Girl’s Garden – 2002 Developer Interview

―Girl's Garden was the first game you programmed after joining Sega, but what kind of games had you made before that? In high school, for example.

Naka: Before joining Sega, I owned an NEC PC-8001 computer, and in my high school computer class I used an MZ-80/c. At school I only programmed in BASIC, but at home I used BASIC and machine language to make games and demos. At the time, I was an anime fan, so I did things like making Lum-chan dance on the screen, and animating Macross stuff. I also liked Pengo, so I programmed a version of that too.

I bought a floppy drive for that purpose and worked on it for a long time, but in the end I couldn't finish it in time… the opening demo and the other individual parts of the game were done, I just hadn't put everything together. I also needed to fine-tune the difficulty. If I'd had just a few more days I could have completed it. Perhaps if I'd finished it and applied to Enix, I might have ended up working on Dragon Quest. (laughs)

―So you taught yourself how to program?

Naka: When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a part-time job at a company called Nippon Microcomputer Gakuin, where my work involved porting programs to multiple platforms: FM-7, Pasopia 7, Multi 16, X-1, MSX, PC-8001, PC-88, PC-98… maybe 15 different models. I ported about 100 games in my time there, using BASIC for the basics, and writing assembler only for the display part to speed it up.

Nishioka-san was famous for his "One Key Program" column in ASCII and had already created about 500 short games when I met him. He was like a mentor to me, and I learned many things from him.

―Do you remember any of the titles you ported then?

Naka: …I'm sorry, it was 20 years ago, and they weren't my original games so I don't remember the specific names. I think there was one called "Smile"…? But I really can't remember anything. (laughs) These were tape media, so I'd be amazed if anyone could get ahold of them today.

―I've heard that after you joined Sega, you stayed at a company boarding house...?

Naka: When I first joined Sega, I worked from 8:30 AM to 5:15 PM, and then went straight back to the dormitory. It was called Sega Omori Dormitory, and it had a corrugated metal roof, with metal siding as well. It had a shared toilet, and wooden boards in the hallway that creaked when you walked across them. Each 6-jo room housed two men, and there was no bath so we used a nearby sento (public bath). The sento closed at 11PM, so we had to leave Sega at 10:30 no matter what, even if there was overtime. I would dash to the dorm on my bike to make it back in time for a bath. (laughs)

―Were meals provided as well?

Naka: Yeah, of all the Sega dormitories, only the Omori Dormitory provided breakfast and dinner. The lady at the Omori dormitory used to prepare meals for the occupation forces or something during the war, and she learned a lot of fancy dishes there. We had roll cabbage, and a lot of weird stuff that I don't remember the name of from Monday through Friday.

That food was crazy, but even stranger was the Saturday night curry. It was a curry that contained everything left over from Monday through Friday. (laughs) I remember being like, “What the heck is this, fish paste?” (laughs) Surprisingly, you got used to it. (laughs)

―When you got back to the dormitory after work, did you play games?

Naka: Yeah, constantly. There was a PC-8001 and a 98U in my room, and there were also guys with Apple IIs and Sharp X-1s, so I would go to their rooms to play games too. I lived there for 3 years, and about 2 years after I left, it closed down and became a dormitory for a fish store, I think. I still drive by there sometimes to check it out.

―Now I'd like to ask about your memories of the Girl's Garden development. This was released in 1984, correct?

Naka: No, it couldn't have been. I know the copyright says 1984, but I think it was probably released in February of the following year. I joined Sega in April 1984, did one month of training, and immediately started working on this game. So the development period was 5 months. After that, it took another 3 months to manufacture the ROMs, which was normal back then. So there's no way it could have been 1984. (laughs)

I think there was a flyer or something at the time that mentioned a February release, and I have memories of being frustrated when my seniors told me that February is the season when games don't sell. (laughs)

―I see. Well, that is new information... a lot of Sega fans think it came out in 1984. (laughs)

Naka: It was probably February 1985, I think. (laughs)

―How did the Girl's Garden development begin?

Naka: When I was making various test programs during my first month with the company, the section chief said to me, "as part of your training, why don't you try and make a game for girls." So I began working on it with Hiroshi Kawaguchi. It was supposed to just be a training exercise, but then one day, about two months later, I got called in to the section chief's office again, and he told me rather bluntly, "We're selling that." (laughs)

So then, in the middle of the development we asked S-san to join us as a designer, and for the music… I think it was Nakabayashi. Hayashi might have helped too. But I don't remember what they did specifically. All I can really remember today is that S-san went on a trip to Africa in the middle of the project. (laughs)

It was a different version of Lode Runner from the cartridge. But I'm not certain it was ever released. It may have been sold normally, or it may have been bundled with the SF-7000... or maybe it was never released at all. I have no idea. (laughs)

―Well, either way it sounds like the SF-7000 only sold 100 units at most to the world... by the way, how well did Girl's Garden sell?

Naka: They made 80,000, sold 40,000, and 30,000 remained at Sega. When Sega went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, they disposed of the excess inventory, but a large number of them went to the second-hand shops of Akihabara. It would have cost too much to dispose of them all. They were priced at 300 yen at Akihabara. At that price, even I could buy one. (laughs) Back then Sega didn't give free copies of the finished games to the staff, you see.

Anyway, when I joined Sega no one taught me how to make games or how to program, so I spent a lot of time reading other people's code. When I look at that code now, though, with the way I used to do tables and other janky things, it's pretty embarrassing.

―Did you have planning documents or anything for Girl's Garden?

Naka: Yeah, I think we did…? Planning Girl's Garden was kind of like an association game with me and Kawaguchi bouncing ideas off each other. OK, what kind of stuff do girls like… the main character is a girl of course, so what is she striving for, and why… OK, how about... to get a boy!

―Did you also name the characters then?

Naka: No, "Papri" and "Mint-kun" were not names we used during the development. They were created afterwards, by the person who made the manual. (laughs) By the way, you see the "Kokko-chan" meter up here? It shows you how close Kokko, your rival, is to delivering flowers to Mint-kun. Papri has to pick the flowers and give them to Mint-kun before Kokko does. When I look back on it now, I think, what a great little idea that was! In terms of stimulating your senses and imagination it's just perfect. (laughs)

The idea for bears and bees that you have to run from while you try to pick the flowers, that also came from our free associating. "OK, if there's flowers, there would be bees coming to collect the pollen to make honey... and you know who loves honey... bears!"

―I like that the timer is also visual rather than numeric. Given the technical limitations of the hardware, though, it must have been a challenge since it's one more thing that needed to be animated.

Naka: With the SG-1000 hardware just scrolling itself was a challenge, so we had to be very creative to display Papri-chan, the bees, and the bears all on the screen at once. The SG-1000 can only produce four sprites, but we used two for Papri-chan, and one for the bee. That only left us one sprite, but we wanted to have three bears at once. So instead the bears were drawn on the scrolling layer (the background layer). This was an advanced technique at the time, done by Hiroshi Kawaguchi.

In the background layer, there are flowers which bloom (while scrolling), and two or three bears moving around, so we had a lot of trouble… Kawaguchi ended up spending all of his time on those bears. (laughs)

―I also liked the "LOVE" indicator to show Papri's remaining lives.

Naka: When Papri-chan falls into the pond or gets caught by the bear, her chance for love decreases by one, and her heart flies away in a curved line to Papri-chan. (laughs) It took me a long time to calculate the trajectory of the hearts. It kind of drifts off for a bit, then makes a circular motion and returns to Papri's location. We had some free time during the debugging period so we made that little animation then. (laughs)

The "Challenging Stage" bonus stage was created because the SG-1000 has a scaling (enlargement) mode for sprites that I wanted to make use of, so I made this stage with the sprites magnified 4x. Again, I used two or three sprites for Papri-Chan, and the bears are drawn on the background layer, I think? I believe there are about 10 stages. In the later stages, you have to jump off the walls to clear them. (laughs) It's a lot of fun!

―By the way, there's something I realized about Girl's Garden. In the game, the girls collect flowers for the boys. Usually it's the opposite, right?

Naka: Hah, so you noticed that, eh. (laughs) Nowadays we have an image of flowers being given by a man to a girl, but back then it wasn't so, and flowers were something that girls picked, at least in my mind. (laughs). These days you don't see girls picking flowers much anymore, but back then, I think there was still that image of girls. (laughs)

―Is that the kind of girl you like, Naka?

Naka: Yes, I prefer a pure, unaffected girl like that.

―It's rare to see an action game with two girls fighting over a boy, isn't it? So I was wondering if you had an experience similar to this in junior high or high school, and if it was based on that. (laughs)

Naka: No, not me. Maybe it was Kawaguchi's fantasy? (laughs)

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At this point, we paused the interview to take a break and play Girl's Garden with Naka. "Whoa, there's an opening demo!", he remarked with surprise. "The logo is great, isn't it? I feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Naka stared at the demo for 5 minutes.

"Hmm, maybe we did use two sprites for the bees," he mused, while adjusting his glasses and starting the game. This was the first time we saw Naka's serious "developer face." That expression would soon disappear once the game began…

Below, we have collected some of his comments for posterity, to help you better imagine his experience playing Girl's Garden for the first time in 10 years. (laugh)

Naka: Whoa, the bears are scary.
Naka: That's a great song!
Naka: Man, I haven't played this game for a long time.
Naka: I wish there was a game like this for the girls of today to enjoy.
Naka: The bear is the background layer, so the flowers block him!
Naka: Lots of people say they joined Sega because they liked Space Harrier and Outrun, but there is one person I know who said they joined because they liked Girl's Garden. Just kidding. (laughs)
Naka: Take that, bear!
Naka: Jumping still feels weird to me.
Naka: You know, there was talk of releasing Girl's Garden as an i-application for a while.
Naka: Uh oh, 3 bears mode.

Score: 36950 points
Stage Reached: 5

[Second Try]

Naka: (singing) Tatta ta ta ra~~
Naka: Alright, special stage, let's do this! Can I?
Naka: Bloom, bloom, bloom.

Score: 68940
Stage Reached: 7

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―So now that you've finished playing, what are your honest impressions?

Naka: It's very old. (laughs) But what I get from the totality of the game is a warm feeling. It doesn't have the bleakness that is common in today's games, and in that sense, I think it has something in common with the kind of games I'm making now. I think this kind of game is better than ones where you're shooting, punching, and killing people.

―Were there any aspects of Girl's Garden that are connected to your later works?

Naka: Maybe not directly, but the method of creating and realizing the vision you have in your mind, that might be the same.

―The way you moved the bears using the background layer, isn't that connected to the way you overwrote the background layer in Space Harrier on the Mark III to display those big characters?

Naka: Oh... you might be right. (laughs)

But a remake for adults, with Papri-chan being sexualized, that is very different from my image of her. (laughs) I want Papri to be innocent, and I don't want her to smoke either.

―Is she the ideal woman to you then?

Naka: Well, maybe. (laughs)

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