The Strongest TOFU: Making An Exceptionally Weird Game [Award Winner Documentary #3] Part 1
■TomozoP(Zounoashi Games)
He kicked off his game development career in technical high school with his graduation project, an action game using Unity.
While struggling with job hunting he developed Kyomu Sodate (trans. Growing Nihility), which went viral and led him to join KAYAC Inc. in 2019. Since then, he has been working mainly on developing hyper casual games. He had a revelation on the day that the First GYAAR Studio Indie Game Contest was announced and began creating The Strongest TOFU.
The Strongest TOFU is an action game where the protagonist is Tofu — crumbling when it falls from a high place and getting devoured by animals. To avoid all of that, the Tofu must charge its energy and jump or bump to make its way to the goal. There is something irrationally delightful about tofu — a food — flying around, and the game makes the most of its fragile nature. The controls are also simple, making it a game that anyone can enjoy.
This straightforward game was made by TomozoP, who’s worked on various games up until now. His winning formula is simple mini games, but with The Strongest TOFU he takes on the challenge of creating a full-length one. We sat down with him and heard his thoughts on creating such a game.
■Kyomu Sodate, created out of stress, opened the path to becoming a game developer
―― First, could you tell us about the balance between your regular job and creating indie games?
🔸TomozoP: I work on hyper casual games* at KAYAC Inc. four days a week and work on The Strongest TOFU on the other days.
*Hyper casual games
Free smartphone games that are targeted at general users rather than gamers and tend to have simple motifs.
―― How did you start developing games?
🔸TomozoP: My first game creation was my graduation project for technical high school. The assignment was to spend six months making something as a team, and my team made a side scroller action game that’s similar to Mega Man. This is also how I started using Unity. Since then, I’ve made lots of small games and posted them to Unityroom*, a site where you can post games created in Unity. I’ve also been participating in the Unity 1 Week Game Jam, where you make a game in a week, since the inaugural event.
*unityroom
https://unityroom.com/users/zounoashi
*Unity 1 Week Game Jam
https://unityroom.com/unity1weeks
―― From unityroom posts and the Unity 1 Week Game Jam to hyper casual games — you’ve been consistently making small-scale games and putting them out into the world at a quick pace. Could you tell us about your starting point with video games?
🔸TomozoP: My parents were also gamers, so I was playing games as early as two or three years old. I believe I first played the Kids Station series, which were games for children on the first PlayStation. I also got to play on consoles like the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Game Cube earlier than my peers.
―― So you’ve been a gamer since early childhood.
🔸TomozoP: I’ve played my fair share of Nintendo games, but I feel like I’m influenced mainly by the indie-esque games that were available for the PSP. I’ve mostly played single-player games.
―― What did you do after graduating from high school?
🔸TomozoP: I got an offer for an engineer position at a local company. I was basically set, but then I took a trip to Tokyo thanks to a connection from the Unity 1 Week Game Jam and learned that there are all sorts of game companies out there. I then refused the job offer and restarted my job search in hopes of landing one in the industry.
―― Turning down a job offer to aim for a game company must have been a pretty big decision.
🔸TomozoP: Unfortunately, that didn’t go so well. I had a lot of time on my hands, and with the built-up stress I made Kyomu Sodate*. When I announced it, it went viral on Twitter, and I thought that was my chance. I seized the day and tweeted for someone to please hire me, and KAYAC picked me up from there. That’s how I came to work there.
*Kyomu Sodate
A mobile game where you tap the screen to collect Nothingness and grow the Nihility that appears in your room. The ending breaks the fourth wall and calls out the player for playing a meaningless game to pass time.
―― Kyomu Sodate really does take normal expectations for games and turns them on their head.
You grow the Nihility that shows up at your doorstep one day. All you do is gather the Nothingness on the screen. It tells you to look Nihility in the eye and collect Nothingness. One would think that an ad would show up, but that’s all that really happens — you stare into the void of Nihility.
―― It makes a lot of sense to hear that this game was born out of stress. It also sounds like you created a path for yourself by moving smartly and quickly.
―― Out of the games you’ve made, I am personally impressed by the meta-references in Saikyo Retsuden Jidai Hashiru* (trans. Strongest Legend: Run in the Times). It’s a running game that’s supposed to be a spinoff of a game that doesn’t actually exist. The X (formerly Twitter) account* is full of convincing yet fake advertisements and even promotes fictitious events.
*Saikyo Retsuden Jidai Hashiru
iOS
Android*X (formerly Twitter) account of the game that does not exist
https://twitter.com/saikyoretuden
🔸TomozoP: When I created Kyomu Sodate and Saikyo Retsuden Jidai Hashiru, all I wanted was to go viral. I intended for the promotional posts to be a counterculture statement against all of the same-old ads out there. Even while making these posts, I started to find them hilarious and would burst out laughing too.
―― What are some differences in development between the hyper casual games you’ve made so far and The Strongest TOFU?
🔸TomozoP: Hyper casual games are mainly for people who have never played a game; those who have never even picked up a controller. Comparatively, The Strongest TOFU has a stronger identity as a game, and I need to make sure it has a clear and logical end. I find myself endlessly thinking about what to do for the boss fight, how to pace the level designs better… I’m the type of person who tends to overthink and it’s hard to move forward once I get stuck.
―― I believe that The Strongest TOFU is consistent with your past creations in that it’s intuitively enjoyable, is pleasant to play, and has a straightforward theme. Personally, I was very impressed by the smooth gameplay as well as the nice finishing touches you added, such as making the QR code that shows up after you beat the game spin around when the tofu hits it.
🔸TomozoP: I think this comes from the fact that I spent a lot of time playing Nintendo games. I believe a great part of my influence comes from the type of gameplay in Mario and Kirby games.
―― When you plan something, are you more intuitive or are you more logical?
🔸TomozoP: There was a time when I felt like I’m more logical. When I started to make hyper casual games, the reason was actually because they were popular. And there were multiple times where I attempted to channel my inner writer and make games that are cool or have a story. However, none of them really worked out.
On the other hand, things tend to go well — almost like when you land critical attacks in games — when I’m not thinking about it at all. One good example is KETSUTOU*, a game that I showed at the Unity 1 Week Game Jam recently. This game, where a bunch of ninjas with katanas up their butts duke it out, was one I pumped out in 3 days leading up to Tokyo Game Show, has already been played by about 10,000 users.
*KETSUTOU
https://unityroom.com/games/tomozo202309
―― It’s quite fascinating that great things come to mind when you least expect them. Where do these ideas come from?
🔸TomozoP: This idea came about right after the host of the game jam announced the one button game assignment. I’ve made one button games before, and I can say that they tend to end up being games where you try to stop some sort of gauge exactly at a certain point or mash a button. To avoid ending up with something repetitive, I took the imagery of a sword sticking out of a person’s butt and went from there. Ideas like this come out of thin air when I’m spacing out. Like how Kaioh Kaku* from Baki the Grappler uses Xiaoli, I get amazing ideas when I’m decompressed and not thinking of anything at all.
*Kaioh Kaku
A Chinese Kenpo master from Keisuke Itagaki’s fighting manga Baki, which is part of the Baki the Grappler series. He uses a technique called Xiaoli, where he enhances the power of his punches, or absorbs the power from punches that he takes, by relaxing to the extreme.
―― So you avoided making a typical game by combining your ability to decompress and think of nothing at all with the know-how that you’ve built from making games so far.
🔸TomozoP: The other side of that story is represented by Shinkochu* (trans. Progressing), which is an example of a logical plan that didn’t work out. You play as an astronaut that flies all over the place and does various things… it’s totally boring. The difference between when something is well-received and when something is not is striking. Things that I make that people seem to like are mostly gag-centric games that have simple controls; something that young boys who read CoroCoro Comic would be into. I think my sense of humor is still at that level.
*Shinkochu
https://unityroom.com/games/tomozo202109
―― I feel that young boys finding your work funny means that there are things in this world that are funny regardless of the person’s age. For example, Deka Sugi Dekka-kun, a manga that’s published in CoroCoro comics, is funny because the central joke is that a really tall elementary school kid is the main character.
🔸TomozoP: Ore Dake wa Matomo-kun is also one series where the base concept is funny. The protagonist, Matomo-kun, is the only serious one in a town called Boke Makuri Machi where everyone goofs around. A new chapter comes out every month and it’s always ridiculously funny.
Kazutoshi Soyama-sensei, who creates Zettai Zetsumei Dangerous Jii-san, even said in an interview that something like a “joke formula” exists.
―― To phrase things in a martial arts way, drawing from the Baki reference, I guess we could say your special technique is creating simple games based on the formula “jokes that young boys find funny” and “not thinking of anything at all”. Do you think of there being a formula as a positive thing?
🔸TomozoP: While I think a formula exists after all, I sometimes find myself wanting to make something more serious or a horror game. Even then, my one principle is that I will not make the same thing twice; I refuse to rehash something. For example, Power Dogeza* was very well-received and I thought of making Power Dogeza 2 or even Technical Dogeza, but I didn’t go through with it. While I feel like I could be more confident by using something that worked well again, there was a part of me that was not okay with doing that.
*Power Dogeza
https://unityroom.com/games/saiyo
―― From our conversation, I get the impression that you’re an entertainer that values the reactions of others.
🔸TomozoP: I’ve recently realized that I’m quite easily influenced by those around me. Or rather, I am sensitive to other peoples’ moods. I feel like maybe I make funny games to lessen negative emotions in the people around me who play them. After making KETSUTOU, I became sure that making games with this elementary level of humor is the way to go for me. Using this almost primitive “baby steps” of humor is most fitting for me, and that’s all it is.
―― I see. I feel like The Strongest TOFU might be one where you might need more than the baby steps of humor to make, were there some parts of the development that you struggled with?
🔸TomozoP: I don’t think so. While it is a game that needs to be a little bit more in-depth, it has been my dream to complete a side scroller action game and I feel that now is the time to make this a reality.
(Continued in Part 2…)
- In Part 2, we talked about the reasons he chose to make Tofu the protagonist, and the importance of design documents!
▼The Strongest TOFU: Tofu Action
Be The TOFU, Be The Strong TOFU.The Strongest TOFU is a soft side-scrolling physical action game that offers the best tofu experience.
Embark on a hard adventure as Tofu to reach the legendary beanstalk.
Steam Store: The Strongest TOFU: fragile adventure
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