Overview
ABA Games' sole developer, Kenta Cho, began writing games as a child during the 1980s using the NEC PC-6001 microcomputer, as there were few commercially available games. After leaving university, Cho contemplated professional games development but ultimately instead joined Toshiba to work in multimedia research and development. He continues to work full-time for Toshiba while running ABA Games as a hobby, working mainly on weekends. Cho is the sole contributor to ABA Games. Lacking musical training, he creates the soundtracks to his games using commercially available, pre-made samples. ABA Games releases a game approximately every six months, with the first three months spent creating prototypes and the latter three spent refining a finished version.
ABA Games released its first shoot 'em up game—Noiz2sa—in 2002, and the positive feedback Cho received encouraged him to concentrate on the genre. ABA Games' creations are "avant-garde" re-imaginings of classic arcade shoot 'em ups, using modern 3D graphics techniques to emulate older vector graphics and employing "imaginative, fresh" gameplay ideas. According to Cho, his graphical style was inspired by the game Rez as well as street billboards, and his attempts at innovative gameplay features have been inspired by games such as Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga and Gradius V. ABA Games' works also tend to be based around random rather than scripted events. Its games are developed for Windows, but some have been ported to other systems including Mac OS X, iPhone, iPod touch, and PSP, with its game Tumiki Fighters forming the basis of Wii game Blast Works (which included a selection of his games as bonus content). Cho has also created BulletML, an open source program which can replicate bullet patterns from other shoot 'em up games.
Cho has stated he occasionally receives interest in ports for game consoles, but although he would otherwise be interested in such ports, he feels his games are too simple for commercial release. He has also stated his use of the D programming language proved problematic when porting Tumiki Fighters to the Wii. ABA Games' works are open source and free to download; Cho has stated he creates games of the kind which he desires to play and distributes them (along with the source code) for the enjoyment of others without the intent of monetary profit. Macworld acclaimed Cho as "spectacularly talented" and "one of today’s best independent game programmers", while GamesRadar noted him for "creating some of the best freeware shoot ‘em ups out there". Ashcraft states that in the West, Cho is "hailed as the most famous 'doujin software' shmup maker", while The Guardian claimed Cho's works are among "the best-known examples" of Japan's independent gaming scene. While out with Japan ABA Games is known as a "doujin" developer, unlike doujin developers Cho does not seek to sell his works, nor are they fan-created games; however, Cho is affable to the term being applied to his work. Jonathan Mak, creator of award-winning game Everyday Shooter (published by Sony on PlayStation Network) has cited ABA Games' Parsec 47 as the inspiration behind his game's aesthetic.
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