One of Square Enix’s current goals is to broaden its horizons and expand its international portfolio, with one specific mark being to generate 50% of its revenue from outside of Japan (up from the current 10-20%). Senior VP Michihiro Sasaki explained, “We need to seek cooperation with a US publisher — we need local content. Our strength is in role-playing games and fantasy titles, so it is a bit difficult to appeal to the US market.”

Just last week we learned about the bizarre partnership between Square Enix and Gas Powered Games which will have Square Enix publishing Supreme Commander 2 — a game that hardly fits inside the fantasy RPG genre you’d expect from the creator of Final Fantasy.

Today an announcement of another move was made, although this is a far bigger deal than a single publishing deal. Square Enix will be opening a new development studio in Los Angeles, California (El Segundo). The studio will be working on an original action game and is currently seeking to fill various positions, including software engineers with experience developing for the Xbox 360 and Wii.

One of the job postings (via Gamasutra) reads, “How often do you get a chance to make sure that a studio starts off in the right direction? How often do you get to be one of the starting members, but also have medical insurance? This is a rare opportunity to have the creative control of a start-up but the backing and funding of a major publisher.” Listings also mention that Square Enix is seeking “to lay the foundation for a solid development team.”

“We see great opportunities in North American and European markets, both of which are expected to be maintaining sustainable growth over these coming years,” said the company’s President, Yoichi Wada.

If the Supreme Commander 2 announcement didn’t have you convinced (and understandably so), this goes a long way in reaffirming that Square Enix is serious about becoming a more significant player outside of Japan. Anyone want to take a guess at what the game the new studio is developing might be like? My one hope is that it doesn’t star any teenage boys with spiky hair.

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At Tokyo Game Show on Friday evening, multiple entities, including industry association CEDEC, TGS organizers Nikkei BP and IGDA Japan combined to present the unique 'Sense Of Wonder Night', an evening showcasing 11 independent games from all over the world -- with the creators on hand to give presentations, and translation between Japanese and English making for a truly international flavor.

The showcased games were picked from a set of game submissions made earlier this year for the contest, which was co-ordinated by Nikkei BP in association with IGDA Japan head Kiyoshi Shin.

He also acted as effusive MC for the evening, which was inspired by the GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop in format, with just 10 minutes (including questions) for each set of creators to show and explain their games.

The loose, informal format was very much appreciated by the packed crowd of around two to three hundred, a significant majority Japanese, who packed one section of the Restaurant NOA at Makuhari Messe, adjacent to the Tokyo Game Show.

The event was co-located with the International Party on Friday evening, and the audience were given 'laughing' smiley-face toys to shake and make noise when they felt a 'sense of wonder' over the demonstrated titles.

A particular theme of the SoWN selections were new forms of expression and emerging genres in games, from titles using physics and flocking through titles that were prototypes or sketches designed to make you think about the nature of video games. As such, a light-hearted, wry approach was quite a contrast from the relatively formal strictures of TGS' Business Day and showfloor.

The order of the presentations for Sense Of Wonder Night 2008 was as follows:

Camera (Yareyare, Japan) (not available online)

First up was Camera, a art-game made for the PC where, simply enough, you control a hand holding a mouse. If you move or click your mouse, then the hand onscreen moves or clicks its mouse. A kind of Dada-ist prank, it's evidently pretending to be a camera showing your desk. But of course, it's actually not.

The wry Japanese author suggested to the Sense Of Wonder Night onlookers that Camera creates a "sense of unexpected that no other game offers." The crowd were much-tickled by it, and asked about the commercialization of the project -- not entirely seriously, of course.

Depict (Jesus Cuahtemoc, Moreno Ramos, Mexico) (video available online)

Next up, a Mexican duo discussed using the iPhone camera and a cute game concept to create a link with the real world. In the game, you are shown a picture consisting of a shape and some colors (say, a half red and half black image, or a white background with a red circle in the center of it), and you have to match it in the real world.

The creators then showed a cute demo video in which they and their friends tried to match the image by finding objects in real-life that resembled those colors, and taking a picture of it with the iPhone camera.

In fact, the Q&A revealed that the idea is not too far into development on iPhone just yet, because the creators can't afford to buy one of their own. But their video and ideas, including the concept of having multiplayer duels with different iPhone players submitting their photos and the best one being picked, are charming.

The Unfinished Swan (Ian Dallas, USC, United States) (video available online)

This prototype, from a member of the P.B. Winterbottom game at the University Of Southern California, starts in an all-white world, and has the player throw missiles that cover the walls and floor and effectively 'illuminate' the space with black color splatter.

The game has other twists, including a set of blocks that can be moved by projectiles, and the ability to move into all-black spaces and then throw white projectiles.

The stark, monochromatic game generated a lot of oohs and aahs from the crowd, who really appreciated the abstract, art-inspired nature of the title. In his presentation, meanwhile, Dallas honestly explained that, from what he'd seen, people were impressed with the game for about 30 seconds, until the brain understood what was going on.

But they tired quite swiftly of playing it, and in fact, many players asked for harsher game mechanics -- to have hard jumping puzzles, and even death. But that's not what he wants the game to be, even though he noted that wonder alone isn't enough for games to have longevity -- a good observation.

WorldIcelansista (Ambition, Japan) (Japanese website available)

This title, from developer Ambition, is an online RPG which creates picturebooks on mobile phones in Japan. As noted, cellphone gaming is pretty ubiquitous in the territory, and the title, a cute-looking 2D pixelated game, allows users to pick from multiple choices to make their own stories which they can save and replay.

Unfortunately, the Ambition representative didn't appear to do a great job of explaining the unique selling points of the game itself, other than explaining to people how to search for it correctly on the Internet.

However, at the close of his presentation, he showed a real printed book, and revealed that you will be able to print-on-demand books for the game, using the stories you pick out -- a neat concept.

Twin Tower (OMEGA, Japan) (Windows download available online)

Next up, noted Every Extend creator OMEGA, part of the hobby game development circle GameHell, explained his physics-based construction game, where the player needs to alternately stack falling blocks on a floating scale. If you can correctly stack either side without letting the sides tip over, then you've completed the level.

He then revealed that the GameDev forum at the infamous 2channel forums, based around rapid prototyping, were what spawned this title. Specifically, the theme for this particular 2ch competition was "Two Towers". Also, somewhat unexpectedly, OMEGA explained that the game was inspired by the "not so fun" 1983 Namco arcade title Phozon.

But how so? Well, the Japanese designer noted that he likes construction games like SimCity or Age Of Empires, but they have a long play time and are pretty complex. However, simple titles like Kenta Cho's dojin title Tumiki Fighters or Keita Takahashi' Katamari Damacy take a different, more chaotic, shorter-form approach to construction games. It was this spirit OMEGA was trying to call upon when creating Twin Tower.

PixelJunk Eden (Q-Games, Japan) (information available online, out now on PS3)

PixelJunk Eden was introduced by two Japanese staff members of Dylan Cuthbert's Osaka-based studio Q-Games. The abstract PlayStation Network downloadable 'jump action game' is on many Westerners' radar, thanks to its high-profile release in the West and the other games in the PS3-exclusive PixelJunk series -- but is not so well-known in Japan.

The creators explained, after showing a well-received trailer, that the combination of art and music was key to the creation of PixelJunk Eden, and particularly noted that an 'outsider perspective' from some of the game's designers really helped its unconventional style.

In addition, they discussed the particular choice of art direction and colors to make sure that the game looks good, but the characters are still well-differentiated from the background and playfield in the borderline psychedelic title.

Gomibako (Trash Box/ PlayStation C.A.M.P!, Japan) (video available online, PS3 version due out soon)

One of the most intriguing games of the evening, this game was developed by Jetraylogic as part of the PlayStation C.A.M.P project from Sony Japan, and a PSN downloadable title for the PlayStation 3. It's a physics engine-based title in which the player must break objects into a trashcan.

For example, you can drop wooden barrels on metal objects to smash them, and then lower in a flaming object to set the entire pile on fire. In addition, you can break water-filled objects to fill the trashcan with liquid, and then have the contents of the can rot.

In the game, which was also playable on the Sony booth at TGS, the 'bosses' are massive chunks of garbage such as trucks. If you don't correctly get rid of them, they dump mounds of tires on you. At the end of each level, you then get additionally rated on either 'ECO' (if you're good for the environment and didn't burn too much trash), and 'EGO' (if you're bad for it, presumably.)

This slick, well-produced and innovative PSN physics title went down extremely well with the packed audience. It's a devilishly smart physics-based take on Tetris, somewhat reminiscent of elements of recent PC indie title Blast Miner -- and it was also a hit with mainstream journalists covering TGS.

Moon Stories (Daniel Benmergui, Argentina) (Flash game available online)

These series of Flash 'micro-games' are created by an Argentinian former Gameloft programmer who wants to make titles "about people, not objects", and his wordless, highly conceptual game sketches were one of the hits of the night with the audience.

His main demonstration, I Wish I Were The Moon is about a three-way love story between a girl, a boy, and the moon. It has multiple endings, all set around taking pictures of the moon or manipulating the characters in the game, and is genuinely affecting.

Benmergui also showed a second title, Storyteller, which has a similar no-text, no-movie, simple art approach, and features three windows, each with a separate comic strip-style occurrence in it. Juggling what the characters are doing (attacking, imprisoning, etc) in each of the frames results in a different outcome in the final frame, an ingenious study in causation.

The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom (The Odd Gentlemen, United States) (video available online, coming soon to consoles)

USC's Ian Dallas made a re-appearance to present this title, since he was also a designer on the university's Winterbottom, which he revealed will be coming to un-named consoles at some time soon. The Gorey-inspired side-on platformer stars a pie-loving Edwardian villain, and includes normal running, jumping and gliding controls.

But the main differentiator is the ability to record and utilize multiple versions of Winterbottom doing things such as jumping, balancing on teeter-totters, and even dying, using these multiple simultaneous character actions to solve puzzles and complete levels.

The title has been a multi-award nominee in areas from the IGF to Indiecade and beyond. It obviously echoes indie darling Braid in its time rewinding and recording, but uses very different design elements - for example, the player having to avoid previous versions of himself.

And with SCEA previously having a close relationship with USC projects such as Flow, this author is wagering we'll see this title on PS3 and PSP some time in 2009.

Genocide Automation (Naoya Sasaki, Japan) (Windows download available online)

The swarm simulator, with many units fighting against each other, looks a bit like a mutant Game Of Life. It features odd, abstract shapes being formed by lots of individual units - both blue and orange - attacking each other and fighting each other off until one side or another is destroyed.

Even though "each unit is only thinking about itself", the acting-out of the game logic creates the swarms that appear co-ordinated.

The author, Sasaki, explained that the title was simply to "watch and enjoy" until just recently, where he realized that mouse control could affect the swarming of the characters in real-time. Now, the aggressiveness of the AI can be affected by mousing over an area of the screen - leading to interesting conceptual possibilities for this prototype.

Nanosmiles (Yu Iwai, Japan) (Windows download available online)

Finally, Engrish-Games creator and OMEGA's fellow GameHell hobby group member Iwai showed Nanosmiles. This is a micro-organism shooting 2D game that uses some of the same swarming ideas shown in Genocide Automation.

However, it differs in that it has automated swarming characters gathering around the player, and only indirect offensive attacks are allowed. In effect, your swarming colleagues do your dirty work for you after you point them in the right direction. Iwai (aka Dong) also noted you can hide behind walls and let the swarm intelligence -- using boids -- take all the risk on your behalf.

Conclusion

Following the end of the presentations, the judging committee, which included Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi, Enterbrain's 'Maker' series director Kenji Sugiuchi, and Vector.co.jp executive Takashi Katayama, as well as the author of this article, were asked to give their impressions on what we had seen.

Particularly notable were the clipped comments from an ever enigmatic Keita Takahashi, who claimed that he hadn't been to Tokyo Game Show for 8 years -- but that this event had drawn him to attend.

The evening ended with assurances from Shin that Sense Of Wonder Night will occur again next year -- a good thing for uniting the indie game scene in Japan with the rest of the world.

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The finalists for the "Sense of Wonder Night 2008" indie game showcase -- to be held as part of next month's Tokyo Game Show -- have been announced.

The event has been promoted as a celebration of creative and experimental gaming, and all 12 of the finalists will be on hand October 10 to present their game.

Below, the complete list of those who made it, with the title of the game followed by its creator.

• Camera - Yareyare (Japan)
• Genocide Automation - Naoya Sasaki (Japan)
• The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom - The Odd Gentlemen (U.S.)
• Nano Smiles - Yu Iwai (Japan)
• Randy Balma: Municipal Abortionist - Mark Essen (U.S.)
• WhiteSpace - Ian Dallas (U.S.)
• Depict - Jesus Cuauhtemoc Moreno Ramos (Mexico)
• Trash Box - Trash Box Team (Japan)
• Moon Stories - Daniel Benmergui (Argentina)
• PixelJunk Eden - Q Games (Japan)
• Futago To - Omega (Japan)
• World Icelansista - Ambition (Japan)

Image: CESA

Sense of Wonder Night 2008 Finalists [CESA, via Indie Games]

You might not have heard of Michael Gough, but you’ve definitely heard him.

Not to be confused with the English gentleman who played Alfred in the older “Batman” films, the veteran voice actor has been lending his vocals to cartoons and video games for over 20 years.

Though he doesn’t play video games, he’s done the voices for countless characters, including Osmund Saddler in “Resident Evil 4,” Deckard Cain in the “Diablo” series, Private Carmine in “Gears of War,” Johnny Sasaki in “Metal Gear Solid 3” and “MGS 4,” Heimdall in “Too Human,” Captain Price in “Call of Duty” and “CoD2″ as well as Shrek in the licensed movie games to name just a few.

I recently called up Mr. Gough (pronounced “goff”) to talk about his expansive voice-acting career, what he thought about how much Michael Hollick made for playing Niko Bellic in “Grand Theft Auto IV,” and what we can expect from the return of fan favorites Deckard Cain and Carmine…

On how the Sean Connery-esque voice of “Diablo’”s Deckard Cain came about:

Gough: Deckard Cain has a little bit of that Sean Connery thing that he does. I don’t remember exactly how it came about but I believe that the creators, the guys from Blizzard, threw the Sean Connery name out there. He was supposed to sound older and wiser but have a little bit of a kick to him, a little bit ornery but in that kind of sarcastic Sean Connery way. He doesn’t take a lot of BS, if you will. He’s a very fun character. And sometimes he’s kind of dark and doom and gloom, with all the “evil that spreads over this land will never be abated” but then other times when he gets cranky, it’s funny. “No one ever listens!” And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the Deckard Cain rap, but I just started letting it go, and I have to boast I did make up a good portion of the lyrics. [laughs]

On how much Deckard Cain is in “Diablo III”:

Gough: Well, I did more than [what was shown at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Paris]. I hope there’s more, but I did a pretty fair amount. It was just one or two four-hour sessions but there was a lot. It was definitely more than what you’ve seen in the preview. I’m not sure when it’s release date is targeted for, but yeah it seems like there’s going to be a fair amount of Deckard Cain, which is always a good thing. [laughs]

On playing Private Carmine in “Gears of War” and that character getting resurrected in “Gears of War 2″:

Gough: He’s kind of got a following. [The game-makers] were pretty specific about him being the kind of young guy who maybe bites off more than he can chew. Like he’ll volunteer to go out and do the dirty work when he doesn’t really know what’s in store for him. So yeah, I think they had a pretty clear idea of what he was about: the young, green soldier guy. In the end, he gets his blown off or something but then he’s coming back in ‘Gears of War 2.’ But I’m not really supposed to say how he comes back. I’m sworn to secrecy but I sort of know what the angle is.

On playing main villain Osmund Saddler in “Resident Evil 4″:

Gough: That was another character I discovered had a little bit of a following. Saddler was great. If I’m remembering right… that was one of the characters where there was nothing there to begin with, so I just was kind of making it up, He’s got some of an accent, but I’m not really sure from where. The idea was some sort of non-specific, menacing, maybe Eastern European accent. Villains are always fun, that was cool. And I’ve gotten a few fan letters for that.

On screaming too much in some video games:

Gough: Something like Deckard Cain is great; it doesn’t ruin your voice. But games that involve violence or battle or mutating and stuff like that really does take a toll on your voice. And I’ve even had to start to go to a voice guru kind of guy to do exercises to try to save and get back some of what I lost. When you’re doing games like that there’s so much screaming and yelling, and you have to do it over and over and over again. They’ll say, “Okay now you’re being burned alive and you have to do it short, medium and long and then really long. Now you’re being choked to death. Now you’re drowning in lava.” So you do many different takes, dying all these different deaths. It’s fun but after a while, I was damaging my voice doing a lot of that. For “Call of Duty,” a lot of the dialogue is shouting over battle that’s going on: “Incoming! Flank left!” It’s just a lot of yelling.

On how much Michael Hollick, the actor who played Niko Bellic, made for “GTA IV” [note -- Gough hadn't seen the New York Times article about his paycheck]:

Gough: Well, big-selling video games make millions. And voice actors, unless you’re a celebrity where you get your own separate deal, maybe they give you a cut or a percentage or maybe they just pay you a lot more up front. But the contract, the SAG contract or whatever it is, is such that, you don’t really get that much. I mean, compared to digging a ditch or driving a bus or something, you can make more. If you’re working for the union scale, you’re really not making much. There are times where you can get paid over scale, double or triple, and the problem has always been that unlike a movie, if it goes to DVD or a TV show or a commercial, you get residuals. But you’ve never gotten any residuals for video games. They were able to change that only slightly a couple of years ago. I think you get some kind of a little back-end deal where you get a little something more if a game sells a huge amount, but it isn’t much.

“I don’t know if a certain character’s voice or lack of a certain character’s voice can cause somebody to buy or not buy a game.”

So in the grand scheme of things it’s not bad, but compared to what a video game can make if it sells a lot, you really don’t get much of anything, which is too bad. I think the Screen Actors’ Guilld and the unions were sort of behind the curve and [video games] exploded before they knew what him them. I mean, I’m not complaining… Well, I sort of am. But also, if [a voice actor] can make 100 grand off of one game, that’s almost unheard of unless you’re a celebrity, so that’s pretty good.

People buy a game because they like the game and they want to play the game. And there are certain characters in games that people like, obviously. I don’t know if a certain character’s voice or lack of a certain character’s voice can cause somebody to buy or not buy a game. It’s a weird thing. But when you know that somebody is making millions and millions and millions off of [a game], you think, ‘Well gee, I wish I had a little bit of a better cut of it.’

MTV Multiplayer: So you’ve never heard of an actor making $100,000 from a game?

Gough: Quite frankly, I’ve never heard of that. Although, that’s probably not true. The guy who does Snake [David Hayter] — I know him — he’s probably made that much. Well, I don’t know if he made that much on one game but maybe games combined. He’s not really a celebrity but he is also a screenwriter — he wrote a couple of the “X-Men” movie screenplays. But yeah, if you can work enough to make a living and save something that’s pretty good. But more is always nice. [laughs]

***

You can check out more of Michael Gough’s work at his website and listen to his voice next in “Gears of War 2″ out in November.

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The reason we chose Darth Vader as a playable character is very simple: he is probably one of the most symbolic characters in the Star Wars universe and is also one of the most popular worldwide. Admittedly though, recreating Darth Vader for Soulcalibur IV was harder than I initially thought because there is not a lot of reference material as he was only in a few lightsaber fights in the movies.

It’s always very difficult to balance our own perception of how a character should fit in the Soulcalibur universe and their actual gameplay. If a guest character feels radically different than how we perceive them, a player will take it as a different character, and it’ll lead to disappointment.

In working with LucasArts, they said they are eagerly anticipating their characters to be recreated in the Soulcalibur universe. They allowed us to create Vader relatively-freely. The trial and error process to build Vader is definitely a fond memory for all the Soulcalibur IV animators and game designers.

Another challenge that we encountered was how to implement the “Force” from the Star Wars universe. If we were to use the Force in gameplay, we had to make it as an absolute power just like the movie. However, if we didn’t set any limitations on it, the game’s balance would have been completely off. Ultimately, we created a Force gauge to put a limit on using the power. However, we felt players would be frustrated if they couldn’t use the Force on an empty gauge, so we are allowing them to use the Force but it will be counted as a penalty against their character. I think it was good compromise and can be used as a tactic.

I strongly believe that we have brought Darth Vader up to a level where players will feel “This is how Darth Vader is!” while playing Soulcalibur IV. The game expresses him as a lightsaber master with intimidating power and absolute control of the Force. Our players will enjoy playing Lord Vader from the movie and we’re proud to bring them this experience.

Finally, the release date is just around the corner on July 29th. The dream battle for many fans who want to play as Vader, who want to beat him with Soulcalibur characters or who want to challenge Vader with an original customized character is about to start! Stay tuned!!

Multiplayer: Did you look back to the old Power Pad for inspiration?

Sasaki: We did, and actually were looking into using the same design for the “Active Life” pad initially. However, we decided to update the overall look of the mat and also make some slight changes to its overall ease of use, which led us to the final design.

Full interview here