Contact (video Game) - Development

Development

Contact was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture as the company's first RPG on the DS. Goichi Suda, Grasshopper Manufacture president and supervisor for Contact, explained that they wanted to create the game in order to present something unique to the genre, as opposed to the traditional fantasy period pieces found in most RPGs. The developer also tried to push boundaries with the sound design, which consists of musical style "only possible in video games". The game's main designer and director is Akira Ueda, a former Square graphic designer and a prominent contributor to the Shining Soul games. Ueda described the game's main storyline as providing a "framework of diversions" such as combat, item collection, and monster hunting. He also stated that the game uses the touchscreen in several ways through the game. "We've endeavoured to use as many of the DS' features as we could, but not in an obvious way," Ueda explained. "Our philosophy was 'How can we use these fantastic features properly?'. We wanted them to work for the story rather than dictate it, which is something we feel is incredibly important for an original concept like Contact."

Contact features Apple IIe-style fonts on its title screen and 8-bit mini-games. However, the main graphical draw of Contact is its contrast in art styles between the two DS screens. A simple, pixelated style makes up the top screen, while the bottom screen has a pre-rendered, detailed art style. These styles clash when the Professor transitions from one screen ot the other. Ueda was originally developing the game for the Game Boy Advance. Producer Takeshi Ogura revealed that on this handheld, the two art styles were to switch back and forth. However, when development moved to the DS, the team decided to take advantage of the dual screens by showing them simulatenously. As implied by Ueda, this differentiation has been done purposely as "it underlines how the player and the Professor are aliens to each other. They must make contact, communicate and co-operate to make it through the game" and to "create feelings of nostalgia; just like the interplay between the 'real' and 'game' worlds."

Contact was picked up for a North American release by Atlus prior to its Japanese launch. The company's localization director, Tomm Hulett, was attacted to the style and humor of the game, comparing it to the cult-classic EarthBound. As per the company's translation policy, Atlus attempted not to alter the original Japanese text in its English language localization of the game. However, the name of the protagonist was changed from Cherry to Terry. According to Hulett, it was difficult trying to figure out which parts of the dialogue were serious and which were comical. Also, the files he used did not show which character was speaking, which was a problem when multiple characters conversed.