If you follow Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi on X, you’ll know that he’s been doing some decluttering recently. During the process, he’s managed to dig up some decades-old memories, but also stuff that could be considered valuable treasure of video game history. One such item is his old notebook featuring a 40-year-old written proposal for the first game Sakaguchi has ever created.
Sakaguchi was generous enough to share as many as three pages of his first ever written proposal for a game. Dating around 1984, the hand-written proposal showcases the concept for main screen, story synopsis, and world map of the game. It also features a portion of the storyboard showcasing how the adventure would branch out depending on the player’s commands.
While Sakaguchi didn’t disclose what game this proposal was for, judging by the contents and the year provided, one could deduce that it was most likely the pitch for Death Trap, released by Square in 1984. Death Trap is a text-based 2D adventure game following the story of a spy who travels to East Africa to track down a scientist who was kidnapped by guerillas during the Cold War. The game is of a rather simple design, with a straightforward story, but what makes it so significant for the history of games is that it helped Square set the foundation for creating masterpieces such as Final Fantasy.
Death Trap was not only the first game Sakaguchi ever worked on, but it was also the first game Square ever released. At the time, Sakaguchi was 21 years old, and was appointed to work on the game design for Death Trap while only being a part-timer. As reported by AKIBA Watch, around March 1984, Sakaguchi was working on programming another project that ended up getting cancelled midway, leaving him on the brink of going unpaid. So, from April he started writing a new script. Development officially started around June, and the text adventure was completed around September of the same year. While the game didn’t manage to make much noise around the time of its release, it was successful enough for Square to release Will: Death Trap 2 the following year.
Fast forward to one decade later – the same key people who launched Square’s first game were making the legendary RPG series Final Fantasy. Coincidentally, Sakaguchi managed to dig up some of his old photos from that period as well. Specifically, the photos are from around the time Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII were developed.
On a related note, ever since the humble beginnings of Square, Sakaguchi was viewed as a “leader,” and as recently noted by composer Nobuo Uematsu, he was what held the company together, even if the “company” was just a bunch of part-timers in their early twenties. “We didn’t even have a proper corporate organization, yet everybody listened to him. It’s a kind of quality you just have to be born with,” said Uematsu.
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