How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm? Well, they've been down there since 1996. That's when the first Bokujou Monogatari game was released for the Super Famicom in Japan. You might know the farming simulation series better as Harvest Moon or Story of Seasons.
30 years is a long time for any series to still be going, but would you believe this workhorse of a franchise almost never left the stable?
During a 2012 GDC talk, series creator Yasuhiro Wada mentioned how the original "developer went under" because they took on too many projects, and "the president went missing -- literally." Wada worked with the main programmer and the scenario writer to finish the game within budget.
Wada did not disclose the name of the original developer, but an ad from the Famicom Space World '95 Official Guidebook (below) reveals that it was a company called Radical Plan.
 |
| From the text: "Planning, Development: Radical Plan (企画・開発/ラディカルプラン)" (credit to original scanner) |
Radical Plan was a company started by a former programmer at developer Zap. Yuichiro Itakura, the founder and former president of Zap, wrote about him in his book The President Returns: Why I Started a Business Again (社長復活 ぼくが再起業した理由) and apparently had a slightly different take on what happened to Radical Plan.
To make a long story short, the president was being forced out of the company, so he took the money he loaned the company and hid out for a while. As I recall, he was working for Itakura's company at the time this book was written.
Bokujou Monogatari, Harvest Moon. Whatever you call it, here's the game in its salvaged, reworked form.
