Die Hard Arcade/Development

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Die Hard Arcade development
Missed release date(s):

Design and overall development

Die Hard Arcade was developed by Sega Technical Institute in the US (it was the last title to credit STI before the team was dissolved), but was initially mostly being created by Japanese developers, as the department had a rift set up between American and Japanese developers[1][2][3]. The game's 3 lead developers traveled to the US specifically for this title in February 1995,[4][5] and had previously been stationed at Sega AM1 in Japan[6], but were asked by their department manager to develop a game in America[7]. This includes chief programmer Hiroshi Ando, one of the chief artists Tatsuto Kumada, and the person who came up with the game concept, Makoto Uchida.

Die Hard Arcade was the 7th game Uchida created, with several beat-em-up action games in his prior experience such as Altered Beast, Golden Axe[8] and Alien Storm, but he had never developed this kind of game with 3D polygonal graphics before. Because it was being developed in the US with a focus on the US market, it was decided to focus the game's design around the base software itself, instead of creating a game which would need a custom arcade cabinet that might need to manufactured overseas[7].

One of the early concepts to freshen up the game, in a time when side-scrolling beat-em-ups had largely fallen out of fashion, was the scene transitions with dynamic camera angles. Many beat-em-ups had long, boring moments where the player would just walk in a straight line, so these would be retained but made more flashy and cinematic. As these lacked proper background visuals early in development, there was the concern that it would rejected for not actually looking interesting, but with some hesitation, they were approved for continued development.[8]

The design of Dynamite Deka was inspired by one of Makoto Uchida's favorite movies[8] Die Hard (which in turn was inspired by a 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever). A scrapped concept was for the game to be inspired by Indiana Jones, an archaeological exploration game with a pyramid setting similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, but as the team was new to making 3D games, the more graphically simple skyscraper environment with action gameplay was chosen[7]. In overseas markets, it was granted official use of the Die Hard license by Fox Interactive - a move which occurred very late in the game's development cycle (and hence does not feature in Japanese versions).

The Japanese title was not conceived by Makoto Uchida, as he was never proud of the titles he created for his games. He asked his junior developers to come up with ideas and received 50 submissions. One of the artists picked Dynamite Deka out of the lineup, saying it was an "odd but fitting name"[7].

Borrowed technology

The early stages of the game's development, where the AM1 developers prepared the equipment they would need before flying to the US, can be dated back as early as 1994, as it predates the completion of the Sega Saturn. The game runs on the Sega Titan Video hardware, which is similar to the Saturn, but the Saturn's 3D engine was still under development[7], so the programmer at Sega AM3 responsible for it (whose surname begins with T[1]) begrudgingly allowed a prototype library to be used by Hiroshi Ando[7][1], allowing him to replicate the function of the twin CPUs.[1]

Another person who begrudgingly gave up their exclusive technology to Makoto Uchida's team was Yu Suzuki, who had Sega AM2's motion capture equipment[7][5], and Tatsuto Kumada tested the equipment and captured all the necessary animation data before moving to the US[1].

Art and graphics

2 chief artists worked on the game: Kunitake Aoki, who had worked at Sega Technical Institute since 1991/1992, and an AM1 transfer, Tatsuto Kumada. The game didn't have many American artists working on it at first, but they were later brought in to add more enemy characters for variety.[1]

Kumada recalls in his commentary for Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 26: Dynamite Deka that he and several other artists (the term used for the Americans, while he called the Japanese people designers) had their own private rooms to work in, leading to very little interaction. He mainly created backgrounds and animations, but also created some characters. The character design was the work of a young artist from England (previously a fashion designer) which a senior artist used as basis to create a model around. This design was not well-received by the head office in Japan, so had to be redesigned several times. The English influence can still be seen in the final game, as the president's daughter has a distinctly English design.

STI artist Betty Cunningham recalls Die Hard Arcade was her first project with the company and developed on Silicon Graphics workstations. This is supported by Tatsuto Kumada. Cunningham created a number of the game's textures, including some character models.[9]

Music and sound

The game contains a cinematic soundtrack entirely composed by Howard Drossin, a regular in-house composer at Sega Technical Institute. The Sega Saturn port used an arranged version of the music, but chief programmer Hiroshi Ando also wanted to include the original Sega Titan Video music, so recorded it on his PC and transplanted it onto the disc.[1]

Location testing

Location tests
Venue Start date End date Comments


Makoto Uchida recalls in his commentary for Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 26: Dynamite Deka that the initial location test was a flop. What they gathered from the reactions were that the player character's animations felt disjointed from their functions and that the game was monotonous because of too few enemy types. Uchida was desperate for the game to succeed, considering he had flown all the way to the US to developed it, so animators and programmers scrambled to improve the animations and new American artists at Sega Technical Institute were brought in to add new enemies. Uchida himself became involved with animation and with the growing number of animations, the team decided to include more comedic animations as well for the fun of it.

These changes turned the game into a smash hit at their next location test. Uchida has compared its popularity to that of his most successful title Golden Axe, since both games had more players pressing on with continues than there were players who quit after their first defeat.

Timeline






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1996-09-26: AMOA Expo 1996


1997-10-23: AMOA Expo 1997






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1996-09-08: ECTS Autumn 1996


1996-10-30: Final build date (CD-ROM (JP))


1996-11-01: Final build date (CD-ROM (US))


1996-11-13: Final build date (CD-ROM (EU))


1997-01-24: JP release


1997-02-24: EU release, DE release, UK release


1997-03-18: US release


1998-03-12: JP_Satakore release


Concept artwork

References


Die Hard Arcade

Die Hard Arcade Title.png

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Books: Dynamite Deka 4 Koma Ketteiban (1997)

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