When I first started talking about it with [producer Atsushi] Inaba, the only starting point we had for Okami was a game that depicted a lot of nature," he told Famitsu. "I couldn't say 'I don't know if this'll be fun or not' because than nobody on the dev team would be enthusiastic about it, so instead I was like 'This is gonna be great! I know it will!' So eventually the discussion shifted to a wolf running around, and we made this minute-long video depicting a wolf running through a field and trees sprouting up behind him and I told the team 'See, isn't that neat?'"

There was no story at the time and no gameplay system. There was an original concept — depicting the splendor of nature.

"Our first test run was incredibly boring to play," he continued. "I was grinding my teeth at night, I was so worried. At one point, we were so far off-track that it had turned into a simulation game — you had hexes and trees sprouted on them. It was total garbage. A couple of devs said to me afterwards 'Something was definitely wrong with you around that time, Kamiya!'"

Read more in the link below.

Platinum Games' Kamiya Reflects on Bayonetta, Okami [1Up]

Clover may look like a game painted by the hand of a child, but underneath its simplistic look lies a game riddled with political and historical references inspired by the events that led to the Iraq war in 2003. The land has suffered a horrible attack, the people are suspicious of every one, and the government is keep an eye on everything you do. You play an older child orphaned by the attack that must work in order to ensure his orphan payments continue to arrive.

"It's been great to read emails from gamers who have picked up on the historical and political references - if Clover has one objective, it's to make people think." commented Binary Tweed's Deejay.

I've played a bit of the demo, and while it has made me think a bit, it's mainly had me jumping over hedgehogs and nearly dying in a well. The NPC's I've encountered so far definitely sport characteristics common to Americans after 9/11, though the parallels feel a bit too forced. Personally I believe a game doubling as political commentary should be a more subtle thing.

Still, the artwork is nice and I appreciate what the team at Binary Tweed has accomplished with Clover so far. Head to the Xbox Community Games tab of the Marketplace and grab the demo to see if the full game is worth your 400 points.

Instead, as Capcom's Keiji Inafune explains, they looked outside of the games industry altogether:

I'd have to say, in a symbolic way, [our inspiration was] the movie industry. In the movie industry, investment decision-making is extremely severe. It involves production committees and numerous investors. But with the game industry, that hadn't been the case. I noticed these differences like these, observing what was happening with movies and anime. The same is true of other industries too. The more people I talk to, the more I find things that ought to be "givens", that we in the game industry didn't even see.

Sounds like somebody learned a lesson from a bunch of former employees burning through millions of dollars on a creatively-driven product that didn't make good business sense.

Keiji Inafune [Capcom]

Chatting with Develop, Inaba says:

To be honest, I think that western developers are superior to those in Japan overall.

So we the Japanese developers should realise that we have to work hard to reach the western level.

And how can they do that? As you'd expect from the man behind Okami, Viewtiful Joe and the upcoming MadWorld, Inaba reckons that a good place for Japanese developers to start would be taking the plunge, and coming up with new, original IP.

Our vision has always been to create new IPs. The best way for a developer to make a mark in the industry and secure its future is by creating new and successful IPs. It's a very hard process but if you succeed, the rewards are massive.

In other words, less games that end in IX or XIII, thanks.

'Western developers are superior to the Japanese,' says Inaba [Develop]

One of the more promising games to come out of the Community Games program so far, Clover is a plot-driven puzzle platformer with a watercolor look and a political vibe. Players collect items to solve puzzles, advancing the story of Sam, an adolescent living in a medieval welfare state, exploring the land following the death of his mother

“Clover is a game about artwork and plot; so much so that we're struggling to fit everything within the size limit,” said Daniel 'Deejay' Jones, Managing Director of Binary Tweed. “We wanted to make a game that has the artistic charm to appeal to a broad audience, whilst exploring issues that communicate to adult gamers.”

I'd listen to the man - his mustache is glorious. See for yourself below!

Watercolour Political Platform Puzzler 'Clover' Announced

Binary Tweed Ltd. today announced the return of the classic platform-puzzle adventure with début title Clover, to be released in Q1 '09 via Xbox LIVE Community Games for 400 Microsoft Points. Rendering a much-missed genre in watercolour, accompanied by melancholy piano pieces and laced with political themes, Clover embodies Binary Tweed's frank motto of “New games that are a bit like old games, but better.”

Set in a medieval world ruled by a monarchy with a welfare state, Clover tells the story of Sam, an adolescent teenager. Recently orphaned after his lone parent mother died in a shock attack on the proud nation of Sanha, Clover follows Sam's journey of discovery as he explores the land and events surrounding his loss.

Clover is a plot-driven platformer in the style of classic titles such as Fantastic Dizzy that sees the player solve logical puzzles by collecting items, talking to a diverse cast of characters and exploring artistically realised environments. Featuring many hours of gameplay and plot development, Clover promises value-for-money beyond other Xbox LIVE Community Games. The game innovates on its predecessors with modern gameplay mechanics, such as unique and forgiving alternatives to player 'health' and 'death'.

“Clover is a game about artwork and plot; so much so that we're struggling to fit everything within the size limit,” said Daniel 'Deejay' Jones, Managing Director of Binary Tweed. “We wanted to make a game that has the artistic charm to appeal to a broad audience, whilst exploring issues that communicate to adult gamers.”

Okami (Greatest Hits) [Play-Asia, via Siliconera]

Once upon a time, games were competitors. Now, primarily, they're entertainers. They aimed to beat you. Now, to be beaten. Our language says much, really. While we've talked about difficulty curves forever, the problems now are "difficulty spikes." No one ever critiques a game for a difficulty-trough - because the former stops you getting anywhere and the latter is just something you coast throug

I'm not one of those gamers that particularly enjoys having my ass handed to me to the point where I simply cannot complete a game, though there are plenty of games that have challenged me to (my) max - I'm also the obsessive type, so the pattern of having side quests and optional challenges galore in my games of choice usually means I have more than enough to keep me busy. This question of balancing the commercial needs of AAA titles with what 'real' gamers (however you want to define that) want to see is an increasingly pressing problem — though not one that I expect will be resolved any time soon, other that to push more and more 'styles' of games towards the fringes.

Hard Times: The Future of Difficult Video Games

I really don't know what under pretext the credits were cut... What do you all think? I feel dejected, and not only because my own name has been erased from my creation. Of course we have pride in our work and we want to scream "We made this!" from the top of our lungs. But more than that, the fact that they cut the entire staff is utterly deplorable.

Kamiya on Credit [Platinum Games via Canned Dogs Thanks, Sarah!]

Eds Note: Oh! For those who are interested in reading the entire post (in English), Platinum Games has posted the official translation here.

...a quasi-16:9 widescreen mode — we call it "quasi" because it's not full resolution; thin black bars remain on each side of the screen.

UPDATE - I'm done with this topic. The build IGN were playing on was, according to Ready At Dawn, an old one, and RaD president Didier Malenfant has promised us that the final, retail build of the game will feature "full 16:9". Case closed. Move along.

On October 1, 2007, SEEDS Corporation will merge with ODD Corporation to create "Platinum Games," which will be a fresh step forward.

Seeds [Official Site]

Eds Note: As pointed out on forum NeoGAF, the ODD Corporation linked above (ODD Solutions) might not be what SEEDS is merging with. SEEDS is merging with a company called ODD Corporation, but info about that company is scant.

SEEDS Working on Multiple-platforms [Deeko News]

From this week's Escapist, a rather sobering look at the 'demise of Clover Studios.' Everyone claims they want new, different, innovative games, but somehow a studio like Clover that produced Viewtiful Joe 2, God Hand and Okami can't stay afloat. The author points out that for a "scrappy independent developer," selling hundreds of thousands of copies would be quite the achievement, but for a division of Capcom it was a "stinging disappointment."

In a post-shutdown interview, [Clover CEO Atsushi] Inaba reflected, "I think that it is becoming almost 'impossible' for an original game to succeed financially. This can't be blamed on anyone, but it's a simple fact that an original game doesn't appeal to the majority of gamers."

Despite tons of essays, blog posts, and whining to the contrary, it would seem that while people like the idea of new and innovative, when push comes to shove, they don't want to plunk down the cold, hard cash - which is the real shame about Clover, because they delivered on their mission of creating innovative and different games. While studios are a business, and in today's world if you don't make money you can expect to be shuttered, it is especially depressing when put next to all the high-minded talk of innovation and creativity. Maggie Greene

Vision Doesn't Sell Copies: The short life of Clover Studios [The Escapist]

Bellfied tells Kyle Orland:

Capcom, unlike most other developers, doesn't have dedicated strict boundaries between each of its development teams. We actually have one pool of development talent at Capcom and those individuals are basically assigned based on the timescales of each product we're working on, so everybody does work on a variety of content and games at Capcom... with the exception of Clover [...] it was managed by [Atsushi] Inaba-san, [Shinji] Mikami-san and [Hideki] Kamiya-san, and the three of them were essentially the individuals that made Clover, plus with the team staff they had about 80 people in total.

Our games need to at least break even and add value back to our shareholders, so it's impossible to make games that are not profitable over and over again. What actually happened is Mikami-san, Kamiya-san and Inaba-san chose to leave the company and do something else and the rest of the Clover team was just incorporated back into the rest of Capcom's development talent pool. So in fact, while three individuals left, Clover Studios as a separate entity was merged back into the rest of the Capcom teams and today, still, the talent we had, with the exception of three people, is still remaining at Capcom.

While some could make the argument that three very key figures are no longer in the Capcom camp, it would be a disservice to undermine the work that the other 77 Clover staff did while in their employ. Still, we'll continue to lament the closing of Clover while looking forward to see what SEEDS can come up with.

The rest of the interview should not be missed, as Bellfield talks about a number of interesting subjects, including how community feedback influenced the design of Lost Planet, his take on the AIAS awards and Capcom's exclusion, and the surprise success of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. A very good read. Michael McWhertor

Interview: Capcom Vice President of Marketing Charles Bellfield [Gamasutra]

In a heart-wrenching move to many, Clover Studios was shuttered late last year. Fronted by Atsushi Inaba, the studio brought us titles like Okami and GODHAND. We had heard rumblings that Inaba had created another Osaka-based studio. What's more, it apparently had big financial backing.

The website for Inaba's new company SEEDS has gone live. SEEDS was founded way back in August 2006, which was a couple months before Capcom closed Clover. As of January, the new outfit was 51 employees strong. The company's message page boasts a powerhouse staff with the likes of producer Atsushi Inaba, Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami and Devil May Cry/Viewtiful Joe creator Hideki Kamiya.

The company seems to still be in the recruiting phase and sets forth this company philosophy of creating new entertainment for people living in a new world and looking towards the future of gaming (hence, the company name "SEEDS"). States it's always considering "worldwide," because it wants more more to play its games. In the company's site there does seem to be a largely international focus and concentration on the "play" aspect of gaming. If past Clover and Capcom titles are anything to go by, whatever SEEDS does output should be anything but run-of-the-mill. Looking forward to it. Brian Ashcraft

New Clover Studio [SEEDS via NeoGAF]

Eds Note: "Blind Items" will appear occasionally for gossip and rumors. Hit up the comments section for conjecture and speculation.

Kotaku Pointing Fish says that former Clover honcho and Okami producer Atsushi Inaba is hard at work in his new studio, which is located in the Umeda area of Osaka. The up-start has even hooked up with a company that is, and the Kotaku Pointing Fish quotes, "flushed with cash." Hmm, flushed with cash? Okay, guess away! And keep in mind that Inaba's co-hort Shinji Mikami had a fit with Resident Evil appeared on the PlayStation 2. Brian Ashcraft

When Capcom shuttered Clover, the arm behind Okami and Godhand, grown men cried. Producer Atsushi Inaba fled the company, while his partner-in-crime Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) kept contractual ties with Capcom.

So, what came of Inaba? What is he doing now? Word from a handful of insiders is that he has set up his own studio in Osaka and is hard at work on new titles. This shouldn't come as a surprise in the least (file under "no duh"), but it is good to hear this chatter. No word what this outfit is called, and we've gotten conflicting reports that Mikami has joined Inaba's boutique studio. Stay tuned until there's something official. Brian Ashcraft

Rumor #1: Capcom Is Publishing SIX Xbox 360 games in 2007!
Source: This chart showing Capcom's Number of Titles Released, often incorrectly referred to as Capcom's latest investor relations report.

Unfortunately, that column featuring six Xbox 360 published games indicates they'll hit by March 2007, the end of Capcom's fiscal year. The column directly to the left shows two 360 games published in the first half of the fiscal year. What were those games? Dead Rising and Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting? Dead Rising for Japan and Dead Rising for... not Japan? It's unclear how Capcom is defining these games, if they're Capcom developed titles or games published by Capcom, but since this chart is from early November, don't expect to see six Capcom titles hit the 360 before the end of Q1 07.

Rumor #2: God Hand and Okami Coming To Xbox 360!
Source: A Japanese PDF issued by Capcom with the words God Hand and Okami in close proximity to the words Xbox 360.

Sadly, the fact that neither title broke sales records and the shuttering of developer Clover Studios tipped off the news hungry. The other clue to the authenticity of the rumor should have been the November 9th date of the news release. The English language version of the release merely indicates that Activision will be distributing titles in Australia and New Zealand and reads: "The first title to be distributed in this manner will be the Xbox 360 title "Lost Planet Extreme Condition" in early 2007, followed by "Okami" and "God Hand" for the Sony PlayStation 2."

As much as I'd like for more Capcom games, especially two of my faves from this year, to hit the 360, it's just not going to happen. At least not any time soon. Michael McWhertor

Granted, this is at one store, but here it is: GOD HAND marked down to 2,600 yen (US $22). The game was originally priced at 7,140 yen ($61). Can't help but think closing Clover was sadly a financial decision, not a creative control one. Regardless, McWhertor points out that the original price was far too high anyway. Agreed. Brian Ashcraft

Eds Note: Bashcraft, here. Sorry about the confusion! This store is buying GOD HAND, not selling it. Well, it is selling it, but not at the price mentioned. My apologies.