Dear Reader:

You are viewing a story from GN Version 5.0. Time may not have been kind to formatting, integrity of links, images, information, etc.

Solomon's Key dev discusses developing the game, porting to NES

by rawmeatcowboy
11 June 2015
GN Version 5.0

A portion of a Turu interview with Michitaka Tsuruta...

T: What was the original idea for Solomon's Key? It's a game that combines elements of action and reflection (in puzzle form), but was it originally to be that? Did you conceive it by yourself?

MT: At this time, Lode Runner was a huge success. In this game, the principle action was to make blocks disappear. And I thought to myself that the opposite action could be interesting. This was the original idea for Solomon's Key.

I originally thought about an action game. But as the concept of blocks disappearing and appearing is more like a puzzle, Ueda asked if "one of our common acquaintances" could work on this aspect of the game more, the puzzles. Hence why it was a mix of action and puzzle.

At the start, I worked solely on the game. When development of the arcade version began, Ueda started and hence the puzzle aspect came. Then when Ueda quit Tehkan, the development of the Famicom version began. Then I had a whole team working on the project. It went through various phases.

T: Solomon's Key is your first game on the Famicom. What were the different notions of development between the Famicom and arcade machines? As a novice, I get the impression it is quite easy to develop games on Nintendo consoles. What do you think?

MT: There are multiple points: the functionality of the console wasn't fluid, its technical capacity was inferior to the arcade machine, etc. For example, a 15 colour palette on the arcade machine corresponded to 3 colours on the Famicom, and we worked really hard to negate this inferiority. I think in this respect the development of a Famicom game was more complex than that of an arcade game. Nonetheless, given how constrained the game itself was on the arcade machines, I think the ported version on the NES was pretty much identical to the original.

Make sure to check out the full interview for tons of original sketches!