Anyone who's played either 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors or Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward knows what an integral part narrative plays in those games. But what goes into the making of such twisted and highly intricate tales? I recently spoke with series creator, writer and director Kotaro Uchikoshi - as well as Nobara “Noba” Nakayama and Ben Bateman, who translated and localized the game - to find out.

If you haven't played these games... you really should get on that. But also please be aware that some spoiler-ish material follows. You've been warned!Understood? Good. Here's what Uchikoshi-san and company had to say...

: The story is one of the highlights of both 999 and Virtue’s Last Reward. How did you go about writing such a complicated narrative with so many twists, turns and possible outcomes?: Basically, I start off first with the setting. Then I go on to make the characters in that setting. For each character, I create a specific drama and story behind them. From there, I go on to making the core of the game. Like, for example, taking place on the moon. Based off of that, I create a flowchart, which becomes something like the bone structure of the story. I mix that all together to make sure that everything is consistent and makes sense and flows.: Is it hard to keep all the characters and overlapping storylines straight, or does that flowchart keep all the chaos in order?: For the Ambidex Game, I used the flowchart. Since it’s a number-based game, I have it set to automatically calculate… Like, if I said “Ally” on one round I can click that and it’ll automatically do the calculations for me. That’s one method. For other aspects of the storyline – like, for example, let’s say someone dying or committing suicide – that’s all in my head. I just write and keep track as I go.: In your opinion, what makes a good story?: I think a good story is something that will move you emotionally. Whether it’s gripping, or it makes you laugh, or it goes in an interesting direction. Even an unpleasant feeling – like if the ending is horrible and leaves you with a nasty taste in your mouth – I think that’s still a good story, because you still remember it. A bad story is something so typical and boring that you forget it a couple of days later. As long as there’s some kind of emotion behind it, I think it’s a good story.: Along the same lines, what makes for an intriguing character, one that you really want to keep alive?: That’s a hard one… I guess what’s really important for me is my feelings, how I feel when I’m writing. If I think it’s boring while I’m writing it, I assume it’s going to be boring for players too. So I base them on how I feel. Next, I think a key element is the mystery behind a character. Who are they? What’s their past like? That creates a story, making the players curious and making them think about who these people are. That aspect of mystery is important.: How did your experience developing 999 differ from that of making Virtue’s Last Reward?: For the general structure of the game itself, it’s the same. You read through the narrative and then you play the puzzles. That’s there in both 999 and VLR. What makes it different at its core is whether it’s a 2D or a 3D game. The puzzle creation, the whole process behind it, becomes different – like whether you layer in an item or whether everything’s drawn there all at once. Because of that, the whole experience is different as far as programming, and that changes the script and other elements. That was the major difference.: Is it hard coming up with these gruesome endings for characters that you’ve inevitably grown to love, or is that part of the fun, in a way?: Hmm… I might sound like a jerk here, but I can set my feelings aside when I’m writing that. For instance, in VLR, lots of characters die. Even if I’m attached to them, I’m not really fazed by it, because at the end of the day, I know that there’s one ending that’s a happy ending. To create instances where people, for example, commit suicide… I’m not too heartbroken there, just because I know that there is that good ending waiting for them. It’s a necessary evil. In Luna’s case, though, she was special. I needed to feel compassion and emotion going into that. I took care when I was writing Luna’s part. Otherwise, I’m usually able to cut myself off from that kind of attachment.: Would you ever consider making one of these games for a home console, or is it inherently a portable experience?: If it’s possible, I would like to do something on a home console, especially for VLR. But for 999, that would be hard, just because the core of the game is that dual screen. I think that would be hard to do on a console. I just realized, though, that it might be possible on the Wii U.: I hope that happens. Speaking of, is there hope for another sequel? And if so, what system would you ideally develop it for?: The sequel is in my head at the moment. I hope to be able to announce something in the near future, and I hope that fans are looking forward to it. One of the biggest things pushing that is the fact that I was invited to GDC to speak, and the award there. IGN also gave VLR the “Best Story” award. Thank you for that, first of all. But all these things are what’s propelling it. Players are expecting a sequel. Spike Chunsoft as a company, they feel like they need to answer those requests. So I do hope I can announce something soon and I hope people are looking forward to it. As far as the platform, that’s still undecided.: What was your experience like developing for the 3DS? How did that compare to working with the DS?: I think anyone developing for the 3DS would probably feel the same, but there were lots of challenges behind creating for the 3DS. Just making it 3D – sometimes the depth is too much, or it’s not enough. Making those kinds of adjustments was one of the challenges we faced. As far as similarities, the dual screen is the same, but I think there are more differences when it comes to working in 2D versus 3D. That was the main focus, overcoming the challenge of 3D.: Unfortunately, the visual novel genre is almost nonexistent in this day and age. What interests you about it, and what do you think it offers that other genres don’t?: To the first part, I feel like the strength of the visual novel is that there’s text. A book is made up of text, and text is a form of symbols. As a writer, I write something, and the player receives it – they decode it. Let’s say if I write about an apple. What I think about an apple might be different from how you would interpret what an apple is. There’s a lot of power behind that, the use of text. I think that the visual novel draws and focuses on that. Players can experience things they’ve never experienced before, because their minds can extend the power of my writing, of those symbols.: 999 and now Virtue’s Last Reward were both somewhat niche titles, but with extremely loyal fan bases. Why do you think these games inspire so much loyalty? Is it the characters, the unique narrative?: Like I said before, there’s a lot of power behind narrative and sentences and what they express. Compared to other games, there’s more depth to it because of what I was just talking about. A lot of other games, they cut out the narrative to make room for gameplay. In these games, there’s more detail. That’s at the core. And although Ben was sleeping just now… [big laughs] I think that Ben and Noba did a good job localizing it. That’s probably what reached out to those core users as well.: Speaking of localization, what’s the process like for such a text-heavy game that has so many characters and so much nuance?: Lots of e-mails back and forth.: Yes, e-mails are key. [Uchikoshi] sends me back something like a novel. It’s so well-written, but it’s because he does a lot of background research. I’m sure that whatever we see is only the gist of what he does in his research. So he has all this knowledge, and there’s so much limitation to what we can do via e-mail. Even if it’s a long e-mail, it’s only a fraction of his research. For me to grasp that and tell Ben is another challenge. Sometimes there are those moments, for me, where I probably misinterpret something, and then we go off the rails. Then there are another five e-mails to clarify everything. It’s funny, because sometimes, when Uchikoshi-san e-mails me, he’s answering, and then in the middle he realizes what my real question is, and he says, "Okay, so I just wrote like two pages of explanation, but now I really understand what you’re saying, so here’s my legit answer." [laughs]"I want Ben to know everything," he says. I write what he was confused about, and then I’m like, "Here, now he understands the question, and here’s your official response." Then he reads it. Sometimes it’s frustrating, because then, after all that, he gives me something like a two-line response. He spends so much time answering and then I’m just like, “Thank you.” [laughs] Sometimes, as a Japanese person, I feel bad about that, because he sends so much and I send back so little in return. But the process is usually, we get the text and we play the game. Preferably we write a synopsis, although I usually never do. [laughs] I’ll vocally explain it to him. It’s faster that way. Then he just starts asking all the little nitty-gritty questions.: Part of the thing with a game like this is that the plotting is very intricate. Part of what makes the story interesting is that this decision here will sprout off and mean all these other things later on. But the thing is, because of that, we have to be super sure that every detail is right. Especially in games like 999 and VLR, I will be really nit-picky with the text, because I need to make sure that I really understand what exactly is going on. If I don’t, that’s going to be a problem down the road. A lot of other games, you can get away with sort of guessing or making some stuff up. With this kind of thing, that’s part of why there was so much back and forth. Here, we need to make sure we know exactly what he’s thinking. Fortunately, Uchikoshi was really willing to go back and forth with us. Not all developers are as willing or as able to do that. The thing that really sets these games apart is that there was all that back and forth. We really understood exactly what was going on and how things worked together.It’s really, really rare to get a writer to answer our e-mails when we do production. Usually there’s another person like me on the other end. This is just my speculation, but I think it was that… I’d send it to his contact. Probably, because it was in Japanese, she would copy and paste it and send it to him. That’s an extra step, so he was probably like, "Screw it. I’m gonna talk to her directly." And we were like, "Yes!" It was a hallelujah moment for us. It’s awesome, because we can represent him truly. We know that there’s so much background on his end that he researched. Our job is to represent him in the best way possible.: I’m just going to write that up as "e-mails.": [laughs] We have an inside joke saying that we should release those e-mails. It would be fascinating. But it was funny, because it was just a lot. Every little thing.: How do you go about creating mystery around a character, while at the same time trying to create a sense of pathos, where the player wants to protect and trust them?: The whole setting for VLR, or the set of rules that you have to follow as a game… just going along by the rules alone makes you start questioning that character, no matter how much you like them. The only person that I probably didn’t doubt was Luna. Other than that, it’s natural. "Will they betray? Will they ally?" That doubt is caused because of the rules. It’s not what I want to do, but it’s natural for you to feel that way.: What games, or any other media – movies, books – would you say influenced you as a writer and game developer?: Do you guys know Steve Jackson? He created a series of game books, like a novel within a game. When I was in junior high, I was really hooked on those kinds of choose-your-own-adventure books. Rather than starting from a PC game background, I think that the core of the reason why I go for visual novels and adventure games is because of that. I started off from the novel side of things, rather than PC games.: It looks like we’re out of time, but I have one more question. Who’s your favorite character in either 999 or Virtue’s Last Reward, and why?: My favorite is Akane, and the reason why is that she’s gone through so much in her life. You can’t express it in words. She has a really sad story behind her, and I could sympathize and feel for her. That’s probably why I like her the most.: So it’s not the evil bunny?: [big laughs] I like him too.

Audrey Drake is a Nintendo Editor at IGN. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can keep track of her wild adventures by following Aminka on IGN, @GameOnAminka on Twitter, oron Tumblr. Game on!