Too Kyo Games is working on a “death game” with kids, for kids, and the newly-established studio revealed its title as Death March Club with more details in this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089.]
First, here’s a list of staff involved on the game:
- Creative Director: Kazutaka Kodaka
- Scenario & Director Kotaro Uchikoshi
- Director: Takumi Nakazawa
- Character Designer: Take
- Art Director: Kentaro Yoshida
- Producer: Shinsuke Umeda
- Development Producer: Yukio Futatsugi
- Developer: Too Kyo Games & Grounding
Too Kyo Games describes Death March Club as a controversial title that features a death game with elementary school students. It is a death game of twelves of killing twelve as 12-year-olds. The gameplay is split between action and adventure parts, where you play as a boy named Reicho to solve puzzles and clear stages.
Next up, we have some quotes from key developers, including Izanagi Games who is publishing the game on PC:
Kazutaka Kodaka: The idea of having a death game with kids was planned with Uchikoshi. Now that I’m taking time off Danganronpa, I first thought that it might be enough death games for now, but Uchikoshi wanted to try a death game once again.
Kotaro Uchikoshi: (While talking about things they couldn’t do in Zero Escape) I was finally able to persuade Kodaka.
Kodaka: In return, we promised that after doing this death game, we won’t do anymore after this. We’re putting an end to death games. Therefore, it’ll be the last death game we’ll work on.
Kodaka: The action part is being handled by Futatsugi and Grounding.
Kodaka: Grounding has a lot of experience, and they reminded me just how amazing they are at getting things done.
Shinsuke Umeda: We’d like to get a title made by Japanese creators and sell it directly to the large overseas market.
Umeda: There are other titles in the works with Izanagi Games.
Kodaka: Since I’ve never heard of Izanagi Games, when they reached out I was a bit suspicious about them. [Laughs]
Kodaka: The action part will progress as a side-scrolling game.
Kodaka: The game is being made for the adult audience.
Kodaka: The catch copy is “trust each other and die.” The acronym of the title is DMC so that’s a bit unfortunate. [Laughs]
Uchikoshi: It has a similar catch copy to Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward of “Just trust each other, just die.” So I was like really? Did we really have that!?
Uchikoshi: As a matter of fact, we did use that. I thought it was we rejected that one.
Umeda: Shall we change the catch copy?
Kodaka: I’m sure we can think of a good one, at least by tomorrow.
Uchikoshi: Please give me a little more time…
Kodaka: For example, there will be an elementary school student with the ability to throw different things. You’ll understand more about it as you progress through the story.
Kodaka: Depending on the characters, there are some students with unexpected abilities. There’s even one that can control electricity.
Kodaka: You’ll only play as Reicho. The other characters tag along. They’ll help out for buddy actions.
Kodaka: The scenario volume is massive, and there are many unexpected twists that you’ll get to enjoy until the very end.
Kodaka: Reicho doesn’t talk. The reason is the same as our national RPG (Dragon Quest).
Kodaka: The adventure part is expected to be fully-voiced.
Kodaka: It’ll take about 20 hours to clear.
Kodaka: The game will be sold on PC.
Kodaka: The reason is because the main target audience is overseas, so we’ll be going with PC.
Kodaka: The reason we announced the 2020 release early is because it’s normal for indie games to start releasing info much earlier.
Umeda: Also because our company is receiving funding from overseas. We might have a surprise announcement before its release.
Umeda: We’d like to release a demo for its action part as soon as possible so that we can hear some feedback.
Death March Club is in development for PC.
