Masafumi Onuki, the programmer behind Japanese indie studio Calappa Games (a.k.a Nussoft), is a man who knows what he likes. He likes crabs. All three of his games to date have gone in heavy on crustaceans: there was Neo Aquarium with its intense sci-fi crab brawling, then party-based third person fighting game Ace Of Seafood (which admittedly also featured fish), and then this year’s Fight Crab, which is a visual novel about music theory. Only joking, it’s a game where crabs beat the stuffing out of each other.

I had mixed feelings about Fight Crab, in that I thought the concept was both brilliant and perfectly executed, but also that it was a complete nightmare to play, giving me motion sickness to the point where I barked oats onto a tree. I wouldn’t want to change anything about it, but it’s still not something I’d actually like to play a whole bunch. Still, if there’s one thing my opinions are unambiguous on, it’s crabs. And since I could sense a fellow aficionado in Onuki-san, I figured I’d get in touch with him for a chat about the old snipple-snapple. I’m glad I did; it was one of the most pleasant interviews I’ve ever conducted. Here it is.

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