28 Facts About Kotaro Uchikoshi

Kotaro Uchikoshi is a Japanese video game director and writer.

Kotaro Uchikoshi is known for his work on visual novel games, including the Infinity and Zero Escape series.

Kotaro Uchikoshi's writing style often incorporates elements of science fiction with various scientific and philosophical themes, and makes heavy use of plot twists.

Interested in narrative based games from a young age, Uchikoshi studied video game development at a vocational school.

Kotaro Uchikoshi joined Chunsoft in 2007, where he came up with the idea of integrating puzzles into a visual novel for the player to solve.

Kotaro Uchikoshi implemented this idea in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, the first game in which he served as the director.

When Chunsoft put the Zero Escape series on hiatus, Kotaro Uchikoshi returned to freelance work, and wrote his first anime series, Punch Line.

Kotaro Uchikoshi worked on a manga and video game adaptation of Punch Line.

Kotaro Uchikoshi was born on November 17,1973, in Higashimurayama, Tokyo.

Kotaro Uchikoshi was born with torticollis, which required surgery when he was three years old.

Kotaro Uchikoshi studied management engineering in college, but dropped out and spent a year without a job.

Kotaro Uchikoshi then enrolled in the vocational school Vantan Design Institute, where he studied video game planning, 3D modelling, 2D art, sound, and programming.

Kotaro Uchikoshi believes he was chosen because of his personality and experience with writing.

In 2001, Kotaro Uchikoshi left KID to become a freelance writer and developer; this was the result of a need for independence, and the ability to work for other companies besides KID.

Kotaro Uchikoshi 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.

Kotaro 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.

Kotaro Uchikoshi began implementing and expanding upon these ideas in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, in which he served as the game director, planner, and scenario writer.

Kotaro Uchikoshi maintained his duties as the director, planner, and scenario writer.

Kotaro 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".

Kotaro Uchikoshi wrote a scenario for Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram before working on his first non-game related project, the anime series Punch Line.

Kotaro Uchikoshi wrote the episode scripts, which he noted were more cinematic in tone than most of his previous projects.

Kotaro Uchikoshi wrote a Punch Line manga, which began serialization in September, and a video game adaptation, released in 2016.

Kotaro Uchikoshi noted that the fan presence was a key factor for the sequel's reevaluation.

In 2018, it was announced that Kotaro 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.

Kotaro Uchikoshi first writes the basic outline of a story.

Kotaro Uchikoshi used the Enneagram of Personality as a reference while creating the characters for Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Virtue's Last Reward.

Kotaro Uchikoshi believes the most important aspect of writing visual novels is to envision what the player will think about in each scene, saying that he always has "a conversation with an imaginary player" when writing stories.

Kotaro Uchikoshi believes ninety percent of any creative work consists of pieces from others' works, and that the remaining ten percent is creativity, with the result hinging on how well a writer can incorporate their influences with their own ideas.