Japanese studio Cave talks conquering the West

Cult Japanese arcade developer Cave, which is famous for its notoriously challenging and collectible shmups, has told Develop of its plans to tailour its creations for an international market.

Having released very few home platform titles outside of Japan, the studio behind 2D shooter genre stalwart Dodonpachi recently ported its high-end arcade release to the iPhone, demonstrating somethinfg of a clash of cultures between casual, hardcore, platform an aufience.

In a rare interview with Develop, Cave has suggested it is looking to the art style of Geometry Wars, and the design template"

"Deathsmiles II and Espgaluda II were both designed with Japanese domestic users in mind, so we went with a design that pressed human characters instead of ‘ships’ to the forefront," said a trio of Cave’s staff – speaking collectively – when asked about the design of their games.

"However, if we look at shooting games supported overseas especially North America and Europe, we think that stylish looks like those of Geometry Wars and Rez should be taken into consideration."

"With regards to game design itself, although 2D scrolling shooters are still the mainstream in Japan, overseas we see top-down arena shooters with multi-directional shots, or full 3D FPS and TPS games as the mainstream, and we think it may be important to tailor our games in that direction."

Click here to read the full interview.