Kenichi Nishi


Kenichi Nishi is a Japanese video game designer. He has helped found a number of notable video game companies and develops games at Route24, his own private limited company. The number 24 in the title comes from its founder's name: "Ni" and "Shi".
WWW route24.jp𝕏 Route24

Career

Nishi previously worked for both Telenet Japan and its subsidiary Riot. He was later hired by Square as a field designer for two of its larger releases. After leaving Square in 1995, Nishi helped establish Love-de-Lic, Inc. with many of his former Square coworkers. There, he designed two of the small company's three game releases: Moon: Remix RPG Adventure and L.O.L.: Lack of Love. He also helped design and write the script for the 1999 Polygon Magic title Incredible Crisis. Nishi then co-founded skip Ltd., a second-party developer for Nintendo. Acting as vice president of the company, he also directed GiFTPiA and co-directed Chibi-Robo!. Shortly thereafter, he left skip and founded Route24 on February 23, 2006. According to Nishi, he felt that working on large projects with a large group of people such as those at skip limited his freedom in designing games.
At Route24, Nishi and a staff of four other people developed LOL for the Nintendo DS, which was published by skip in 2007. He worked on Newtonica and Newtonica2 for the iPhone and iPod Touch with Kenji Eno, among other independently developed mobile games. In 2010, Nishi expressed interest in developing a sequel to Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, asking fans to voice their support via Twitter.

Personal life

Nishi lives in Meguro, Tokyo. He is a fan of British rock music and once had a dog named Tao, who Nishi featured as a character in many of his games including Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, GiFTPiA, L.O.L.: Lack of Love, Chibi-Robo and Captain Rainbow. Tao died in October 2009 due to kidney complications. It is said that Dragon Quest III is Nishi's favorite game.

Credits

YearTitleDeveloperRole
1991Tenshi no UtaTelenet JapanPlanning
1991ExileTelenet Japan, RiotPlanning
1992Psycho DreamRiotStory
1995Chrono TriggerSquareField planning
1996Super Mario RPGSquareField planning
1997Moon: Remix RPG AdventureLove-de-LicGame design
1999Incredible CrisisPolygon MagicGame design and script
2000L.O.L.: Lack of LoveLove-de-LicWriting
2003GiFTPiASkip Ltd.Director
2005Chibi-Robo!Skip Ltd.Director
2007LOLSkip Ltd.Designer
2008Captain RainbowSkip Ltd.Scenario
2008NewtonicaRoute 24Designer
2008Morinaga Takurou no Okane no Shin Joushiki DS TrainingRoute 24Designer
2008Newtonica2Route 24Designer
2009Wacky World of SportsTabotConcept and advice
2009PostPet DSAlphaDream, Route 24, Vanpool
2010iCLKRoute 24
2010GeotrionRoute 24Producer and director
2010FollowarsRoute 24Designer
2012Paper Mario Sticker StarIntelligent SystemsSpecial thanks
2013CobitsRoute 24Designer
2021Pixel Game Maker Series Puzzle PedestriansRoute 24Designer