With a penchant for gritty visual novel games, Nitroplus is known for hit titles like Saya no Uta and Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa. In recent years, they’ve also been involved in major anime titles like Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass, gaining even wider recognition as a Japanese entertainment brand. Perhaps thanks to this strong reputation, news of their next project being a 3D action game – a first for the studio – has stirred both excitement and anxiety among Nitroplus’s cult-following.
AUTOMATON sat down with the key figures behind the development of Dolls Nest – director Yojo Ota and sub-director Keiichi Ogami. We asked them about the game’s development process and how the project originated in the first place. They told us all about their passion for the Armored Core series and what makes Nitroplus games “Nitroplus-like.”
We challenged ourselves to something new with Dolls Nest
―Please introduce yourselves and tell me about your careers so far.
Yojo Ota (hereafter Ota):
I’m Yojo Ota, and I was in charge of Dolls Nest’s game design, original concept, character design, and direction. As for my past work at Nitroplus, I worked on the background art for Tokyo Necro. Outside of Nitroplus, I’ve done concept art for the Black Rock Shooter: Dawn Fall anime and character design for VTuber Tomeru Ikinone.
Keiichi Ogami (hereafter Ogami):
I’m Keiichi Ogami. I’ve been a part of Nitroplus for about 20 years, and I was the sub-director of Dolls Nest. The first project I worked on at Nitroplus was Saya no Uta, and since then, I’ve been involved in the development of nearly every Nitroplus and Nitro+CHiRAL title. To name a few, I directed Tokyo Necro and handled production of Mojika: Truth Rears Its Ugly Head. I also supervised Tokyo Necro Suicide Mission, which we co-developed with DMM Games.
―So the two of you were designer and director respectively on Nitroplus’s previous title Tokyo Necro. Did your relationship from there lead to Dolls Nest?
Ogami:
Yes, I think Tokyo Necro was the starting point for us working together.
Ota:
That’s right, Tokyo Necro was my first project after joining the company, and we began drafting proposals for Dolls Nest right after that, so that really is where we first started collaborating.
―I’d like to hear the details about how Dolls Nest came to be.
Ogami:
The project started from Ota’s desire to make a “game where you can customize your own mecha girl and go wild.” From there, he and our engineer Namafu created a mock-up for a proposal, and that’s how everything started.
Ota:
I drew inspiration for Dolls Nest from the Armored Core series, and I worked on the mock-up as an after-hours passion project after finishing my regular work for the day (laughs).
―Looking at past Nitroplus titles, you’ve done mecha-themed visual novel games like Demonbane and Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa before, but did you decide to go for an action game this time because you wanted to include customization?
Ota:
Exactly – the visual novel game format, which has been Nitroplus’s primary genre up until now, wasn’t suited for implementing the kind of customization mechanics we had in mind.
Ogami:
Ota is part of Nitroplus’s CG team, Nitro Arts, so he’s proficient in 3D too. Dolls Nest was pitched as a 3D designer-led project, so it was naturally envisioned as an action game. On the other hand, proposals like Demonbane and Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa were pitched and led by writers, so it was natural for them to be developed into visual novels.
―Since Nitroplus is primarily known for putting out visual novel games, did you encounter any obstacles or concerns when proposing an action game to the company?
Ota:
When I made the proposal, I wasn’t really met with strong opinions pushing for a visual novel nor particular concerns about Dolls Nest being an action game. This was around the time when Mojika: Truth Rears Its Ugly Head came out (2018), and at the time, gacha games were exploding in popularity. As both an employee of a game company and a gamer myself, I felt like novel games were struggling to keep growing. I think our president, Digitarou, may also have felt like Nitroplus needed to challenge itself by taking on new genres.
Ogami:
Personally, I’ve always worked on minigames for Nitroplus titles, dabbling in shooting and racing games and even the fighting game genre for titles like Nitro + Royal: Heroine’s Duel. Thanks to this experience, I felt like Nitroplus could handle an action game too.
―So it was viewed as a new challenge. Outwardly, Nitroplus seems like it has a very defined brand image, but would you say it’s actually surprisingly easy to get proposals for new projects approved?
Ogami:
I can see why, based on Nitroplus’s image, you would feel like we have restrictions on genre and the overall direction of projects, but it’s not like we have to make every game super serious with guns and bloodshed. If you come up with a proposal that offers a unique genre or combination of elements that the world hasn’t really seen before – but would make a good game – the company is quite flexible about what it approves.
We’ve made plenty of visual novel games so far, so we have a lot of expertise in the genre, but we didn’t have much experience with action games. That’s why I think, as Ota mentioned, that Dolls Nest was viewed positively for taking on a new challenge.
Drawing inspiration from Armored Core
―You’ve mentioned receiving influence from the Armored Core series, but did you not struggle, developing a full game in a genre you’re not used to?
Ota:
Surprisingly, not so much. I had a lot of fun working on it (laughs).
Ogami:
It’s a genre Ota loves to play, which is why I think his intuition played a huge part during development. Despite lacking knowledge in creating 3D action games, he had a certain level of insight and was able to intuit how other games set up their parameters and the like. We started out by relying on experience and knowledge gained from playing, then learned the technical aspects later on as things progressed.
―Instead of adding people with prior experience to the development team, you chose to learn by yourselves and build everything from the ground up. In that sense, it feels almost like a doujin circle.
Ota:
That is the kind of mindset I approached development with (laughs).
Ogami:
True, the approach this time was quite similar to a doujin circle. Digitarou often talks about how he loves “club activities,” and I think his “let’s all work together to make something fun” mentality is something that has spread throughout Nitroplus.
―I think it’s easy to feel a disconnect when you work on a project with the heat and passion of a doujin circle, yet have the product of your efforts sold as a commercial product. Were you able to maintain your passion till the end?
Ota:
Actually, I didn’t feel like there was much of a difference between my personal goals and the commercial product we were making. So, to begin with, I didn’t feel the need to force myself to make the game palatable for the “general public.” I believed that if I thoroughly pursued the game I wanted, it would gain value as a commercial product too.
―You made the proposal for Dolls Nest before FromSoftware announced they were making Armored Core 6. Until that point, there had been a 10-year gap in the series. Be honest – were you thinking “I’ll make it myself then” when you decided to pitch Dolls Nest?
Ota:
Yes, a big part of me coming up with the proposal for Dolls Nest was the lack of a new official Armored Core entry – it made me think “I want to make it myself.”
Ogami:
If I remember correctly, you even wrote “there isn’t one, so I’m going to make it” in the proposal itself (laughs).
―(laughs) Then I’m guessing Armored Core 6’s announcement in 2022 came as a surprise to you?
Ota:
As a fan, I was overjoyed, but as a developer of Dolls Nest, it was quite a surprise. At first, we were worried about whether the game systems would overlap heavily, but in the end, Armored Core 6 turned out to be a very different game from what we were making, so we decided to proceed with our release. Although, I must say that I’m afraid of being compared to Armored Core, given the huge difference in development budget and technological capabilities.
―Were there any aspects of Armored Core 6 that influenced Dolls Nest?
Ota:
We launched the project with the previous Armored Core titles in mind, and we were already in the midst of development when Armored Core 6 was announced, so I don’t think we ended up drawing much from it.
Ogami:
When we released our demo, we received many requests to balance the game so that it’s more like Armored Core 6. We weren’t going for a super high difficulty for Dolls Nest, and since its core concepts are different, balancing was a challenge for us.
―Which pre-Armored Core 6 title was closest to the vision you had in mind for Dolls Nest?
Ota:
That’s a tough question, but personally, I think I enjoyed Armored Core 5 the most because of how crazy you can get with customization and how fun it is to play after you’ve built your unit. So, that’s probably the title I was most conscious of while developing Dolls Nest.
―On the other hand, how have you sought to differentiate Dolls Nest from influences like Armored Core 5?
Ota:
In Armored Core, exploration is generally a secondary part of gameplay, but in Dolls Nest, we’ve brought both customization and exploration into the foreground, and I think this is what gives the game a unique color.
Ogami:
Since we’re emphasizing exploration in Dolls Nest, we’ve placed NPCs throughout the map, and you can have conversations with them as you progress. In that sense, while the game was definitely inspired by Armored Core at the start, the experience we’ve created feels quite new.
―Now that you mention conversations, I’m sure many people have high expectations of Dolls Nest’s story, given that it’s a Nitroplus title. What kind of volume can we expect from the scenario?
Ogami:
In terms of past Nitroplus titles, I think the amount of text in Dolls Nest is comparatively smaller. The NPCs I mentioned each have their respective narratives, and some of them move across the map as you progress in the story. We’ve made it so that you can dig into the game’s lore through this, learning about what kind of forces are at play and the like.
Making games that aren’t already out there is Nitroplus’s philosophy
―We’ve mentioned some characteristics of Nitroplus titles, but I’d like to hear what you two consider to be “Nitroplus-ness”?
Ota:
Tokyo Necro is the only project I’ve worked on fully since joining the company, but I feel like the sentiment “It doesn’t exist, so I’ll make it” that I mentioned earlier nicely sums up what Nitroplus is about.
―Based on your many years of experience working at Nitroplus, how would you explain it, Ogami-san?
Ogami:
In-house development and self-publishing have always been our fundamental principles, so I think that we are quite conscious about making what isn’t out there already. For example, we established Nitro+CHiRAL and released Togainu no Chi, a boy’s love game, because we realized that there weren’t many titles in the genre with a hardcore, serious story. I think that the philosophy of “it doesn’t exist, so I’ll make it” has permeated Nitroplus since back then.
―And it’s become your brand’s philosophy?
Ogami:
With Nitroplus games, it’s always been about how to take something completely niche and turn it into an experience that players can enjoy. In this case, considering the timing and everything, it would have been less risky for us, business-wise, to create a mecha action game more aligned with Armored Core 6, as it would have a wider appeal. However, that would just turn it into a clone game, leaving little room for us to leave our mark as creators. So, in this sense, not targeting “the masses” might be what made this a “Nitroplus-like” project.
―If not the mass market, what would you say is Nitroplus’s target?
Ota:
If I had to say, it would be “myself.” I’m making this game because it’s something I want to make.
―(laughs)
Ogami:
How much a game sells is determined by how much the players resonate with what we’ve made based on our tastes – that’s how I see it. We strive to make our games entertaining at the very least, but fundamentally, we don’t attempt to market to any specific demographics.
―I feel like there’s a strong emphasis on “meeting user needs” in game development nowadays, but at Nitroplus, you prioritize making games catered towards yourselves?
Ogami:
I think that, on the contrary, this approach may lead to games that resonate with a larger number of players. If you try to adjust your game based solely on a visible user base, it can end up being appealing only to that one group. Inversely, a title that’s not aimed at anyone specifically can make the player resonate with it and feel like “it’s a game just for them.” Nitroplus has certainly grown and changed in various ways during my 20 years here, but I believe this core attitude has remained the same.
―How has the actual response to Dolls Nest been in the media and social media since the announcement?
Ota:
We’re getting more attention than we’d anticipated, and we’re very grateful for it.
Ogami:
We kind of feel like newcomers now that we’re releasing an action game on Steam. We hope to catch the eye of Steam users who may be discovering Nitroplus for the first time.
―It’s kind of tricky to navigate a new genre and market when you already have an established brand, reputation and portfolio, isn’t it?
Ogami:
Yes, when I compare it to when we were only making PC games, projects like Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Touken Ranbu Online have really spread our name way past what we were anticipating.
―Given the pre-existing expectations people have of “Nitroplus’s next release,” it must have been challenging to align that with the theme and scale of Dolls Nest.
Ogami:
Yes, I think there are many Nitroplus fans who were hoping for a new novel game, rather than an action game. Frankly, my biggest concern is how those fans will evaluate Dolls Nest. However, we’ve made the game easy to pick up with a low price point, and I believe players won’t feel like they’ve been let down if they give it a chance. I would love for people to support us in challenging ourselves with something different than usual.
―Now that you mention it, $19.99 is quite cheap for a 3D action game.
Ota:
The price is actually a pun, we set it so it can be read as “nitro yen.” (laughs)
*The first three digits of the JPY price (2,160 yen) can be alternatively read as nitoro, i.e. the “nitro” in Nitroplus.
―What!? You decided on the game’s price based on a pun?
Ogami:
We were surprised too, but it was decided with a single word from Digitarou (laughs). It’s a rather low price point compared to the general price range for 3D action games, so it might actually cause some players to worry about it not having much to offer. However, if the game matches your tastes, we’re confident that you’ll get more than your money’s worth from it, so please rest assured!
―Lastly, what are you hoping players will enjoy in Dolls Nest?
Ota:
I hope they’ll build a custom mech girl that completely matches their tastes and have fun laying waste to the world!
Ogami:
Dolls Nest’s biggest appeal is its customization system, so I hope players will use it to the fullest to build their ideal units. Then, through exploration, I hope they’ll get to enjoy every corner of the game we’ve prepared, including the battles and world-building.
―Thank you for your time!
Dolls Nest releases on April 24 for PC (Steam).
[Interviewer, writer, editor: Yuuki Inoue]
[Interviewer, editor: Ayuo Kawase]
