12/9/2023 0 Comments Skies of arcadia dreamcast image![]() Video game architecture and space design has been treated in depth by researchers in game studies and game design practice, but little work has been carried out into the history of video games from the perspective of their inner spaces. Tridimensionality is not a trick of technology it is a collaborative practice between player, designer and console. Through design analysis, oral history and archival research, in this paper I will complicate notions of tridimensionality by placing a three dimensional RPG in a broader network of sociotechnical relationships. It is grounded in a broader study of the networks of production and consumption that surrounded and co-produced the Dreamcast as a cultural phenomenon, technological agent and played experience. This research is based on interviews with the producer Shuntaro Tanaka and lead designer Toshiyuki Mukaiyama, user reviews submitted online over the past 10 plus years, and historically informed design analysis. It is a Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG), meaning that gameplay focuses on exploring a series of spaces and defeating enemies in turn-based, probabilistic battles using a system similar to that established by tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons. I became interested in this game because it was praised in critical reviews for the real sense of place in its visual design. Skies of Arcadia is a game about sky pirates, set in a world where islands and continents float in the sky. A new generation of video game consoles was in its infancy, and much speculation in the industry surrounded how networked gaming and large, open, tridimensional game worlds would change game design in the years ahead. ![]() It was released by Overworks, a subsidiary of Sega, at an interesting point in Japanese computer game history. ![]() This paper features research carried out at the Victoria and Albert Museum into the design history of Sega’s 2000 Dreamcast title, Skies of Arcadia (released in Japan as Eternal Arcadia).
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