Kotaro Uchikoshi

Kotaro Uchikoshi (打越 鋼太郎) is a Japanese video game director and writer.

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

His 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.

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

Almost immediately after birth, he began choking on amniotic fluid, and claims he would have died had his doctor not held him upside down and "hit his backside".

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

While in middle school, he read gamebooks written by Steve Jackson, which instilled an interest in narrative-based games.

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

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

Vantan was founded as a school for clothes design, and only branched into game development later; according to Uchikoshi, the teachers were not well versed in video games, which led to uninteresting courses and many students dropping out.

Eventually, only Uchikoshi and a few others attended classes, which resulted in the teachers being able to better focus and take care of the smaller group of students who still attended; because of this, Uchikoshi says that he and the other remaining students were able to achieve a higher level of proficiency.

Chunsoft had developed several mystery visual novels in the past, such as Kamaitachi no Yoru (1994), but wanted to create a new type of visual novel that could appeal to a wider audience.

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.

His first job in game development was at KID in 1998, where he primarily wrote scenarios for bishōjo games and other visual novels.

Uchikoshi's first job in game development was in 1998 when he joined KID, a company known for bishōjo games.

At the time, KID was also developing video game adaptations of board games; he originally joined KID because of these board game projects, as he was interested in making simple games that a lot of people would be able to enjoy.

These included Memories Off (1999) and Never 7: The End of Infinity (2000).

His first project at KID however was designing 3D models for the action game Pepsiman (1999).

Sometime after the release of Pepsiman, a producer at KID asked him to write a scenario for an upcoming bishōjo game.

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

The first bishōjo game he worked on was the visual novel Memories Off (1999), followed by Never 7: The End of Infinity, Memories Off Pure and Memories Off 2nd (all 2000).

While writing Never 7: The End of Infinity, Uchikoshi wanted to include science fiction themes, but was instructed by his superiors to instead focus on the romantic relationships between the game's characters.

In 2001, he left KID to become a freelance writer, and continued to work on visual novels.

In 2001, 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.

Over the next few years, he worked on several games, including Close To: Inori no Oka (2001), Ever 17: The Out of Infinity (2002), and Remember 11: The Age of Infinity (2004).

He also 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 (2006).

While working as a freelance writer, Uchikoshi was contacted by the game development company Chunsoft about a possible job offering.

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

Looking to provide a stable income for his wife and daughter, he accepted the company's offer in 2007.

He implemented this idea in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), the first game in which he served as the director.

He began implementing and expanding upon these ideas in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), in which he served as the game director, planner, and scenario writer.

Although the game was a commercial failure in Japan, its unexpected critical success in North America prompted Uchikoshi to continue the series.

Both Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and its sequel Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (2012) were commercial failures in Japan.

The sequel to Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors was Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (2012).

When Chunsoft put the Zero Escape series on hiatus, Uchikoshi returned to freelance work, and wrote his first anime series, Punch Line (2015).

He also worked on a manga and video game adaptation of Punch Line.

A large fan presence helped revive the Zero Escape series, and Uchikoshi returned to write and direct the concluding installment, Zero Time Dilemma (2016).

In 2017, he left Spike Chunsoft and formed the video game developer Too Kyo Games together with Danganronpa series staff members and his Infinity co-writer Takumi Nakazawa.

Shortly after, he wrote the concept for the anime series The Girl in Twilight (2018), directed and wrote the adventure game AI: The Somnium Files (2019), and returned to write its sequel, AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative (2022).