First impressions can be interesting. I didn’t know what to expect when I met David Ventura at the Backbeat booth, after a long opening day of the weekend-long Japanese indie gaming event BitSummit. I knew of his work - now the CEO of his self-founded studio Ichigoichie with developers based both in Japan and Sweden, Ventura has had his hands in a number of highly-influential rhythm games over the course of his career. This includes work on Gitaroo Man and Elite Beat Agents during his time in Japan at iNiS, having worked at the studio for a decade before moving to Sweden to work outside of games on educational music software. In 2018 he returned to games by founding Ichigoichie (stylised as 151A). Their first game, Hexagroove, blended strategy, rhythm and educational tools for a game that captured the building blocks of being a DJ.
Ventura was at BitSummit to showcase the successor to this game, Backbeat. It’s a bit of a departure from much of his past work, acting more like a puzzle game with a musical soul, albeit one where the act of creating and playing music together is imbued into every solution. As the crowd began to leave the bustling convention hall for the day, I went to the booth for one last demo, and the chance to speak to the person behind it all… who was sat at his demo kiosk playing the keytar.
]]>
