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Give a Hoot, Play Some Yoot

by Tyler Ohlew - November 30, 2012, 9:24 am EST
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Understanding Aero Porter and the mind behind it.

With games starring talkative fish, demanding tower dwellers, and warfield-crushing pinballs, it's difficult to see any commonality among the work of Yoot Saito. He and his team at Vivarium Inc. have created such a distinct and varied library of titles that it's almost impossible to imagine where they'd go next.

But in hearing Yoot Saito explain his work, the thread that ties his work together becomes clear.

"I have a strong passion for expressing creatures: Sometimes as creepy. Sometimes as cute. Sometimes as sad and pained," Saito said in a 2006 interview with Nintendo Power. "I'm constantly thinking about how to make those creatures feel real. My approach involves cutting though a complicated reality by following just one axis. Just one concept... By reducing the complexity to that one concept, that one reality.. was superenhanced."

Suddenly, you begin to see how you connect with Saito's world despite not utilizing the latest and greatest in facial-speech-recognition-wrinkle-systems. By having you provide basic input to change the lives of others, you become far more attached than you would with a character model beaming with god rays. It stands to reason that graphics aren't all that important to Saito, a trait he admits himself.

"It's vital for a game designer to reconstruct reality along one axis of expression. By doing so, the characters in a game take on real life in a player's mind," Saito told Nintendo Power. "I really don't think that pursuing better graphics enhances the feeling of reality."

Aero Porter, Saito's latest creation released yesterday on the eShop, follows this same path. Presented to you are six rows of circling luggage. Your job is to sort that color-coded baggage, a task made strenuous by the fact that the livelihood of the airport itself rests on your performance. Load to the best of your abilities, and the airport grows, becoming a hotspot for politicians and even the president.

As cold and sterile as two screens worth of rotating machinery seems, all the difference is made by what you're doing. Who hasn't worried about their luggage pre- and post-flight? Some even have horror stories of it being damaged, stolen, and missing. Here you are, in charge of the entire process, deciding which luggage goes where and when. Those silhouetted people at the top of your screen become families going to Disney World, or businessmen coming home to see their children after a month away. Your responsibilities become much larger in an already frantic game.

Yoot Saito has made a name for himself with this type of quirky game (figuratively and literally: his first name is actually Yutaka). Conveniently enough, Saito's previous work for Nintendo shares qualities with Aero Porter. Odama, released in 2006 for the GameCube, cast players as the guiding force of a Japanese army in 15XX. While the stakes are much higher when lives are at risk, Aero Porter shares the same amount of tension. Both share a simple goal: in Odama, it's to guide a massive bell across the battlefield, but it's the multitude of outside factors that complicate things. Opposing armies, the deployment of troops, and the titular Odama (a giant ball players bat around the field) all must be taken into consideration. It can feel hectic, complicated, and stressful, but fun is also present.

Saito seems intent on bringing unique experiences to players, despite the risks involved. He and his team at Vivarium Inc. deliver the products they want, for better or worse. In an industry where iteration is king, there's surely room for the experience of a baggage handler.

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