Tsutomu Kouno provides hints on new Loco Roco game

Loco Roco designer Tsutomu Kouno has provided a taste of his next Loco Roco game to delegates at the Develop conference and expo’s morning keynote.

Explaining that he “would like to create games that surprise and entertain the world” and hopefully "provide a new way of playing", Kouno told attendees that he hopes to incorporate more crowd AI and physics elements into the next Loco Roco title, which was demonstrated via a brief video clip.

It was the climax of a talk that recapped the game’s production history, looking at how he devised the concept for the BAFTA-winning original PSP game, and developed it to a demo, pitch and then a full game.

The designer, who joined Sony Japan out of university ten years ago as a level designer on Legend of the Dragon and then worked for the Ico team, explained his original intention was to make a game that eschewed the common trends set by other games in the market.

“There are too many complex games,” he explained. “I wanted to make a game that appealed to people who didn’t play games.”