Not sure how many of you know this but the term Nomuda has its origins in Japanese. Look it up. There’s another Japanese word, Doujin, that is very relevant and parallel to the world of Nomuda.
Doujin Title Suguri
“Doujin is a term implying something self-produced by an individual or group with little to no professional support” and has been gaining a large foothold in Japan as of late. No professional support, well heck, that’s us! A rep for import publisher Carpe Fulger recently commented that doujin games have been on the rise in the West, easily importing these popular grassroots games from the East. They still remain obscure, but the popularity is growing.
Now, I’m asking myself, why import when Nomuda will be producing quality game lines in the very near future? Especially cool to note is that one of the more popular of these doujin games is a horror/mystery “visual novel” series called Higurashi. A game series gaining prominence? That’s us again!
Ougon Musou Kyouku
There are drawbacks to this current trend. According to Andrew Dice at Carpe Fulgar, “The problem there is that (several games) are built on the assumption of a 4:3 screen ratio. All XBLA and PSN games need to be in widescreen. Significant amounts of graphic material would need to be re-done, which is almost like remaking the whole game.” Also, the format (hard copy vs. digital preferences), copyright laws, and basic cultural philosophies behind the games also varies and causes a small rift. So while Japanese series started to come to Western culture and have work done to get properly translated and adapted to better suit the new audience, I’m hoping this means that soon the importing will be seen as an unnecessary encumbrance and people will find out that Nomuda is already on the track to create great series on a small budget (so far) with a large fun/addictive factor.
Long story short: Hello! Our name is Nomuda and we’re right here!
Jacob
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