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Dwarf Frotress

@dominaludorum.bsky.social
896 followers 1.3K following 4.7K posts

30+ 🇨🇦 (QC) 🏳️‍⚧️ ♀️ YouTuber/vTuber (Hiatus due to immigration) Video Editor Indie Dev - Narrative Designer - Character Designer - Pixel Artist - Low Poly FFXI Apologist I can swim. 🦂 AD: @ladyludorum.bsky.social

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Apple 🍎 @frogapples.bsky.social · 22h
My favorite comms so far
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Hiroita @hiroita11.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
31周年おめでとうございます!アンジェラ描きました #聖剣3_31周年
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FFXI names @xinames.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XI? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of the Base Game up to level 75 for free with no restrictions on playtime!
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pidge, the Super Jumper 🇨🇦 @pidgezero.one · 22h
Here's a recent translation I commissioned of Yoko Shimomura's essay printed in the insert of the original SMRPG soundtrack CD from 1996! pidgezero-one.notion.site/Yoko-Shimomu...
pidgezero-one.notion.site
Yoko Shimomura’s 1996 essay (English translation) | Notion
The 1996 release of the SMRPG soundtrack, “Super Mario RPG Original Sound Version,” contained a short essay about the game by Yoko Shimomura as well as liner notes with some of her thoughts about each...
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radelgirl is weaving fortunes @radelgirl.vanadiel.network · 23h
Also, for new FFXI players, I have a thread that compiles some lore resources! Join the lore perverts 😈
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Foo Midori -碧 風羽 @foomidori.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
ワンドロリリス
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Daily Video Game Art @dailyvgart.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Yotsuyu Art - Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood
Yotsuyu Art from Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood
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Tales of Arcturus 👓 @ottolinearcturus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#XIVwomenweek Day 1: Moon 🌔 Waxing and Waning 🌒 #Yotsuyu
Two aspects of Yotsuyu sit on a moonlit windowsill. On the left, the Doman Viceroy reaches for the mirror in her counterpart's hand holding the lunar handmirror, but falters ever so slightly as her gaze turns sorrowful. To the right, the amnesiac Tsuyu gazes in wonder as she watches the moonlight glint off of her mirror. She remains blissfully unaware of the counterpart trying to take it from her.
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旧JADE @kenkodo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
ただいもー🍠 しめやかに火曜日終了 イラストは霊夢とブロントさんが東方を頑張るシリーズの完走記念絵です。
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Lady Lilith @darrknessdescends.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remember this. The future will choose me.
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I really love the breadth of genres you can fit in L5R. You can run a Kurosawa style action, a Ninja Scroll-esque style adventure, a Phoenix Wright style mystery, a feudal japan style call of Cthulhu horror, a heavy political drama, or even small scale slice of life, all in the same campaign.
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Lady Lilith @darrknessdescends.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ohohohohoho! Did I not warn you that the future would choose me?
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Vana'diel Tribute 📜🖋 - a FFXI fanzine @vanadiel.today · 28/09/2026
Oh? What's this? Our very first post here? 👀🌱 Please watch this space as we've got something special-wecial coming soon!
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Alfred Reinold Baudisch @alfredbaudisch.com · 24/09/2026
Pet project: 1) Advanced PS1/N64 game extraction (+all animations). 2) Website where you can browse and compare models, textures, animations, FMVs, for preservation. Already have FF7, Mega Man Legends 1 and 2 and MediEvil fully ripped. #FF7 #FinalFantasy #FFVII #PS1 #PSX #RetroGame #N64
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zp @zpr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm currently unemployed. Since my only income is from commissions, I'm having trouble making ends meet. I'm accepting commissions on Skeb, so please feel free to place an order if you're interested. skeb.jp/@zp_R
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Aidan Moher @aidanmoher.com · 28/09/2026
Um, holy crap. Y'all. Thanks to everyone who's donated so far, we've passed enough to cover the costs for the initial assessment and undoing the damage the original repair guy did! You're amazing. If you've ever enjoyed my CRT pics, and have the bandwidth, toss a coin to your Witcher.
A photograph of Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete on a CRT.A photograph of Saga Frontier 2 on a CRT.A photograph of Castlevania 4 on a CRT.A photograph of Chrono Trigger on a CRT.
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PC-98 Bot @pc98bot.gang-fight.com · 28/09/2026
DR2 Night Janki // Leaf // PC-98
DR2 Night Janki // Leaf // PC-98
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ooof, my insomnia is BAD bad tonight.
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Alice Averlong 🏳️‍⚧️ @alice.averlong.com · 24/09/2026
I'm currently the only one of three disabled trans people in my household who can work, but 16 months of being bedridden and an ongoing chronic migraine issue has left us very broke. If you can spare a few dollars, it'd really help, thanks! ko-fi.com/fooneturing
ko-fi.com
Support Alice Averlong ❤️
Become a supporter of Alice Averlong today!
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jon @zyagapi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
過去絵ですが #吉田優子生誕祭2026 #まちカドまぞく
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かとら @katoraman.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
本日はロードス島戦記のディードリットさんをアップするのすw #ロードス島戦記 #ディードリット
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is the only thing that has ever tempted me to get back on twitter, ngl.
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Basil 🌱 @basil-mage.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Discord
Comic about discord implementing a feature nobody asked for that ended up not working(shocker!) and making a post trying to act silly about it. the caption is; "Oh, another major company trying to smol bean itself in light of recent controversy. let's check the quotes.." the next panel shows basil puppy reacting to the quotes saying; "oh wow. that is a lot of gore"
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
BITTERSWEET: Artists you follow are experimenting with snuff/guro art but it's all involving the stupid discord mascot.
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Alfred Reinold Baudisch @alfredbaudisch.com · 25/09/2026
FF7 scenarios with pre-rendered backgrounds were always a mystery to me during childhood; but even to this day it's still something that amazes me. Now you can inspect every single Final Fantasy VII stage, including the 3D path + variations. #FF7 #FinalFantasy #FFVII #PS1 #PSX #RetroGame
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Moa @moa810.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
私が人生で初めて触れた悪魔城はGB版『悪魔城すぺしゃる ぼくドラキュラくん』でした。こちらキッズ向けに全振りしたパラレルワールドかと長らく思っていたけれど、月下のアルカードが結構な傍若無人坊っちゃんなので、ひょっとして普通にドラキュラくんと同一人物なんじゃないか……?という気がしてきた。 #fanart
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GSK | ALL CITY SLOP SHOP (ETA SOON) @allcityslopshop.com · 24/09/2026
lots of info here on the makings of early Samsho (and quite a few pre-NG titles, too), including some insight on just how Samsho 3 ended up the way it did

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The Samurai Craftsmen of SNK (2020)
This massive interview with SNK alumni Yasushi Adachi and Tomoaki Fukui originally appeared in the SNK Anniversary Fan Book published in 2020. The first half of the interview looks at SNK's "arcade action" era of the late 80s and early 90s. The second half is a wonderfully detailed recounting of the making of Samurai Shodown and its sequels, which Adachi and Fukui were deeply involved in as producers and designers.

SNK | Yasushi Adachi | Tomoaki Fukui | Samurai Shodown
The late 1980s is often called SNK's first golden age. Many of the developers who were there during that era (who would also go on to support the company's second golden age in the 90s) are now gathered at the game development studio Engines. We sat down with two of those developers, Yasushi Adachi and Tomoaki Fukui, to talk about what it was like on the floor at SNK back in the day and the creation of the Samurai Shodown series.

—In this interview, we'd like to look back at your time at SNK from the 80s into the 90s, including your involvement in launching the Samurai Shodown series, and ask about the atmosphere inside the company back then. First, could you give us a brief intro regarding when each of you joined SNK?
Adachi: I joined in 1986.

Fukui: I came in three years later, in 1989.

Adachi: We should probably explain how we got hired. The catalyst for me joining SNK was a job listing flyer posted at the design vocational school I was attending at the time. A classmate said to me, "I'm going to apply here," so I replied, "Alright, I'll go with you." Back then, SNK had set up shop on the second floor of a prefabricated building right in the middle of the rice fields in Esaka. The first floor was rented by a company that manufactured magnetic tape, so SNK was just subletting the space upstairs.

—Ah, that was right after SNK moved to Esaka.
Adachi: The moment you opened the entrance door, game sounds came blaring out at you. SNK was working on Dogou Souken (Victory Road) at the time. As an arcade-obsessed kid, seeing that made me explode with excitement: "Whoa, they've got an Ikari cabinet in here!" After that, I handed over my resume and had a brief interview. Then out of nowhere, they just casually told me, "Alright, you're hired." By the way, the friend who went with me passed as well, and he later went on to work as a director on titles like Art of Fighting.


SNK alumni Yasushi Adachi (L) and Tomoaki Fukui (R).
—That sounds like an incredibly informal hiring process.
Adachi: It really was. In fact, senior co-workers teased me about it for years afterward, because I actually showed up to the interview wearing a Mao suit and a Mao cap.

—That's certainly a unique fashion choice...
Adachi: I was completely obsessed with YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) at the time. (laughs) But that was the atmosphere of the gaming industry back then: it was open enough to let a crazy guy like that right through the door.

—A true reflection of the industry's early boom era.
Adachi: There is one thing I give my younger self credit for, though. (laughs) I had actually brought a game proposal document I wrote myself. Of course, I had no clue how to properly write a game design document back then, so it was just a handwritten binder filled with whatever I imagined a game proposal ought to look like.

—Design documents weren't really something people saw out in the open back then. What kind of work did you do after you were hired?
Adachi: I was assigned to the development team working on arcade titles like Ikari. The whole team was only about five people back then. I spent a lot of time debugging Victory Road.

—That marks what you could call SNK's first golden age, a period when titles like ASO (Alpha Mission) came out and boosted SNK's reputation among gamers.
Adachi: That's right. Alpha Mission was a groundbreaking title. Kazuto Kohno (currently at Dimps), who created that game, also worked on games like Athena, and he possessed an RPG sensibility that was rare at SNK at the time.

—Alpha Mission is a shooter and Athena is an action game, but both contain clear RPG elements.
Adachi: Gameplay-wise, they really are RPGs. Kohno went on to work on actual RPGs like Satomi Hakkenden and God Slayer (Crystalis). Around that time, SNK was bringing in more and more people with an arcade action background. If we had brought in more developers from the home console RPG side instead, the SNK of today might look completely different.

—That's an interesting timeline to imagine: SNK as an RPG developer. Speaking of Alpha Mission, I remember being surprised by how carefully tuned each weapon's performance was. In most shooting games back then, even if there was a wide variety of weapons, usually one or two were so overpowered that you could clear the whole game using just those.
Adachi: You're right, every weapon in that game had its specific use case.

—Today that might seem standard, but it was very impressive back then. Around that time, SNK's titles were ramping up in quality at a frightening speed, and games like HAL 21 and T.A.N.K (T.N.K. III) felt exceptionally well-crafted.
Adachi: T.N.K. III was a fantastic game across the board, music included. The programmer on T.N.K. III was also heavily involved in Ikari, and he wasn't just a programmer--he composed music too. Later on, he handled the programming for games like Art of Fighting as well.


Although not particularly celebrated today, TNK III was a landmark title for SNK, and the first to use the new LS-30 rotary joystick which would go on to define arcade classics like Ikari Warriors and Guerilla War.
—Fukui, we'd love to hear about the period when you joined.
Fukui: I joined right when SNK had constructed a brand-new development building and moved out of the prefab setup. I first found out about SNK from a job flyer I saw at the art university I was attending. At the time, the games industry wasn't even widely recognized as an actual "industry." There were job postings for Nintendo on campus too, but among my peers no one really knew anything about them. It was like, "Nintendo? Who's that? Oh, I guess working in games is a thing." It's crazy when you look back on it now. Actually, I knew about Nintendo and wanted to apply, but by the time I noticed the posting, the application window had already closed... a lot of my college friends received job offers from Nintendo, but almost none of them ended up going there. They chose design firms instead.

Adachi: I bet those people are looking back today thinking, "Man, I should have taken that offer!". (laughs) But anyway, that's just the kind of era it was.

Fukui: So, with the Nintendo applications closed, I was wondering what to do next when that SNK job posting caught my eye. I didn't know anything about SNK at the time, but I grabbed a portfolio of my artwork and went in for an interview.

—And you were hired right on the spot?
Fukui: Well, I had gotten married while still a student and already had a child. When I mentioned that during the interview, they just said, "Oh, you've got a kid? That must be tough." After the interview, I walked home, and my wife said, "A company called SNK called and said you're hired!" I was totally shocked: "Wait, already?!" (laughs) After a brief, bewildering wait, the official offer letter arrived, and I officially joined the company.

Learning Game Design by Trial and Error
—Adachi, what titles did you work on after joining?
Adachi: I was initially hired as a graphic artist, and the first project where I got deeply involved in development was Psycho Soldier, the sequel to Athena. I worked on characters and objects, what SNK called "front-end" graphics back then. Athena was a side-scrolling action game, but Kohno initially said, "I want to make this an overhead view game." Drawing characters from a top-down perspective is an absolute nightmare, so I remember seriously begging him: "Please, anything but that!"

—So that's why Psycho Soldier ended up sticking with the side-scrolling format.
Adachi: After that, I was told, "Go design your own project," which led to ASO II (Alpha Mission II). That was the very first project I worked on in a planning capacity. At first, I had zero clue what a planner was actually supposed to do, so I just fumbled through writing a design document by mimicking what I saw others doing.

—So there weren't standard document templates at the company back then? Some companies in the 80s had rigid formats for design docs, even if only a few.
Adachi: SNK had nothing like that at all. Everyone was just flying by the seat of their pants.

Fukui: It was mostly word-of-mouth back then. Knowledge wasn't written down; it was passed along orally.


Psycho Soldier, Adachi's first project at SNK before moving into planning. He worked on the character and object sprites.
—Was your first planning experience pretty rough?
Adachi: Alpha Mission II was a shooter, but no matter how much work we put into it, the game just wasn't turning out fun at all. I had no idea how to fix it. There's an episode from that time I'll never forget. As I was sitting there lost, someone from the Ikari team walked up to me and said, "Get out of that chair for three days."

—Meaning, "Let me handle this"?
Adachi: Exactly. For three full days, I wasn't allowed to touch the game at all. That person spent those three days working directly with the programmer, and as a result, the game's quality shot up drastically. I was so frustrated and furious with myself. I spent every spare moment desperately analyzing the documents he left behind, trying to figure out what actually made a game fun. You could say that experience was my true starting point as a game designer. The tricks I picked up then are still useful to me today.

—Are there any other moments where work by other staff members left a deep impression on you?
Adachi: The stories around Bermuda Triangle are really memorable to me. Bermuda Triangle, The Super Spy, and Guerrilla War were all made by the same director, and I loved the bold, wild energy of that team. As you know, in Bermuda Triangle, your craft is huge, and as you collect items to power up, by the end of the game you become absurdly overpowered.

—Enemies could barely touch you at that point.
Adachi: When we first put that game out for location testing, the skilled players could play indefinitely, and the game just wouldn't end. So, the dev team tried to rebalance it by making the player's ship weaker. But the company president at the time stepped in and yelled at the team: "Nonsense! Weakening the player is the wrong approach. Don't make the player weaker--make the enemies stronger!" When I heard that, it hit me: "He's completely right!" That mindset became the foundation of my own design philosophy. Bermuda Triangle was aggressive in both its visual design and its balance, and it's a game I love dearly. The vehicle designs were so cool too, all covered in spikes. (laughs)

—Games from that era had a sensibility that felt like it would be even more popular overseas than in Japan. And I hear it was indeed quite popular abroad.
Heated Debates in the Trenches
—Fukui, what kind of work were you given after joining?
Fukui: When I joined in 1989, the team was working on Prehistoric Isle. My very first job was test-playing that game. As a new hire, I wasn't yet assigned to any specific team during my training period. Right as the game was approaching its master submission deadline, the president suddenly summoned me out of nowhere. I walked over to where I was told to go, and there was an arcade cabinet set up, with the president and Adachi sitting next to it with grim expressions on their faces. Then they told me: "Test play this game right now."

—Without any explanation whatsoever?
Fukui: Adachi didn't say a single word. I thought to myself, "Why does everybody look so intense?" and started playing. Shortly after starting, my ship crashed into a tree leaf on screen and got destroyed. Without thinking, I gasped, "Ah!" The president immediately seized on that and asked: "You just said 'Ah!' Why did you say 'Ah!'?"

—Wow, what was really going on here?
Fukui: I had no idea what was happening, so I just answered, "It's a tree leaf, so I assumed my ship wouldn't break if I hit it." Later on, I found out that Adachi and the president had been arguing about that exact detail. Adachi argued it should break, the president insisted it shouldn't, and neither side would yield an inch. So they decided, "Let's get someone who knows nothing about the game to play it and see what happens," which is how I got dragged into it.

—Ah, I see. (laughs)
Fukui: I don't know if that was the reason, but after that, I got singled out (or maybe noticed?) and started getting called in constantly for test-playing.

Adachi: We made you test-play Mechanized Attack too, which ran on the same board.

Fukui: Mechanized Attack was a light-gun shooter. The system was designed so that when you ran out of ammo, it would play a quick click sound and automatically reload. Right when that click sounded on screen, I accidentally let out another "Huh?" Immediately, they pressed me again: "Why did you just say 'Huh?'" (laughs)

—An automatic reload system is user-friendly, but for a first-time player, it's hard to instantly grasp what just happened. You end up wondering what that sound was.
Fukui: In modern games, the word "RELOAD" would flash on screen the instant it happens, but back then there was no visual indicator, just a momentary pause. Because of incidents like that, the Mechanized Attack team labeled me as "that rookie who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut".... (laughs) Shortly after, I was assigned to Adachi's team.


For his first project at SNK, Fukui drew the war-torn, industrial backgrounds for NAM-1975.
—What was the first project you were officially involved in developing?
Fukui: The first project I worked on from a development standpoint was NAM-1975, the very first Neo Geo title. Early in development, it wasn't being made for the Neo Geo; it was just a standard arcade board project. Midway through, we were told, "SNK is building something called the Neo Geo, and this is going to be its launch title." But the specs for the board were completely different!

Adachi: The thing that caused a panic initially was the "line sprite" rendering system. The Neo Geo was marketed as having a massively higher sprite count than our previous hardware, but the line sprite system had a major quirk: there was a hard limit on how many sprites could overlap within a 16-pixel vertical strip. If you exceeded that limit, objects would simply flicker out of existence.

Fukui: You'd sometimes see the screen flicker in Neo Geo games. That was the cause. You could display a massive total number of sprites, but you couldn't stack them arbitrarily. For instance, if a character at the bottom of the screen aligned vertically with a character at the top, graphics would disappear even if the two characters weren't touching each other.

Adachi: The Neo Geo hardware was incredibly peculiar.

Fukui: At first we were thrilled to hear the sprite count was going up, but when we tried running NAM-1975 on Neo Geo hardware, bullets were disappearing, enemy soldiers were vanishing.... (laughs)

—It definitely had its quirks.
Fukui: Everyone struggled with it, but by the latter half of the development, we'd learned how to handle it.

Adachi: Before NAM-1975, were you helping out with anything else?

Fukui: Before that, it was pure test-playing. On NAM-1975, I did the background graphics. Oh, and voice acting too. (laughs) I remember voicing one of the bosses.

—I imagine that was common across most studios back then: development staff doing voice work.
Fukui: Was Fatal Fury the first SNK game to use professional voice actors?

Adachi: Was it? I honestly don't remember.

Fukui: I recall a bit of buzz around the office with people saying, "Hey, the staff isn't doing the voices this time!"

—Let's talk about the Neo Geo era. From the outside, it looked like a project where the company was betting its entire future.
Fukui: As a new hire, I didn't understand what risks or benefits were involved. I would listen to the senior devs chatter around me while I worked. I heard the arcade operators were concerned about the commercial risks of the MVS system and its multiple game cartridges hosted in a single cabinet.

—Because operators might buy fewer complete cabinets.
Fukui: Listening to those discussions, I remember realizing for the first time that there was this whole business perspective to game development. What personally baffled me was the price gap: home console software was around 40,000 yen, while arcade boards were around 200,000 yen, even though the actual content inside was identical! Why was there such a huge price difference? (laughs) Now I understand the various industry factors behind it, but back then, I thought, "Aren't these literally identical except for the pin count on the edge connector?" (laughs)

—That was around 1990. How did the internal company dynamic evolve after that?
Adachi: SNK had three main development departments back then, and there was very little cross-department communication. The department heads might talk to each other, but rank-and-file staff rarely wandered over to see what other teams were doing, and development information was almost never shared. It wasn't that people got along poorly, though.


Early concept art for "THE SAMURAI", the early title for Samurai Spirits. As explained in more detail below, the team initially considered multi-line fighting like Fatal Fury.
—Was that just SNK's corporate culture?
Adachi: Probably. I don't know if management intentionally structured things that way, but it felt more like an organic result than a deliberate corporate policy.

Fukui: The Samurai Shodown team was on the same floor as the KOF team, so individual staff members chatted casually all the time. But we rarely dove deep into discussions about actual game design. The First Development Division—the team making Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and The Last Blade—was on a completely different floor, so we had almost no contact with them.

Adachi: It was completely routine for us to learn about games being made inside our own company for the first time by reading game magazines! But in a way, that was part of the fun. (laughs)

Fukui: This was a bit later, but I remember the absolute shock I felt when I first saw Metal Slug. As a fellow designer, I thought, "They're doing this with pixel art?!" There's an explosion effect that looks rainbow-colored, but if you look closely, it's actually just a black dithering pattern. Because of the phosphor bleed on CRT monitors, though, it renders as a rainbow. I was blown away: "They calculated the CRT display behavior to draw this?! That's insane!"

Adachi: The Metal Slug team was a total mystery team to us. They were housed in a completely separate building from main SNK.

—I've heard the Metal Slug designers would skip writing design specs altogether when an idea hit them and just start drawing sprites immediately, because drawing sprites was faster than writing documentation.
Adachi: It was a much more relaxed, generous era where nobody was obsessed with production costs. (laughs)

The Winding Road to Samurai Shodown's Creation
—We'd love to hear about Samurai Shodown, a project both of you were involved in launching. It wasn't originally conceived as a fighting game, correct?
Adachi: Right. I loved monsters and splatter horror, so I was writing a proposal for a monster-themed action game where you played as the monster. Right around then, I was called in by one of the company executives who declared: "From now on, we're going to make fighting games." Capcom's Street Fighter II (hereafter SFII) had taken the industry by storm, and there was a massive surge of momentum toward competitive fighting games.

—So you reworked the monster concept into a fighting game?
Fukui: At first, Adachi resisted: "I am absolutely NOT turning this into a fighting game!" But the higher-ups talked him down, and one day he just came in and said, "Alright, we're making a fighting game." I was amazed at the sudden turn.

—SFII was a miraculous, revolutionary title that completely reshaped the industry. Back then, there was an overarching atmosphere of "if it's not a fighting game, it doesn't matter." But your team had zero prior experience making fighting games.
Adachi: Exactly. Once we actually sat down to make a fighting game, we realized we couldn't even touch SFII. But I honestly believe our team studied SFII more rigorously than anyone else in the industry at the time.

Fukui: We played it every single day.

Adachi: We went frame-by-frame through SFII footage, analyzing every single move, studying hitboxes and hitstop to figure out how it was built and what made it feel so good to play.


Early planning document for Samurai Shodown proposing a multi-line system similar to Fatal Fury. This was scrapped, as were the 1P VS COM mechanics where a "waiting enemy" would have bided their time in Line B, influencing the fight by throwing items in certain situations. Likewise, a simultaneous 2P mode, with both players fighting separate enemies in different rows at the same time, was also abandoned.
—You were analyzing the core mechanics of action game feel. SFII is unarmed combat while Samurai Shodown is weapon combat, so the play feel is completely different. Yet both games deliver an incredible sense of impact and satisfaction when a move hits. Games with sloppy hitboxes or awkward hitstop feel jarring to play, but Samurai Shodown completely avoided that awkwardness.
Adachi: We had time back then, that's why. Schedules and budgets weren't nearly as strict as they are today; it's not much of an exaggeration to say the concept of a schedule barely existed. (laughs) The company let us work with a lot of freedom, and that helped immensely. There was virtually no concept of "marketing" back then either.

—When Samurai Shodown debuted, it felt remarkably stylish. It had a different vector of coolness compared to the gritty, masculine tone of Fatal Fury or Art of Fighting.
Adachi: A big reason for that was that we were unabashed otaku at heart. Myself included, the team was packed with anime fans.

—While Fatal Fury and Art of Fighting leaned into hardboiled manga and action cinema tropes, Samurai Shodown had a distinct anime-culture aura to it.
Adachi: Pure, graceful characters like Nakoruru were tailor-made for what otaku loved at the time, right? (laughs) When Mai Shiranui exploded in popularity in Fatal Fury 2, we were sitting there saying, "For the next Samurai Shodown, let's bundle Nakoruru up in even thicker clothes!" (laughs) It's not like I consciously set out to design characters that way—it just naturally turned out like that because the development floor was full of otaku.

—Why did you choose a period-drama (jidaigeki) setting?
Fukui: We didn't start out trying to make a period drama. The core idea of "let's make a game focused on weapon combat" came first. The original monster project had characters wielding weapons, so we thought using weapons would be a great way to differentiate ourselves from other studios' games. From there, someone said, "Well, if we're using weapons, it's gotta be swords," which naturally led into a period setting.

Adachi: My personal tastes probably influenced the final decision too. (laughs) Though my memory is a bit hazy.

—During development, Haohmaru was named "Musashi" and Ukyo Tachibana was "Kojiro." I recall seeing early screenshots of the two fighting on Ganryu Island.
Adachi: Our original motif was the duel at Ganryu Island, which eventually turned into Gairyu Isle in the final game. Wanting to target the overseas market was another reason we went with a Japanese historical theme, though.

Fukui: Though once we started throwing in tons of ninjas because of their popularity overseas, the actual samurai proportion shrank quite a bit. (laughs)

—The global perspective makes total sense.
Adachi: We kept the market in mind, but ultimately we just shoved in everything we personally liked. (laughs) Honestly, the worldbuilding of Samurai Shodown only came together late in development. Early on, we focused far more on game systems and visual impact than lore.


Early character concept art for Samurai Shodown. The top character "Shinzo" was an Koga ninja who clan was wiped out by a mysterious organization. He was envisioned as a "speedy" ninja character; the American ninja Galford was likely conceived later to add more international flavor into the roster. The bottom character, "Kanzo" is Shinzo's older brother. He is the top ninja of the Iga clan and is sent on an assassination mission to kill the leader of the Bateren.
—Could you elaborate on what you mean by "visual impact"?
Adachi: When I saw Art of Fighting, the camera zoom-in/zoom-out effect looked incredible, and I wanted to bring that into our game. I wanted striking visual frames, characters colliding in mid-air while the camera dynamically zoomed in and out. The worldbuilding was retrofitted to match those visual goals.

Fukui: I'm pretty sure we only fleshed out the story near the very end of development.

—In the original Samurai Shodown, ground-based anti-air attacks were generally weak, so jumping air-to-air attacks were heavily utilized to intercept incoming opponents.
Adachi: Right. We specifically wanted the visual of characters slashing each other mid-air, so we intentionally tuned the balance to encourage that.

—For a fighting game at the time, that was quite an unconventional approach.
Adachi: Developers at other companies gave us a lot of praise for that later on. (laughs)

—Speaking of visual impact, Haohmaru's heavy slash (his far standing heavy slash, officially named zantetsusen) was mind-blowing to see for the first time. It's a massive diagonal slash with significant startup; if guarded, the blade repels with a sharp clatter, yet leaves very little disadvantage. On hit, Haohmaru steps deep into the blow while the opponent reels back dramatically. It feels amazing whether hit or guarded, without breaking the game's competitive balance.
Fukui: Originally, Haohmaru's heavy slash shared the exact same recovery motion on block as it did on hit. But we wanted to capture that authentic sword-fighting feel, so we added a recoil animation where the blade gets knocked back with a loud clank. However, if blocking it gave the opponent a guaranteed heavy punish, players would stop throwing out heavy slashes altogether. That wouldn't feel satisfying for the player, so we minimized the frame disadvantage on block.

—Prioritizing the player's feeling of satisfaction, then.
Fukui: As Adachi mentioned earlier, we avoided the mindset of "this move is too strong, so let's make it weak." Instead, we thought, "This move feels incredible, so we have to preserve it," and carefully dialed in the tuning to find the right balance.

Adachi: Fukui and the rest of the original Samurai Shodown team were a fantastic crew. Everyone on the dev team shared a unified sense of what felt good in combat.

—So because your sensibilities aligned, you were able to refine the mechanics deeply without your design direction drifting off course.
Adachi: We didn't calculate all of that game feel up front, though. It was built up through painstaking, incremental iteration over time.

Fukui: For hitstun duration, we initially assigned standardized values across moves, but it didn't feel satisfying, so we went through tweaking data for every single attack individually.

Adachi: We could only pull that off because, as I said, schedules basically didn't exist. (laughs) Every single day was spent asking ourselves how we could make the game better.

Fukui: If we had been pressed for time, it never would have happened. After the game became playable end-to-end, we spent roughly six months just on fine-tuning.

—Beyond Haohmaru's heavy slash, many other moves prioritized visual flare and game feel. For example, Senpūretsuzan (Cyclone Slash) dealt damage in two distinct hits: once when the tornado connected, and once when the launched opponent hit the ground.
Adachi: That was spot where we prioritized visual impact. An otaku's obsession. (laughs)


Early character concept art for Musashi and Nakoruru. Musashi is fairly similar to Haomaru, though in this early version he is a "secret agent" acting under orders from Katsu Kaishu. Nakoruru was still an Ainu warrior, but she was also a direct descendant of the people of Atlantis (which is where her power to control animals comes from).
The Unforgettable Characters of Samurai Shodown
—The villain Genan Shiranui possessed an abundance of moves designed to irritate the opponent, like long command grabs and extended poison spray animations. (laughs)
Fukui: Genan was Adachi's creation. (laughs)

Adachi: He was the sole survivor from that original monster game concept, so that origin showed through loud and clear. I've always loved dark anti-heroes. Giving him moves that annoy the player was 100% intentional. (laughs) The team was very deliberate about assigning distinct personality traits to every character. Like Earthquakes's fart command grab. (laughs)

Fukui: After Earthquake farts, he lets out this "Khehe" laugh, and the animator drew that expression with absolute glee, despite how little sprite memory we had to work with! (laughs)

Adachi: Earthquake was a huge struggle, wasn't he? We built him focusing heavily on visual scale, and he gave us the most trouble by far.

—Did you intend to include a giant character like that from the start?
Adachi: We said we wanted to make a huge character from early on, but deciding just how big he should be involved a lot of back-and-forth between Fukui and me.

Fukui: If I recall correctly, we built a custom tool specifically to scale graphics up and down, and we sat right in front of each other adjusting his size in real time while arguing about it.

Adachi: I just kept shouting, "Bigger! Make him bigger!" so he kept growing. (laughs) Wrapping up his design was probably our hardest task. Getting that character functional and balanced was all thanks to Fukui's brilliant work. (laughs)


The indignity of the Skunk Burst.
Fukui: I was in charge of the weirdo cast: Wan-Fu, Earthquake, Kyoshiro Senryo... Memory allocation per character was identical regardless of whether a character was large or small, so compressing the data was a nightmare. The designers would come to me asking, "How are we supposed to fit this?" so I had to invent tricks like reusing frames from one animation for another move. Yet despite all that aggressive compression, we still went out of our way to draw custom frames for a fart expression! (laughs)

—Balancing match-ups must have been equally chaotic.
Fukui: During our first location test, a player went on an 80-game win streak using Earthquake. Word reached the office, and Adachi came barging in shouting at me: "Fukui! Is Earthquake broken?!" (laughs)

Adachi: I did not shout like that! (laughs)

Fukui: I said he wasn't actually that strong, but Adachi insisted: "He's on an 80-win streak right now!" So we went down to the arcade to check it out. When we arrived, there was barely anyone lined up on the opposite side of Earthquake's cabinet. There was a huge crowd of spectators, but nobody wanted to step up to challenge him. So I stepped in to play against him myself.

—Were you able to win?
Fukui: Yeah. I had been watching him play beforehand, and all he was doing was spamming the Fat Chainsaw move. That move leaves you wide open if blocked, so you can easily punish it for a win. But none of the local players had realized that yet. They were just holding guard and freezing up.

Adachi: Fighting game literacy was still primitive back then, and on top of that, a lot of players were intimidated by his sheer size on screen.

—Earthquake couldn't be thrown in that initial version either, which must have confused a lot of players.
Fukui: We didn't even realize that while making him. The designers only noticed it later. "Wait, you can't throw this guy!" (laughs)


Early character designs from Samurai Spirits. The top character is called 闇 (Yami) He was an illusionist tricked into holding a cursed scythe, which now controls him, and his purpose in fighting is "to find someone who can kill him." The bottom character is a monk called Tenkai, who became Wan-Fu in the final release.
—The roster had so many character traits that defied conventional fighting game design of the era. Hattori Hanzo's shadow clones and substitution techniques were mind-blowing.
Adachi: That was another case of visual impact taking priority. We figured, "He's a ninja, of course he should vanish!" (laughs)

Fukui: I wasn't handling Hanzo, but watching from the side I kept thinking, "How on earth are they going to turn this into a functional game mechanic?" (laughs) Implementing it was a mess too. The move splits him into four clones so the opponent doesn't know which is real, but initially, the opponent's character would automatically face toward the real Hanzo! (laughs) We realized, "Wait, this completely gives it away!" so we went to the engineer and asked him to turn off automatic target tracking during the move. He snapped back: "Think about these things before you ask me to code them!" (laughs)

Adachi: Animal companions were tough to implement too. Another visual-first idea.

Fukui: Poppy and Mamahaha caused us endless headaches.

—Controlling an external companion character as an option existed in shooters, but it was virtually unheard of in fighting games.
Fukui: Back then, our ideas just kept snowballing without any sense of whether they were actually viable. We'd implement things, all the while wondering, "Can we really use this?"

Adachi: Looking back, I think our deep study of earlier fighting games allowed us to build a solid mechanical foundation, which is why all those wild ideas worked out. If the core foundation had been shaky when we stacked those "visual-first" ideas on top, the game might have collapsed entirely. Building a sound underlying system was what saved us... at least, that's how I view it now. (laughs)

—Samurai Shodown wasn't just a hit gameplay-wise; the characters exploded in popularity, too. It felt distinct even within SNK's lineup at the time.
Adachi: Samurai Shodown and KOF had a unique character appeal that ultimately expanded SNK's character licensing business. The KOF team had a very similar vibe to ours, just a bunch of otaku hanging out together.

—Did the massive commercial success of the original Samurai Shodown change your standing within the company?
Adachi: The working conditions inside the office improved, and we were allowed to make Shin Samurai Spirits (Samurai Shodown II) with complete freedom. Though we might have pushed that freedom a bit too far in some questionable directions. (laughs) Silly jokes like turning characters into plush dolls... (laughs)

—Speaking of hidden elements, Haohmaru's Tenha Fuujin Zan secret move comes to mind.
Adachi: The truth is a programmer coded and implemented that move entirely on his own without telling anyone! He kept it secret from the planners and designers, recycled existing graphic frames, and quietly snuck a secret move into the code for just Haohmaru and Nakoruru.

Fukui: I remember other staff members getting furious: "Don't just sneak stuff into the build!" I thought, "Adachi is the director, so he probably knew about it in advance," but when I looked over, he was right there getting mad alongside everyone else. (laughs)

Adachi: I was furious! (laughs) But since it was already made, we decided to leave it in. The programmer said he saw the Ryūko Ranbu in Art of Fighting and wanted to try making a move like that. So during development, the working title for Tenha Fuujin Zan was actually "Haohmaru Ranbu."


Two early boss designs for Samurai Shodown. The first is an iaigiri master jokingly called Iaido in katakana. The second looks like a version of G-Mantle, SNKs mysterious mascot. Here he is called ゲームァント (Gameant), which sounds more punny in Japanese. Mock-ups of their respective stages are also shown, with a Japanese rooftop overlooking a castle keep and a circus fight in front of an audience.
—The Ryūko Ranbu was very dramatic despite reusing existing sprites. Even though every single motion frame was something players had seen before, it felt like a completely new technique.
Adachi: When I first saw the Ryūko Ranbu, I was blown away: "Man, this is incredible!"

—Many fans probably assumed Tenha Fuujin Zan was created as a tie-in for the anime TV special Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture.
Adachi: It definitely wasn't designed as an anime tie-in from the start.

—You can really feel how free-spirited the studio culture was back then.
Adachi: I don't know what management thought of us, but we were given tremendous freedom. Our development team started calling ourselves "Samurai-Gumi" (The Samurai Team) and operating like our own internal brand, but that was never an official corporate designation. Management just tolerated it.

—Oh, you gave that name to yourselves? Didn't you even build an elaborate website for it?
Adachi: We did it completely without company permission. (laughs) That's just how things were back then.

The Fierce Struggle of Samurai Shodown III
—The original Samurai Shodown and Samurai Shodown II achieved a miraculous balance, even if defensive play was exceptionally strong.
Fukui: Speaking of which, I recently saw footage of players who are still playing Samurai Shodown II today. The way they play, it's like they're playing a completely different game from the one we knew. (laughs)

Adachi: Among fans, there seems to be a school of thought that Samurai Shodown III is the pinnacle. To us, that's a bit surprising... maybe people just love how wildly unhinged it is. (laughs)

—When that game came out, it sent shockwaves through the editorial department at Gamest magazine.... (laughs) The massive overhaul of the game mechanics was surprising, and the overall balance tuning felt entirely different from previous titles. It was almost as if a completely different department had made it.
Adachi: The development schedule was extremely brutal, for one thing. Plus, losing key team members had a big impact. But a major reason the core systems changed so drastically was simply that I got bored of the systems we used up through Samurai Shodown II. I just always want to change things up. Looking at the KOF team in the 90s, the thing I respected most about them was how carefully they preserved the elements fans didn't want changed. Me, I get restless too easily, so I'm terrible at that...


Two unused characters from Samurai Shodown III. The notes don't give too much insight into their backgrounds, but the character on the right appears to be named "Gordon." The name on the left is too obscured to read clearly; possibly "Toku" (徳).
—The mechanics and move concepts in Samurai Shodown III were certainly fascinating, though.
Adachi: The core concept for that game was: "Let's create a more tense, life-or-death battle." I don't think the idea was bad in itself. If we'd had more time to properly polish it, it would have turned out much better.

Fukui: We had virtually zero time for balance tuning.

Adachi: We were fixing hitboxes right up until the literal minute of master submission.

Fukui: To be honest, ten minutes before the master ROM was submitted, the character I was in charge of was still completely bugged. (laughs) The bug got fixed right before master submission. It was total chaos.

—Could you share what happened there?
Fukui: There was a bug where hitboxes set in the dev tools would render in unintended ways in-game. I assumed the bug wasn't going to get fixed in time, so I assigned hitboxes while accounting for the bug's distortion. But then, ten minutes before deadline, I realized the bug had suddenly been patched.... (laughs) When I checked my character, the fixed engine caused the hitboxes to go completely haywire, making the move properties utterly insane. (laughs) Panic set in: "Oh no no no, this is a catastrophe!" I had to fix every single hitbox across the entire character in ten minutes flat.

—That's an incredible clutch save!
Adachi: Didn't you also unilaterally change rage gauge values right before submission? That turned out to be a great call in the end, too.

Fukui: Oh yeah, that happened too!
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Pizza Gloverrrr @pizzaglover.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
repostin a classic for the 1bit fans #pureMichigan
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Jasmine Zellmer @jasminezellmer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It can be hard to find #FFXI fans, but enjoy some ballpoint drawings! These were super fun I want to do more!
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Frot Race with Sartha the Quick
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鰯 @currysyu.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
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Saralene (Sara Leen) 💫🐈 @saralene.tv · 24/09/2026
Air Management '96 now has another update patch, v1.2! I'm hoping this will be the last patch revision, as I've gone over every line meticulously and even adjusted many menu positioning elements. Short of someone making a new title screen, I think that's truly it, now. romhack.ing/database/con...
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Ren [7.56 ❗] + BDAY WEEK SPECIAL ON! @drakesbane.vanadiel.network · 23/09/2026
[FFXI] i miss them sm... #ffxi #ff11 #myart #doodle
sketchy illustration of luzaf/aphmau from final fantasy xi. aphmau is kissing luzaf on his cheek, catching him off guard.
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Regulus @sirknightbot.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Ultima, the Bloody Angel Ink & Copic, 2021
An copic marker illustration of Ultima, the Bloody Angel, from Final Fantasy Tactics. She is in the air and is looking down, lit from below by the blue energy from the All-Ultima
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PC-98 Bot @pc98bot.gang-fight.com · 23/09/2026
Dragon Master Silk II // Gimmick House // PC-98
Dragon Master Silk II // Gimmick House // PC-98
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Twibby @twibbibt.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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透明屿 @taiyangyu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
#対魔忍 #イングリッド Ingrid
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Yumykon ⭐ @yumykon.com · 21/09/2026
Summer Kasane Teto 🏖️
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RcG...
youtube.com
September / Eurobeat Remix
YouTube video by Turbo
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X ΘΔ (Giant Tyrant Overlord) @xkeeper.net · 21/09/2026
a quick demo of the Lua script I use when doing Link's Awakening randomizers. I like knowing what the item is but wanted to make it show up nicer, so I hooked the "give item" routine and made it so
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwUs...
youtube.com
When the Rune Sparkles in September (Inverted Mix)
YouTube video by Emdyion
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m548...
youtube.com
Daft Punk - Digital Love x Earth, Wind & Fire - September - September Love (Flipboitamidles Mashup)
YouTube video by flipboitamidl3s
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StrayCatalyst @straycatalyst.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Lock & Load your 21st day of September memes everyone, I need materials for various Discords and Slacks tomorrow
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Freddie🀄 @superiorfoe.vanadiel.network · 17/09/2026
GORGEOUS Fhu x Lady Lilith comm from @fellyse.bsky.social THANK YOU!
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Touhou music covers have some of the horniest lyrics.
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
🎵 I'm your guro lover Want to see them suffer I'm your guro lover That wound's quite a gusher! 🎵
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Dwarf Frotress @dominaludorum.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
🎵 I'm your guro lover Want to see them suffer I'm your guro lover That wound's quite a gusher! 🎵
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Filibuster / Plurn@FFXI:Bahamut @mazesuite.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
People like Asmongold would not survive in FFXI, just sayin
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edgemis @edgemis.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
clean scans #ff8 #ff11 #ff3 #finalfantasy
Ink and markers sketch of Ultimecia from Final Fantasy 8Lady Lilith from Final Fantasy 11, colored with copic markersCloud of Darkness from Final Fantasy 3, colored with copic markers
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