find wonderful. I'll treasure it forever. (laugh)

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