Question 1 - Réponse A
Question 2 - Réponse B
Question 3 - Réponse A
Question 4 - Réponse C
Question 5 - Réponse A

Question 1 - Réponse A
Question 2 - Réponse D
Question 3 - Réponse B
Question 4 - Réponse A
Question 5 - Réponse D
Question 6 - Réponse A

Question 1 - Réponse D
Question 2 - Réponse A
Question 3 - Réponse E
Question 4 - Réponse E
Question 5 - Je passe !!

4Gamer:
Speaking of which, I have some questions for the person in charge of production, Tsukuri-san. As we mentioned before, this work is supported by its high-level production. In the very beginning, what did you have in mind when you first took up 「Mahoyo」?

Tsukuri:
It wasn't as big a project in the beginning. I thought of creating something similar to illustrations in a novel, without too many illustrations. Once development actually began, it became impossible to properly show 「Mahoyo」's world with existing production techniques. An enjoyable play experience was still possible, but it wouldn't be something appealing to the soul when finished. Ending with a whimper.

4Gamer:
「Mahoyo」 is different from 「Fate」, almost all events in the script are done from a third-person point of view. I feel this in itself is a very big difference.

Nasu:
The original script from the novel was written in the third-person point of view, and the content was fairly simple as well. It's mainly to capture Aoko, Alice, and Soujuro's daily lives, for the purpose of "objective observation," I wanted to use the third-person point of view. However, in reality it's very difficult to write a visual novel in the third-person. If I wrote in the third-person using current galgame's or visual novel's structure, there would be holes in the graphics and production. Tsukuri Monoji's directing solved this problem perfectly.

4Gamer:
When you say the structure of current visual novels, you mean the method where characters' portraits are placed on top of background CG facing the player as they speak, and when the action picks up, special event CG's are used? In 「Mahoyo」, there is no longer a difference between portraits and event CG.

Nasu:
There are almost no event CG's in 「Mahoyo」. The ones players think are event CG are actually put together from portraits.

4Gamer:
How many CG's are there?

Koyoma:
Probably not even 200. If you only count the ones where characters are present, there really aren't that many. A lot of materials are made where Tsukuri cuts and pastes after figuring out how to produce a scene, we don't have an exact number.

Tsukuri:
Up until now it has always been like a FPS, so this time I wanted to make it in a way that matches Nasu's third-person point of view, instead of directing it in first-person. Putting portraits on top of backgrounds has always been the method used, even when there are 2 characters, they face the player instead of facing each other. Even then, they go on as if the player doesn't exist, having a conversation with each other while looking this way.

4Gamer:
In a way, this is the "promised way" of visual novel.

Tsukuri:
Right. While producing 「Mahoyo」, I was able to feel the inconsistency of this presentation method, so I did my best to not use it. I feel that kind of "promised way" has already become an obstacle to a player when he or she is trying to experience and understand a game.

4Gamer:
Actually during for this interview, aside from Nasu and Koyoma, I also wanted to hear Tsukuri-san's opinion on this. Speaking of which, an event in 「Fate/hollow ataraxia」 left a deep impression on me, the battle between Saber and Archer at the Fuyuki Bridge. That scene was produced by Tsukuri-san right?

Tsukuri:
Thank you, yes that's me.

4Gamer:
I was tremendously shocked when I saw that scene, on the level of "this has surpassed all common expectations in a conventional visual novel" ...at the time, I really felt it was something that cannot be surpassed.

Nasu:
For the production of that scene, Tsukuri first made the storyboard, and then we added content around it. In terms of production, Fate is already a good as it gets, so when it comes to scenes in 「Fate/hollow ataraxia」, one of the challenges is to create something new.

4Gamer:
Ah about that, I played it many times over, so I'm really happy Tsukuri-san could make it today. Since then, I've always felt more critique should be focused on a visual novel's production.

Tsukuri:
I'm very happy to hear you say this. However, in 「Mahoyo」's case, most of my resources are from the first-person point of view, and it would have been impossible to convert them all to the third-person. In the end, I decided to challenge myself by creating third-person scenes using the first-person resources... if things didn't turn out like this, 「Mahoyo」 probably would have been released a year ago, I'm so sorry!

Nasu:
Allow me to re-emphasis the impressiveness of the feat that Tsukuri-san managed to accomplish. When he says first-person resource, he means materials created using methodologies used all the way up to 「Fate」. So with Shirou Emiya as the protagonist, all materials were created based on his point of view. So in effect, there only existed artworks from the main protagonist's point of view.

Koyoma:
This includes portraits and backgrounds, all materials were drawn in accordance with the conventional "promised way" of visual novels. Being able to create a scene with the effect of a camera moving around without extra drawings of views from above or below, it gives you an "Eh~~ Like this!" feeling. Cutting up a finished drawing and recreating it freely is a ridiculously scary technique.

Nasu:
That's the "Tsukuri magic."

4Gamer:
Ah, calling it magic is perfect, what kind of work went into that kind of production? Did you make the storyboards beforehand, or did you put together the graphics like a puzzple during production?

Tsukuri:
It's mostly the latter, storyboards were drawn for some important scenes. Scenes like everyday conversation were made in an explorative process during production, like "if I do it like this, these will tie together really well." Doing every single waypoint markers by hand would have wasted too much time, so I asked our programmer Seibei to make a dedicated production editor. In this way I was able to focus all my attention on pure production, so if you want to call it magic you should call it Seibei magic.

4Gamer:
It seems the layout process from animation is used in all everyday event scenes. At least for this work, I think the phenomenon of "2 characters talking to each other while facing the front" that was mentioned earlier doesn't exist.

Tsukuri:
Yup, after playing you'll feel scenes with a lot of movement are more attractive. During production, the part that took the most time was using my existing resources to create layouts. Of course we also focused a lot on battle scenes, but I hope to pass the feelings we put into the everyday scenes to the player as well.

4Gamer:
In other words you can no longer accept the "promised way" of conventional visual novels? When did you make this realization?

Tsukuri:
En... I used to work like "this mark goes here" as well... but while working on 「Mahoyo」, I was very concerned about this from the beginning.

Nasu:
It's probably due to a difference in perspective. For example, players will probably accept anything from an ADV. Relying on the "promised way," you can create story at a fairly low cost. However, there are people who, being able to slowly understand that, and being a producer, cannot accept it, actually Tsukuri Monoji is a prime example of that.

Tsukuri:
Aside from the story being in the third-person, another big reason is the quality of the backgrounds and character portraits are on a totally different level compared to the ones I've worked with before. With 「Fate」 I still used markers, but I felt such deep dimension and depth from 「Mahoyo」's graphics, I had to make them come alive. I originally just wanted to combine the backgrounds and character portraits without any inconsistency, but the more I mixed them, the closer I felt to that "conventional promised way." In the end, I thought "wouldn't it be more fun to just produce everything with camera angle techniques."

4Gamer:
So is Tsukuri satisfied with how 「Mahoyo」 turned out? What do you think about it? ...to tell the truth, I think it can be further improved, especially the everyday scenes.

Tsukuri:
Ah, sorry, you are right. I feel a lot of places "lack coordination." I will do my best to fill them in next time.

Nasu:
I just hope Tsukuri-san can relaxed a bit before he breaks down (laughs).