Kotaro Uchikoshi

Uchikoshi's first job in game development was in 1998 when he joined KID, a company known for bishōjo games.[4][5] At the time, KID was also developing video game adaptations of board games; he originally joined KID because of these board game projects, as he was interested in making simple games that a lot of people would be able to enjoy.[5] His first project at KID however was designing 3D models for the action game Pepsiman (1999).[2] Sometime after the release of Pepsiman, a producer at KID asked him to write a scenario for an upcoming bishōjo game. Uchikoshi believes he was chosen because of his personality and experience with writing.[5] The first bishōjo game he worked on was the visual novel Memories Off (1999), followed by Never 7: The End of Infinity, Memories Off Pure and Memories Off 2nd (all 2000).[4][6] While writing Never 7: The End of Infinity, Uchikoshi wanted to include science fiction themes, but was instructed by his superiors to instead focus on the romantic relationships between the game's characters.[4]

In 2001, Uchikoshi left KID to become a freelance writer and developer;[7] this was the result of a need for independence, and the ability to work for other companies besides KID.[4] Over the next few years, he worked on several games, including Close To: Inori no Oka (2001),[8] Ever 17: The Out of Infinity (2002), and Remember 11: The Age of Infinity (2004).[4] He also wrote two erotic visual novels, the first was a 2003 game which he was uncredited for and whose title he does not remember, and the second was Eve: New Generation (2006).[4]

While working as a freelance writer, Uchikoshi was contacted by the game development company Chunsoft about a possible job offering. Looking to provide a stable income for his wife and daughter, he accepted the company's offer in 2007.[4] Chunsoft had developed several mystery visual novels in the past, such as Kamaitachi no Yoru (1994), but wanted to create a new type of visual novel that could appeal to a wider audience.[5] Uchikoshi came up with the idea to include puzzles that are integrated within the story, and need to be solved in order for the player to make progress.[5] He began implementing and expanding upon these ideas in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), in which he served as the game director, planner, and scenario writer.[4] Although the game was a commercial failure in Japan,[9] its unexpected critical success in North America prompted Uchikoshi to continue the series.[10]

The sequel to Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (2012).[9] In an attempt to reduce costs, Uchikoshi asked Chunsoft if he could develop Virtue's Last Reward and its eventual sequel simultaneously, as both games would use the same game engine and digital assets; Chunsoft agreed to the proposal.[11] Uchikoshi maintained his duties as the director, planner, and scenario writer.[4] Despite positive international reviews, Virtue's Last Reward was another commercial failure in Japan. As a result, Chunsoft placed the game's sequel on indefinite hiatus, effectively concluding the Zero Escape series.[9] Uchikoshi examined the possibility of financing the development through the use of crowdfunding on a website like Kickstarter, but felt that the idea was "not quite persuasive enough".[12]

After Virtue's Last Reward, Uchikoshi returned to freelance work. He wrote a scenario for Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram (2013)[4] before working on his first non-game related project, the anime series Punch Line (2015).[13] Uchikoshi wrote the episode scripts, which he noted were more cinematic in tone than most of his previous projects.[14] The series ran on Japanese television from April to June 2015.[15][16] Uchikoshi also wrote a Punch Line manga, which began serialization in September,[17] and a video game adaptation, released in 2016.[18]

Meanwhile, fans of the Zero Escape series created an online campaign to raise awareness and support the development of a sequel to Virtue's Last Reward.[19] Uchikoshi noted that the fan presence was a key factor for the sequel's reevaluation.[11] While delivering the pitch for the game, he used a fan-made vocal rendition of the series theme song; Spike Chunsoft[lower-alpha 2] agreed to the proposal, and green-lit production of Zero Time Dilemma (2016).[20] With Zero Time Dilemma, Uchikoshi intended to resolve all mysteries left from the previous two games in the series, as well as those introduced in the third.[21] Following the game's release, he remarked that having devoted the last decade of his life to the series, he was saddened to see it finally come to an end.[22] His next two projects were announced in 2017: the escape room game The Pop Star's Room of Doom,[23] and the video game AI: The Somnium Files.[24] Another anime project, The Girl in Twilight, was announced in 2018, for which Uchikoshi wrote the original concept.[25]

In 2018, it was announced that Uchikoshi had left Spike Chunsoft and formed a new, independent video game developer, Too Kyo Games, together with writer Kazutaka Kodaka and composer Masafumi Takada, both of whom previously worked on the Danganronpa series at Spike Chunsoft.[26] Other Danganronpa staff members, and Uchikoshi's fellow Infinity writer Takumi Nakazawa, also joined the company. At Too Kyo Games, Uchikoshi has the role of scenario writer and game director, and is writing two video games: "Project #1", co-written by Kodaka;[27] and World's End Club, an action-adventure game involving children playing a death game.[28][29]