Interview: ‘Virtual Lab’ Developer, Megu-tan

“I Guess I’m Tentatively This Game’s Main Character.”

Today, I’m super excited to find myself interviewing the elusive ‘Megu-tan’ — the developer behind Virtual Boy’s Virtual Lab! Operating under the developer label ‘NACOTY,’ and having produced four games across publishers Hacker International and J-Wing; their time in the games industry was admittedly brief, owing to unimaginable stressors and a disillusionment with the business at large. But their software contributions are still worth recognition and respect, and their perspective on their work should no doubt be invaluable.

After penning and posting our article on the subject of Virtual Lab, Megumi was kind enough to reach out to us — to thank us for our work, and open the door to communicating with them over Twitter. After a friendly chat with one another, I posed the possibility of an interview to cover their history in games development, and offering them the opportunity to answer some of the questions the public at large has about them and their most noteworthy title. To my surprised delight, they agreed, and so we can now provide their insights into the games industry here for y’all to read!

In this interview, Megumi is gracious enough to fill in some of the mysteries of their identity, as well as to fill in the blanks of what they got up to in their years since working as a developer. Of course, we also asked them for as many stories and explanations as they were able to provide for the games they worked on, as well as the companies who they operated under. We hope here to answer some of the long-unanswered questions regarding the enigmatic Virtual Lab, and to share the story of a kind-hearted developer who is long overdue the admiration they deserve.

A word of warning: There will be accounts of some traumatic experiences in this interview. I will include warning tags indicating where said excerpts appear. I made absolutely sure with Megumi that they were okay with these stories being shared publicly in this article, and it is her wish that they are ultimately included. She one day hopes to share more of her story with the world, and we are hopeful that she will be able to tell said stories on her own terms.

“‘Cause When All’s Said and Done, it Depends on Your Skills.”

Q: First things first — just to make sure we’re respecting your privacy and identity: Would you be okay with sharing what pronouns you may prefer to be referred to as? No worries if no!

Megumi: Please call me “Megu-tan!”

(In Japanese, the honorific “-tan” is a playful way of referring to someone as female. Megumi is effectively re-confirming to me / you that they are female. — Cass)

Q: What was it that first steered you toward wanting to work in the games industry, and how did you first enter into it?

Megumi: My job was originally as a system engineer. I was working on the internal software for the bank’s ATM and other systems. One day, I received a call from my boss at work: My boss had already quit the company. The company he was now working for was ‘Hect.’ It was a company that made games, and they had created a new division. My boss called me and said I could be transferred to that company’s business division.

It was the year 1990. At that time, there was no Internet in Japan; it was the era of peer-to-peer networks using telephone lines. My hobbies were drawing and programming. It was here that I connected with many people in the game business.

When I went home for vacation, I met a friend from high school. He and I spent every day at home playing video games and making doujinshi. He was working for Konami and was preparing to make Tokimeki Memorial. I became interested in the game business and decided to quit my company. I could have moved from the business division to the game division, but I chose another game company.

It was known as ‘Game News Network’ (GNN). There were only two people in the company: The boss and a programmer. And with my transfer, there were now two programmers. The company was a game production subcontractor for other companies, and made software for many game publishers. I was originally in charge of sub-programming and graphics at that company.

Q: You additionally list Armored Metal Police Jack in your credits as a game developer. What was your role in that game, as part of what company?

Megumi: The company I worked for is the same: It’s still GNN. “Police Metal Jack” was originally an animated film. I  was asked by our sponsor, Takara (now Takara Tomy), to make a Game Boy version. The main program and the battle program were created by different programmers.

I modified the dot drawings of the game characters and other parts. After that, test play was my main job. When I reported a bug, they fixed it.

Q: How did you find your way into working for Games Express in the 90s? Knowing their propensity for games with erotic elements, did they provide any sort of guidelines or requirements when it came to working on games like Quiz Toukou Shashin?

Megumi: One of our customers was a company called Hacker International. Hacker International released games under the brand ‘Games Express’. In Japan, exposure of the lower half of the body was prohibited by law. Other than that, there are no other guidelines: Hacker International proposed a role-playing game and female nudity, and that was it.

For the first time, we had the opportunity to create a game from scratch: We created a game called Lady Sword. My idea for Lady Sword was that the human race should be destroyed! I created the scenario, and the other programmer created the basic plug-ins for the PC Engine. I created the game according to the scenario, but I didn’t have enough time to draw the female graphics, so we hastily hired a part-time worker. We were able to finish the game successfully.

We made enough money on Lady Sword that we were able to get another job from Hacker International. We made games of any genre, as we pleased. But first, there was a problem: The other programmer had disappeared. As a result, I had to make the Quiz Toukou Shashin by myself. So, I count this as the first game software that I produced all by myself. Fortunately, the necessary programs such as the screen display and sound driver had basic plugins taken from Lady Sword, and no problems were encountered.

As for the characters in the game, I drew rough pictures and left it to a part-time graphics artist. After creating the core part of the game, I just typed in the questions and answers. There was only one problem with the software: One of the characters looked very similar to a game character from another major game company. However, it was not pursued [legally], and many fans played the game.

Q: I have to ask: Which character in Quiz Toukou Shashin was the cause for the concern? My best guess was the girl in the top right corner, who looks similar to Samurai Shodown‘s Nakoruru…

Megumi: You got it! In the Quiz Toukou Shashin, ‘Yukari’ in the upper right corner looks like Nakoruru, and it seems that she still fetches a high price on the second-hand market. There were no such complaints when the product was released — probably because of the great power of Hacker International.

At the time, Nakoruru was a very popular character. As a result, many derivative works were created, many of which were “HENTAI.” The developers of SNK’s Samurai Spirit were very angry! As a result, ‘Rimururu’ – Nakoruru’s sister – was born.

Q: Business seemed to pick up with J-Wing shortly before Hacker International went out of business. Could you describe the transition, and how J-Wing comparatively operated as a company?

Megumi: Hacker International had been releasing games under different names since that time. However, since the game medium had moved to CDs, a small company like ours couldn’t make them anymore [due to the higher production costs]. So the president brought me a new job from J-Wing.

I was not acquainted with J-Wing in any way: Therefore, I could not know the company’s atmosphere and other inner workings…

(To further elaborate: Due to GNN’s status as a subcontractor – effectively a “ghost developer” à la Tose – there were layers of obfuscation in the relationship between the studio and J-Wing. The GNN staff wouldn’t have had access to J-Wing’s offices, or know any more than they needed to about their operations. — Cass)

Q: Your first game published by J-Wing was Chiki Chiki Tengoku. How much creative freedom were you given on the project, or how much of it was predetermined before you had even been assigned to work on it? Is there anything you wanted to add to the game but weren’t given the budget or opportunity to?

Megumi: Chiki Chiki Tengoku was actually one of the games I made before I was asked to work for J-Wing. At the time, the game that the boss was playing in his spare time was Dr. Mario for the Game Boy. Based on the rules of that game, I came up with the characters and other elements, and after it was decided to sell the game, I commissioned a composer to complete it. This game was created freely.

I wanted to put more effort into brushing up the characters. I think I also wanted to incorporate the cable connection into the game for a versus game mode.

Q: J-Wing seemed to invest a lot of resources into Virtual Boy development, with their planning at least four games for the system. Do you recall when / how J-Wing reacted when they learned the news of the Virtual Boy’s imminent cancellation?

Megumi: Was J-Wing really trying to make four Virtual Boy games?! That’s the first time I’ve heard about it. I didn’t even know at the time that Virtual Boy sales would be so short-lived.

Q: Would you mind to recall / confirm some of the details of Virtual Lab’s development? What guidelines did the company provide you with, and how much time did you have to complete the game? Were there any features originally planned that had to be cut / changed at the last minute?

Megumi: It was about a month before the deadline when J-Wing approached me about developing the Virtual Boy software. They had a document that contained the specifications of the Virtual Boy, the development language, etc. Since the time frame was short, I proposed to port the rules of Chiki Chiki Tengoku. The Game Boy was developed in assembler or machine language, but the Virtual Boy was in C. I started studying the C programming language. In the end, I only received the development equipment about a week before the ROM master-up. I said to the boss, “You must be really stupid!”

It became a work in progress from when I received the development kit. Day one was all equipment checking, connection, and software installation. Days two through eight: Creating game software. The only cut function was the password continuation.

Q: You once posted [on Twitter] that “bouncing breasts” were a requirement for Virtual Lab’s development. Did that direction come from your boss / GNN, given the sorts of games you had worked on before?

Megumi: There were no instructions from J-Wing or the boss to me. I was the only game developer, so I followed my own policy and added the breast swaying — as many games do. Therefore, I was more than a little shocked at the character’s age being written as thirteen in the manual!!

As a matter of fact, that character (Megu) was a self-portrait… I apologize: At the time I was longing for big breasts. I couldn’t afford very expensive surgical procedures, so I had to take female hormones. Now that I have started playing VRChat, I feel that big breasts are a hindrance!

(We share in laughing about this whole turn of events. I tell Megumi that I’d be shocked too if I saw in an instruction manual [written after the fact] that my self-insert character with huge boobs been aged just thirteen! — Cass)

Q: How was it to work with the Virtual Boy development kit? Did you see a future for the system before the news of its cancellation, or was it generally understood that it was guaranteed to fail?

Megumi: The Virtual Boy development kit was very easy to use. It contains many libraries and we were able to start creating games right away. If it had been an unwieldy development kit, I don’t think we would have been able to master it in time.

I did not know [while working on Virtual Lab] that the Virtual Boy would be discontinued. I thought that it would co-exist with the Game Boy for a while longer.

Q: How aware were you of bugs / issues with Virtual Lab when time was up on development? Was it a matter of J-Wing saying that the game was “good enough” as it was, or was there any frustration on their end with the final quality of the project?

Megumi: After the mastering of the ROM, Virtual Lab was delivered to J-Wing immediately. I then slept in the office for a full 24 hours. As for the quality, we didn’t receive any feedback at all: I think they submitted it to Nintendo immediately after they received the master ROM.

As for the passwords still in the game: There was a plan where if you would send your password to J-Wing, you would’ve received a gift. They were planning to announce it [as a promotional contest], but I don’t think that plan ever came to fruition.

(These sorts of “passcode prize giveaway” events were a staple of Japanese game releases, and would’ve made perfect sense as a way for J-Wing to repurpose the otherwise functionally useless passwords. For just a couple of examples of games which had these sorts of promotions attached: See Ikki on the Family Computer, or Sonic Labyrinth on the Game Gear. — Cass)

Q: Virtual Lab is the last game you’re known to have worked on during your time in the games industry. Was the process of working on it something that ultimately made you want to leave the business, or were there other factors that influenced your decision?

Megumi: I had planned to continue making games even after the Virtual Lab was over. I wish I could have had a more relaxed development schedule…

There is another reason why I left the game industry. I was working two jobs for a living: During the day I developed games for GNN, and at night I worked at a transsexual snack bar, serving customers and dancing. I took a break from the snack bar to work on my Virtual Lab. When I went to work at the snack bar again, there was an incident: After drinking so much that I couldn’t move, I rested in the waiting room and left the snack bar around 4 am.

I was wobbling my way to Shinjuku Station when I was abducted. They took me to a hotel and sexually assaulted me. The money in my bag was also stolen. Not only that, but the next day, the man came back to the snack bar. That night, I went home, wrote a letter to the boss, and left it on my desk in the office. I called the snack bar, and escaped back to my parents’ house.

(A break occurs here, where we take time to talk personally and discuss subjects outside the scope of the interview. — Cass)

Q: Any funny or interesting stories worth sharing from your time with Games Express or J-Wing?

Megumi: This is a difficult one! I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head: We had almost no relationships with each other except for creating games. I think this is a way of working that is not possible today, even in Japan. The time when I quit my job was also the time when there were many suicides – such as jumping off buildings – at many companies…

Personally, one of my favorite memories is that I made many friends outside of the company. As a communication tool, I used a phone line modem for personal data communication. Gradually, the communication speed increased, and we were able to create a private server where we could talk with many people and make more friends. In this context, I have published one free game for PC: The game is for the Sharp X68000 and is a falling object puzzle.

The original is no longer available. If I can reconstruct it and show it to you, I think you will see that it is the prototype of my software.

Q: If you don’t mind sharing, what have you done for work in the years since leaving the games industry? Were you able to leverage any of the same skills you used in your time working on games?

Megumi: I am in the staffing business. I myself am an electrical designer using CAD. Some of the buildings that I have designed are still in existence! I like to work with computers, and that has not changed.

Q: Much of your time lately seems to be spent with VRChat. It seems to be a fascinating world to inhabit, and it seems like you get up to a lot of fun in it! What aspect is most appealing about it to you? Do you ever have flashbacks to / memories of your brief time with the Virtual Boy when immersing yourself in that world?

Megumi: In the world of VRChat, I can live without being aware of other people’s gender or age. Of course, it does remind me of the Virtual Boy. I also thought that as a game world, [Virtual Boy games] could be recreated in VR space. At the very least, I would like to create a Virtual Lab avatar. After all: The character on the right side of the screen was originally a self-portrait of myself at the time!

Quiz Toukou Shashin promotional advert.

Q: What are your feelings on the future of VR and virtual reality? Is it a field you have any interest in possibly developing for?

Megumi: I believe that the world of VR is currently growing rapidly. As a result, there are more opportunities for both companies and individuals to create and sell products. It’s a world where consumers and manufacturers stand on the same foundation. If there is a place to present even a small program or item, and it can be a source of livelihood, I think it is a welcome field.

Q: Are you okay with Virtual Lab’s reputation as the supposed “worst game” for the system? Any corrections you would like to make to what people currently believe about the game?

Megumi: Virtual Lab was taken out of my hands for ROM mastering. The actual machine was returned at that point, and I have not been able to play enough follow-up tests.

I saw a thread in one of the communities about modding and creating a new complete version. I am aware that it is an incomplete game software, and I hope that Virtual Lab will be completed by volunteers!

Q: I want to thank you for your time again, and for being so nice in our communications with each other! I truly want people to understand that Virtual Lab is a game worth trying for themselves, and that people who create games deserve respect and appreciation for the work they put in. I truly wish you well in all your futures, and will do my best to keep doing right by game developers.

Megumi: Thank you very much for your time. The game developers of the past are dying one after another. From now on, it is you, who used to play games as a child, who will create games. Unlike in the past, there are those who draw pictures, those who write programs, and those who write only music. Division of labor is inevitable. Still, there are ways to develop individual games as a small software house.

I hope that more and more people will realize their individual dreams!

ADDENDUM: In talking to Megumi outside the context of the interview, she provided a few additional insights and comments that I asked if I could include here.

Megumi: I have read some of the articles you have written. I have not read all of them, because that is a huge amount of data. (Boy howdy, you’re telling me! — Cass) I wanted to read a little bit at a time and read all the articles. Because your articles do not make fun of people or games, but show consideration and love.

I think of myself as a character in a drama or manga written by someone else. Otherwise, I have too many unusually dramatic experiences. I’ve had a lot of experiences that have nothing to do with game development. At some point, I will upload a four-panel comic to Twitter. It will be about me as a general character — not the main character. Or, maybe I will fail to make a comic after all, haha.

I worry that I’m not truly transgender… My phobia of men has led me to have a lot of contact with girls, and as a result, I have this personality. Fortunately, the environment in which I have worked has not been bad for transgender people. My friends also treated me as a woman. This was rare in Japan.

I was afraid of men who were bigger than me. My phobia of men lessened as my body grew. However, in the process, I avoided boys and played with girls most of the time, so my mind naturally became closer to girls. As a result, I formed a form that looks normal to others: My body is a man, my heart is a woman, and the person I love is a woman. I am not hiding this now.

The way I see it: “I was born as a male with a female mind.” That’s good! It means you have a somewhat flexible body and a woman’s attention to detail. “I was born a woman with a man’s mind.” Women have the strength of mind to endure the pain of childbirth. They will be able to bounce back from some difficulties.

Just be yourself!

Megumi can be found on Twitter at @Derekmegumishin. Follow her for updates on her adorable adventures in VRChat, that eventual comic (hopefully!), and further insights into the games she developed.