On the US PlayStation Blog, LocoRoco Director Tsutomu Kouno and Art Director Keigo Tsuchiya were interviewed about the series to coincide with the release of LocoRoco Remastered on PlayStation 4. In the article, Sony is offering a free LocoRoco PS4 Dynamic Theme to anyone who enters their email address and answers ‘PSP’.
Free LocoRoco Remastered PS4 dynamic theme for US PSN. Answer: PSP https://t.co/I9kvSDkGPT pic.twitter.com/IcgyO0qLnW
— Wario64 (@Wario64) May 10, 2017
If you miss out on getting a free code, the LocoRoco Remastered Dynamic Theme is $1.99 USD on the PlayStation Store.
As for the interview, Kouno said the original game “all started with a rough drawing I made on the train.” He later revealed that their first pitch was rejected, so they spent a month creating a prototype, which was accepted and development officially began in August 2005:
I made the first sketches in June 2004. Shortly after that, the programmers in the company spent about ten days making a quick demo for us. It wasn’t even a game yet at that point; it was more like a video, which showed these soft, round creatures falling down and combining together when they collided hard with one another. We were making another game at the time, but I wanted to begin preparing so we could start making this game straight away once our current work was complete.
After that we gave a presentation to the higher-ups near the end of the year, but we weren’t able to get across the appeal of the game and so our idea was rejected. We didn’t get the go-ahead after the second presentation we made either.
We then realized that we weren’t going to get any further until we had something to show that actually worked, so we ended up spending the next month making a prototype to show the appeal of the game and show off the concept better. Once the managers saw the new prototype, their reactions changed completely. (laughs) We then dove into development at a rapid pace.
Asked if it felt weird using a controller to play LocoRoco, Tsuchiya said, “I was actually worried that people might get motion sick due to the big screen slanting back and forth, but I didn’t experience this. You can also use the PS4 motion controls to play the game instead of the normal L and R button controls on the PS4 version. While this control is not as precise, it was nice to find a new way to experience the game.”
LocoRoco Remastered is now live on PlayStation 4, priced at $14.99 USD/£11.99. PlayStation Plus members in Europe save 20% off the regular price until May 22.
[Source: PlayStation Blog, Wario64]
