(also written as Yuuji Horii; born January 6, 1954) is a Japanese video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the ''

Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publi ...

'' series of role-playing games, supervising and writing the scenario for '' Chrono Trigger'', as well as one of the first

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

adventure games An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based me ...

'' Portopia Serial Murder Case''. (Reprinted at )

History

Horii was born on January 6, 1954, in Awaji Island,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. He graduated from Waseda University's Department of Literature. He also worked as a freelance writer for newspapers, comics, and magazines, including the ''Famicom Shinken'' video games column that ran in ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that run ...

'' from 1985 to 1988. He then entered in an

Enix was a Japanese video game publisher that produced video games, anime and manga. Enix is known for publishing the ''Dragon Quest'' series of role-playing video games. The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975, as . Th ...

-sponsored game programming contest, where he placed with '' Love Match Tennis'', a tennis video game, motivating him to become a video game designer. Horii then created ''

The Portopia Serial Murder Case , often translated to ''The Portopia Serial Murder Case'' in English, is an adventure game designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix. It was first released on the NEC PC-6001 in June 1983, and has since been ported to other personal computers ...

'', a game that later inspired

Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer and writer. He is regarded as an auteur of video games. He developed a strong passion for action/adventure cinema and literature during his childhood and adolescence. In 1986, he was hired ...

(of ''

Metal Gear is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operativ ...

'' fame) to enter the video game industry. It is the first part of the ''Yuuji Horii Mysteries'' trilogy, along with its successors ''Okhotsk ni Kiyu: Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin'' (1984) and ''

Karuizawa Yūkai Annai , often translated to ''The Portopia Serial Murder Case'' in English, is an adventure game designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix. It was first released on the NEC PC-6001 in June 1983, and has since been ported to other personal computers, ...

'' (1985). After creating several more visual novel

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

s, Horii went on to create ''

'', which is said to have created the blueprint for Japanese console role-playing games, taking inspiration from ''Portopia'', as well as '' Wizardry'' and '' Ultima''. He was a fan of Apple PC role-playing games and was motivated to create ''Dragon Quest'' for ordinary gamers, who found such games difficult, and thus he worked on an intuitive control system, influenced by his work on ''Portopia''. His works also include the '' Itadaki Street'' series. Horii was also a supervisor of the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

game, '' Chrono Trigger'', which had multiple game endings, with Horii appearing in one of the endings with the game development staff. Horii currently heads his own production company, Armor Project, a company that has an exclusive production contract with

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game ...

, a contract established with Enix before the company merged with Square. He is on the selection committee for the annual Super Dash Novel Rookie of the Year Award.

Works

Awards

In 2009, Horii received a special award at

Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) is a Japanese organization that was established in 1996 to "promote the computer entertainment industry ..with the aim of contributing to the strengthening of Japanese industry as well as to th ...

Developers Conference for his work on the ''Dragon Quest'' franchise. Horii received a lifetime achievement award at the 2022 Game Developers Conference for his work on ''Dragon Quest'' and ''Chrono Trigger''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Horii, Yuji 1954 births Japanese video game designers Japanese video game directors Video game writers Living people Dragon Quest People from Hyōgo Prefecture Waseda University alumni