is a Japanese

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

. He has helped found a number of notable video game companies and develops games at Route24, his own private limited company. The number 24 in the title comes from its founder's name: "Ni" (2) and "Shi" (4).

Career

Kenichi Nishi previously worked for both

Telenet Japan was a Japanese video game and software developer founded in October 1983 by Kazuyuki Fukushima. The company had several video game divisions including: Wolf Team, Laser Soft, Reno, Renovation Products, Riot, Commseed, and Telenet Jr. Telenet Ja ...

and its subsidiary Riot. He was later hired by

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

as a field designer for two of its larger releases. After leaving Square in 1995, Nishi helped establish Love-de-Lic, Inc. with many of his former Square coworkers. There, he designed two of the small company's three game releases: '' Moon: Remix RPG Adventure'' and '' L.O.L.: Lack of Love''. He also helped design and write the script for the

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

Polygon Magic title '' Incredible Crisis''. Nishi then co-founded

skip Ltd. Skip Ltd. (stylized as skip Ltd.) is a Japanese video game developer that has a close relationship with Nintendo. Nintendo has published all of their Japanese releases; with the only notable exception being ''LOL'' (''Archime DS''), which skip ...

, a second-party developer for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

. Acting as vice president of the company, he also

directed Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

'' GiFTPiA'' and co-directed ''

Chibi-Robo! is a series of adventure video games developed by Skip Ltd. and published by Nintendo. The franchise follows a series of tiny Robotic units known as Chibi-Robo, whose purpose is to spread Happiness. Recurring game elements of the franchise inc ...

''. Shortly thereafter, he left skip and founded Route24 on February 23, 2006. According to Nishi, he felt that working on large projects with a large group of people such as those at skip limited his freedom in designing games. He apparently still collaborates with them though, seeing Captain Rainbow (2008) credited him for the game's script. At Route24, Nishi and a staff of four other people developed ''

LOL LOL, or lol, is an initialism for laughing out loud and a popular element of Internet slang. It was first used almost exclusively on Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of computer-mediated communication and even face-to ...

'' for the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

, which was published by skip in 2007. He recently worked on ''Newtonica'' and ''Newtonica2'' for the iPhone and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

with

Kenji Eno was a Japanese musician and video game designer. He gained a reputation as a maverick during the mid-1990s for creating unorthodox games like '' Real Sound'' and is perhaps best remembered today for his rebellious marketing techniques. Outside o ...

, among other independently developed mobile games. In 2010, Nishi expressed interest in developing a sequel to ''Moon: Remix RPG Adventure'', asking fans to voice their support via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Personal life

Nishi lives in

Meguro, Tokyo is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. The English translation of its Japanese self-designation is Meguro City. The ward was founded on March 15, 1947. Meguro is predominantly residential in character, but is also home to light industry, corporate ...

. He is a fan of

British rock British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the develop ...

music and once had a dog named Tao, who Nishi featured as a character in many of his games including ''Moon: Remix RPG Adventure'', ''GiFTPiA'', ''L.O.L.: Lack of Love'', ''Chibi-Robo'' and ''Captain Rainbow''. Tao died in October 2009 due to kidney complications. It is said that ''

Dragon Quest III ''Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation'', titled ''Dragon Warrior III'' when initially localized to North America, is a 1988 role-playing video game developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix. It is the third installment in the '' Dragon ...

'' is Nishi's favorite game.

Credits

*'' Tenshi no Uta'' (1991) *''

Exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

'' (1991) *'' Psycho Dream'' (1992) *''

Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first game in the ''Chrono'' series. The game's development team included three designers th ...

'' (1995) *''

Super Mario RPG ''Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars'' is a role-playing video game developed by Square (video game company), Square and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1996. It was the final ''Mario (franchise), Ma ...

'' (1996) *'' Moon: Remix RPG Adventure'' (1997) *'' Incredible Crisis'' (1999) *'' L.O.L.: Lack of Love'' (2000) *'' GiFTPiA'' (2003) *''

'' (2005) *''

'' (2007) *''

Captain Rainbow is an Action-adventure game, action-adventure video game developed by Skip Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Wii. The game was released exclusively in Japan on August 28, 2008. The game puts players in the role of Nick, an ordinary guy, who ...

'' (2008) *''Newtonica'' (2008) *''Takurou Morinaga DS'' (2008) *''Newtonica2'' (2008) *'' Wacky World of Sports'' (2009) *''PostPet DS'' (2009) *''iCLK'' (2010) *''geotrion'' (2010) *''Followars'' (2010) *'' Paper Mario: Sticker Star'' (2012) - special thanks *"Cobits" (2013) *''Pixel Game Maker Series Puzzle Pedestrians'' (2021)

References

External links

Route24 Official Blog

Kenichi Nishi's blog at Studio Voice Online

Kenichi Nishi's dual blog with Kenji Eno
{{Chibi-Robo! 1967 births Japanese video game designers Living people People from Tokyo Square Enix people