[VDZ]

Originally Posted by GundamAce

So I was walking around Akihabara today when I came across something I didn't expect- the original Remember11 PS2 First Release Limited Edition! I bought it, and found that it came with two bonuses- a CD (which is basically an hour of Rika Morinaga and Takehito Koyasu talking), and a booklet. The first half of the booklet has character designs and whatnot, but what's interesting is the second half- comments from the staff!

The ones who commented were Takumi Nakazawa (director/main writer), Hidari (character Designer), Kotaro Uchikoshi (writer, going by his Hagane Tsukishio pseudonym here), Takayuki Koshimizu (Event CG and OP sketch designer) Kotaro Aizawa (Event CG and OP coloring/production manager), Taketo Nagai (3D movie designer and logo designer), Norisu (backgrounds), Takeshi Abo (composer), Masamichi Takano (assistant planner), and Hiroki Ito (sprite coloring).

Couple of interesting things I discovered just by skimming it.

-The game was initially conceived by Nakazawa in May of 2002, at the end of Ever17's development. He planned out the plot together with Uchikoshi in January 2003.
-The game was initially not an Infinity game, but a standalone game under the name "Parasite".
-Production of the game began in May of 2003, under the name "Project infinity 3". In September, the subtitle "the Age of Infinity" was added.

That is really, really interesting! Are there any other interesting things in the booklet?

May of 2003, huh? That means it took only 10 months from start of development to release (March 2004), or 12 if counting the plot planning. Considering the game needs to be completed at least a month before release (for final testing, pressing the discs, shipping to stores, etc), that's a surprisingly short development time.



Are there any clues whatsoever to there being problems during development, and Remember11's lack of closure being a result of that? I hear it a lot, but I've never seen any proof pointing towards this being the case, and the more I hear about it the more unlikely it seems:

Spoiler for Contains some (major) R11 spoilers:

-KID has just released Ever17 (August 2002), which was a massive success AFAIK, so a shortage of funds between May 2003 and March 2004 seems unlikely.
-The game is very polished for a supposedly unfinished game (a shitload of TIPs, fancy graphics wizardy, additional things like scene title and BGM title display, the complicated BAD END chain system).
-The game seems to be planned out really well apart from the lack of closure if it were not intended (again, the BAD END chain system, how precisely the two routes interact, how each route specifically describes a perspective (a third route would either break the pattern or be from Keiko/Hotori/baby perspective, which wouldn't be very helpful to the bigger story), the fact that they spent two months planning it beforehand (so re-planning things would cause lots of problems)).
-The game was released less than 1.5 years after Ever17. In contrast, when KID filed for bankruptcy in December 2006, 2.5 years after R11's release, 12Riven was still in development. Why were they able to develop 12R for so long even on the verge of bankruptcy, but did they have to push out R11 unfinished?

Spoiler for Spoilers for Never7, Ever17 and Remember11:

I think Remember11's closure is simply intended, for various reasons. First of all, it makes it very different from Ever17, and it's likely they didn't just want to do the same thing they did last time. Furthermore, in all of the infinity series, the amount of confirmation of the plot is directly linked to the actual characters' understanding of the plot:

Never7: Characters have a good understanding of Cure, but the plot itself is a mystery to the characters. Cure is fully explained, but details on the plot itself remain vague.

Ever17: Everything was planned by two of the characters, and the things that weren't planned were completely analyzed by them. The end of the story reveals everything about what happened - except, notably, for the things the characters don't know (the life counter and kick the can being good examples of things unexplained).

Remember11: The characters understand basic details about what happened, but are clueless about the bigger picture. The reader gets basic details about what happened, but remains clueless about the bigger picture (until he starts to analyze it himself).

GundamAce, this may be a good clue in solving this mystery, maybe you know this: Is there any specific known reason why Takumi Nakazawa left KID, other than to start his own company (or perhaps that, but more detailed - why did he start his own company instead of staying with KID)?