Happy New Year! Let’s make 2011 the Year of the Dev Room!

By the way, I’m Kitabayashi, producer of Mega Man Legends 3. I’ll give a formal self-introduction at the end of this post. For now, hit the jump!

So it’s been three months already since the launch of this MML3 Dev Room, a project with the unprecedented aim of generating a game developed by everyone. It seems like just yesterday I was getting myself into trouble pushing an unreasonable schedule on our heroine design contest and making last-minute arrangements to fly to New York for our Comic Con presentation.

Well, I’d just like to give my sincere thanks to all the people around the world who have contributed to this Dev Room. Word has it we’ve even had some game magazine writers and professional designers sign up, so maybe we’ll get to have some interesting interaction with them.

And, and! We of course have plans to power up this Dev Room even more for 2011! I can’t get into the specifics just yet, but there’ll be lots of new things going on, more chances for member participation, and more envelope-pushing exposure of the underbelly of game development, so keep those expectations high and those thinking caps on!

Of course, as members of this project’s development team, the key to success lies in your cooperation and participation, so we hope to see you pumping up this Dev Room in 2011!

In celebration of the new year, some members of our staff have written out new year’s mottos in the traditional calligraphic style,* so have yourself a look and a laugh.

“Failure is the first step toward success.”

(Clockwise from top left)

1. [Servbot drawing], Yuji Ishihara; 

 2. “GREAT ADVENTURE (on so many levels)”, Masakazu Eguchi; 

 3. “NOW SEEKING DEV TEAM MEMBERS”, Kitabayashi;

4. “STRICT ADHERENCE TO DEADLINES”, Ozaki;

5. “I AM REO”, Reo Uratani;**

6. “SNACKS”, Kinako Ikawa

I feel that most of you probably aren’t familiar with me yet, so here’s a brief introduction to myself:

I work as a producer. In the past, I’ve been involved with such Mega Man projects as Mega Man 8, Mega Man X Command Mission, Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, and Mega Man Powered Up. Most recently, I’ve worked on the PSP game Monster Hunter Diary: Pokapoka Ailu Village, so make sure you check that out too [/shameless plug]

*[note: In Japan, it is traditional to write out a kakizome or “motto” for the coming year in the Japanese calligraphic style, similar to the Western tradition of making a new year’s resolution. -Greg]

**[note: “I AM REO” is a play on words, where the Japanese word for “I” (“ORE”) and the word “REO” are exact opposites, making the entire phrase a palindrome. Who doesn’t love palindromes?! -Greg)