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NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
Hideo Kojima Wanted to Make a Game That Reacted to the Smell of Your Breath
Hideo Kojima has always been one of the video game industry’s most unique voices. As the creator of Konami‘s Metal Gear franchise, as well as the recent Death Stranding, Kojima has provided gamers with some of the most interesting games ever. In 2003, Kojima produced a somewhat lesser known...
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Hideo Kojima has always been one of the video game industry's most unique voices. As the creator of Konami's Metal Gear franchise, as well as the recent Death Stranding, Kojima has provided gamers with some of the most interesting games ever. In 2003, Kojima produced a somewhat lesser known title by the name of Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand. The Game Boy Advance title had a very interesting hook: a sensor on the game's cartridge could read the sunlight and use it to charge the main character Django's solar weapons. However, a newly unearthed interview with Nintendo Dream from 2003 (translated by Shmupulations) reveals that Kojima wanted to take things one step further with a sensor that could also smell the player's breath!
"Sometime last year, I think, I approached Shigeru Miyamoto at Nintendo and gave a presentation pitch. In the beginning then, it wasn’t just a sunlight sensor – I actually had wanted to include a sensor that measured how your breath smelled too! I *really* wanted to add that! The enemies are vampires, right? So if you ate something garlic-y and breathed on the mic, they’d all die. (laughs)"
Kojima went on to say that the rest of the team, apparently, hated the idea. While it's certainly an intriguing concept, it's easy to see why the idea never got off the ground. Sunlight is (theoretically) plentiful for most, but forcing the player to purchase the foods necessary to defeat Boktai's enemies would have limited the game's audience. Perhaps some players might be allergic to garlic. Younger players might have also had a difficult time asking their parents to change up the evening's dinner plans. Perhaps it's better this idea was left on the cutting room floor!
