{"id":47810,"date":"2022-08-17T07:43:54","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T07:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/team-asobi-we-want-our-games-to-feel-like-theyre-made-in-japan\/"},"modified":"2022-08-17T07:43:54","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T07:43:54","slug":"team-asobi-we-want-our-games-to-feel-like-theyre-made-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/team-asobi-we-want-our-games-to-feel-like-theyre-made-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Asobi: \u201cWe want our games to feel like they’re made in Japan\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
Astro’s Playroom was quite the surprise package at the launch of PS5.\n<\/p>\n
It was easy to dismiss the game before release as a short 3D platformer that acts as a tech showcase for Sony’s new DualSense controller. We’ve seen plenty of these things before: a mildly diverting demo of the new hardware you’ve just bought.\n<\/p>\n
But Astro’s Playroom turned out to be a genuinely delightful little game that was crammed with nostalgic references to PlayStation’s past, while representing what we might get from its future. The Verge dubbed it ‘PS5’s Wii Sports’ and Eurogamer said it is one of the best launch titles of all time. I have to agree.\n<\/p>\n
Perhaps we shouldn’t have been so surprised. Astro’s Playroom was the latest creation from Team Asobi, the small development unit behind the acclaimed Astro Bot: Rescue Mission for PlayStation VR. And in creating Astro’s Playroom, the team was eager to prove it could make something great outside of virtual reality.\n<\/p>\n
“Of course [Astro’s Playroom] was a showcase of the DualSense, and a love letter to PlayStation, but one of the goals was: can we live up to making a TV game? A classic non-VR game? And do character controls and all that? Are our skills sufficient?” asks Team Asobi creative and studio director Nicolas Doucet.\n<\/p>\n
“Making a VR game for PS4 means doing PS3 quality-levels in terms of assets, because you’re on a tight [technical] budget. But when you jump to PS5… are we able to go to that level? So we got some confidence out of this.\n<\/p>\n
“It’s very nice to know that whenever a PS5 is bought, Astro is going to get played. It was a big responsibility, because if you make something that’s a little bit without flavour, then you run the risk of making the console feel that way ”\n<\/p>\n
\n“We are not limited by any money or time. If we could double the studio just like that, we would find work for everybody”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
At the time of Astro’s Playroom launch, Team Asobi was a development unit within the wider Japan Studio. But in 2021, Sony closed the developer, and spun Team Asobi out as its own company.\n<\/p>\n
Back then, Team Asobi was around 35 employees, and has since grown to more than 60, and Doucet expects that number to reach around 100 people.\n<\/p>\n
“We have a current production, and that’s going fine,” he says. “But we want to have another group for R&D, and we want enough in this group to explore as many areas that are interesting. And to potentially start other projects.\n<\/p>\n
“But we’re not giving ourselves any limits. If good people want to join Team Asobi, then we will be willing to talk to them. There is always stuff to do. There is always new projects to begin. We are not limited by any money or time. If we could double the studio just like that, we would find work for everybody.”\n<\/p>\n
This R&D team is something that’s crucial to Team Asobi. The developer’s games are known for continually introducing new gameplay ideas, and that requires a lot of trial and error.\n<\/p>\n
“We always have this extra team on the side,” Doucet explains. “Probably like 90% of the studio is on production, but there is this small pocket of people in the background that are already touching the technologies of tomorrow, or trying things with the technologies we have today, but taking them into a new direction.\n<\/p>\n
“In order to keep this freshness, this R&D team needs to be rotated quite often. People go into production, and then after that maybe go into R&D for some time.”\n<\/p>\n
Team Asobi’s next project will follow in the footsteps of the games it has done before, but will be a full-blown commercial title, “and our biggest to date,” says Doucet.<\/p>\n
And it’s not too hard to work out what to expect. For one, it’s likely to continue the company’s penchant for playing with hardware. Doucet says the DualSense \u2013 with its haptic feedback and adaptive triggers — has become a “special weapon” for the team, and they’re continuing to play around with the controller.\n<\/p>\n
“Any new technology, we like to take it for a spin,” he adds. “There’s the obvious way to use it, which is the first thing we are going to try, and then we are going to try to use it in ways you’re not supposed to. That leads us to interesting places.\n<\/p>\n
“Some of the team members we recruited a few years ago, we recruited them because as a hobby they would take a VR headset, a motion sensor, and they’d grab like an eye detection thing, and then they’d put those together and create a demo… And they’d become famous on the hobbyist scene and within the programming community for doing this. We’d approach these people and say: ‘what you’re doing in your days off, it’s exactly what we And you get to work with engineers who are still building the stuff you’re using, so you get to input into something that will become a product’. We’ve had a few people come through with that past. So this interest in hardware is anchored in the team.”\n<\/p>\n