(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 pu ...

'' series of

role-playing games A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal ac ...

, supervising and writing the scenario for ''

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 ...

'', 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 m ...

'' 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 n ...

. He graduated from

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

'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 ru ...

'' 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 Game programming, a subset of game development, is the software development of video games. Game programming requires substantial skill in software engineering and computer programming in a given language, as well as specialization in one or mor ...

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 computer ...

'', 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 hi ...

(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'' (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-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based ...

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 ''Wizardry'' is a series of role-playing video games, developed by Sir-Tech, that were highly influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games. The original ''Wizardry'' was a significant influence on early console role-playing ...

'' 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 is a party video game series originally created by ''Dragon Quest'' designer Yuji Horii. It is currently owned by Square Enix and Kadokawa. The first game was released in Japan on Nintendo's Famicom console in 1991. Since then, new installments ...

'' 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 Eu ...

game, ''

'', 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 holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game franchises, among numerous ...

, a contract established with Enix before the company merged with

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 a ...

. He is on the selection committee for the annual

Super Dash Novel Rookie of the Year Award The is an annual award given by Shueisha, Shueisha's Super Dash Bunko imprint (trade name), imprint for the best new light novel of the year. The award was first presented in 2001. Submissions are accepted until October 25 each year, and announced ...

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 The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...

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