Zaboru leaned back in his chair and looked through the long list of projects currently moving across ZAGE. Sengoku Basara was already progressing nicely, but it wasn't the only unusual title he had planned for the coming months. Another folder sat only a few places beneath it, this one assigned not to Team IZAN, but to Team NOVA.
Zaboru's lips slowly curled into a grin as he clicked it open. "Hehehe... this concept was way too interesting to leave behind."
Unlike Sengoku Basara, this project wasn't based around exaggerated Japanese history. It revolved around something far smaller.
Toys.
Or, more accurately, tiny alien warriors that looked and behaved almost like collectible toys.
Zaboru chuckled while remembering the game from his previous life. "This thing was so damn underrated. People really didn't know how awesome it was back on the GameCube."
The title displayed on the project document was simple.
GOTCHA FORCE.
Even thinking about it made Zaboru nostalgic. The story itself was intentionally straightforward and almost ridiculously early-2000s in tone. The player followed a kid named Kou, who encountered a small friendly alien fighter called G-Red. G-Red belonged to a race of tiny warriors known as Gotcha Borgs, and Earth had become the next target of the evil Death Force, commanded by the Galactic Emperor. Kou eventually became G-Red's commander, met other children capable of controlling Borgs, and gradually assembled his own army—the Gotcha Force—to fight back.
It was cheesy.
It was colorful.
It had children shouting about friendship while tiny robots, ninjas, tanks, dragons and bizarre monsters blasted each other across gardens and bedrooms.
Basically, exactly the kind of thing Zaboru loved.
"The story isn't even the real selling point," Zaboru muttered, scrolling further through Team NOVA's design documents. "It's everything around it."
The original concept revolved around collecting an enormous variety of Gotcha Borgs, with more than two hundred different units spread across wildly different categories. Some were simple humanoid fighters. Others were ninjas, samurai, knights, gunfighters, martial artists, tanks, helicopters, aircraft, dragons, magicians, giant robots and creatures that barely fit any sensible classification at all.
Most importantly, they weren't merely cosmetic variations.
Each Borg could move differently. Some were incredibly fast but fragile. Some relied on long-range weapons. Others needed to close the distance before becoming dangerous. A tank might have powerful cannons but limited mobility, while a flying Borg could attack from angles ground units couldn't easily reach. Giant machines could dominate through raw power but consumed enormous amounts of the player's available resources.
That led directly into the system Zaboru found genuinely brilliant.
Players didn't simply choose one fighter.
They constructed a Force.
Every Gotcha Borg had a specific GF Energy cost, and the player's entire Force had to remain within an energy limit. Stronger Borgs generally consumed considerably more energy, while weaker or simpler fighters cost less.
That immediately created choices.
A player could build a small Force consisting of several expensive and extremely powerful Borgs, trusting those individual units to dominate the battle.
Or they could build a much larger army of cheaper Borgs, sacrificing individual strength for numbers and flexibility.
Or they could mix everything together.
A powerful ace unit.
Several mid-cost specialists.
Then a collection of weaker Borgs to fill whatever energy remained.
Zaboru grinned. "It's basically army building... except instead of sitting there watching numbers fight, you actually control the damn army yourself."
That was the part that made Gotcha Force different from something like Pokémon or a traditional strategy game.
The player directly controlled one Borg at a time inside a fully 3D battlefield.
Movement was immediate. Players could run, jump, dash, sidestep, lock onto enemies, fire ranged attacks, rush into melee range or unleash whatever strange special abilities their current Borg possessed. Automatic targeting made the chaos manageable, particularly when several tiny combatants were simultaneously flying around and covering the battlefield in projectiles.
And then came the mechanic Zaboru especially liked.
When the Borg currently being controlled was defeated, the match didn't necessarily end.
BOOM.
That Borg was gone.
The next member of the player's Force immediately entered the battlefield.
If that one fell, another followed.
And another.
And another.
The battle continued until one side completely exhausted its Force.
In a strange way, the entire roster became the player's life bar.
Instead of simply losing health, players gradually lost pieces of the army they had carefully constructed before the match. That meant Force composition wasn't just something players thought about before battle—it directly determined how long they could survive and what options remained after each defeat.
Zaboru tapped his desk excitedly. "Exactly. That's why this shit works."
Even the environments added to the game's identity. Because Gotcha Borgs were tiny, ordinary human locations became enormous battlefields from their perspective. A simple living room suddenly resembled a gigantic arena filled with furniture towering over the fighters. A garage could become an industrial battlefield. Gardens turned into jungles. Pools became enormous aquatic arenas.
A child's bedroom could host an all-out war between dozens of tiny machines.
Zaboru laughed quietly.
"It's basically children smashing toys together and imagining the most insane battle possible... except the toys actually fight."
And naturally, Zaboru had absolutely no intention of simply recreating the version he remembered.
The ZAGE version would be much larger.
"Hehehehe... we're going to make this thing completely ridiculous."
Team NOVA already had several major improvements under development. Local multiplayer would remain important, but Zaboru wanted proper online multiplayer through ZAGE Network as well. Two players cooperating against enemy Forces was obvious, so full cooperative modes were already being explored. Larger team battles were another possibility, allowing several players to bring customized Forces into the same battlefield.
Zaboru also wanted more than simple elimination matches.
There could be objective battles, survival modes, boss encounters, defensive missions, capture-style modes, tournaments and challenge missions built specifically around unusual restrictions.
Perhaps one challenge would limit players entirely to low-cost Borgs.
Another might force everyone to use flying types.
Or giant Borgs.
Or melee fighters.
Maybe one ridiculous mode could fill the battlefield with dozens of low-cost units and simply let everything descend into absolute chaos.
"Hehehe... yeah. That's stupid."
Zaboru paused.
Then his grin widened.
"Which means we should definitely test it."
The variety of Borgs could also be expanded considerably. Two hundred was already impressive, but Zaboru saw no reason Team NOVA couldn't eventually push beyond that. More categories, more weird designs, more secret units, more unusual combinations. Some could be unlocked through the campaign, others through challenges, and particularly strange Borgs could be hidden behind difficult conditions that encouraged players to experiment.
At the same time, he didn't want the game buried beneath unnecessary complexity. Gotcha Force worked because the basic experience was immediately understandable.
Pick your tiny fighters.
Build a team.
Then beat the shit out of somebody else's toys.
Everything deeper could grow naturally from there.
Zaboru leaned back again and stared at several concept images.
There was another reason this project interested him.
Merchandise.
"Actually... this might be fucking dangerous."
Gotcha Borgs were practically designed to become toys.
ZAGE already had experience selling merchandise tied to its major franchises, but Gotcha Force offered something more direct. If children became attached to particular Borgs inside the game, there was an obvious path toward real collectible figures based on those exact units.
G-Red.
Samurai Borgs.
Ninja Borgs.
Dragons.
Tanks.
Giant machines.
Hundreds of possibilities.
Some could be inexpensive collectible figures. Others could be larger premium models. ZAGE could potentially create starter packs corresponding with common in-game Forces, or limited editions tied to tournaments and events.
Not that he wanted Team NOVA designing the game around selling plastic.
That would ruin everything.
The game needed to come first.
If Gotcha Force wasn't fun, nobody would care about owning the toys anyway.
Zaboru continued scrolling through development notes and nodded in satisfaction. Team NOVA was handling the project well. Their developers had immediately understood that the charm came from mixing the enthusiasm of children's toy battles with surprisingly deep army composition and fast arcade-like combat.
Some people might have expected Zaboru to hand the project to Team IZAN instead, especially given how many developers associated with Capcom-like action games were already concentrated there.
Shinji Mikami.
Hideaki Itsuno.
Hideki Kamiya.
And several others.
But Zaboru deliberately avoided relying on the same famous developers for everything.
"Heh... Capcom's early-2000s games really were fucking goated, though."
He chuckled to himself.
A ridiculous number of people who, in his previous life, would have become famous through Capcom were already working somewhere inside ZAGE. But that didn't mean every game resembling something they once created needed to be handed directly to them.
ZAGE had grown far beyond that.
Team NOVA was more than capable of building Gotcha Force themselves, and Zaboru actually preferred it that way. New teams needed their own identities and accomplishments rather than constantly working beneath the shadow of ZAGE's most famous directors.
Besides, Zaboru didn't want five people responsible for half the company's library.
That would be ridiculous.
He added several notes to the project document, especially regarding online co-op, additional multiplayer modes, larger battlefields and the possibility of expanding the Borg roster after launch if players responded well.
"Hehehe... yeah. This one could become something really special."
Zaboru continued working quietly inside his workshop on the 51st floor, jumping between Gotcha Force, Sengoku Basara and several other projects waiting for his review. For a while, nothing disturbed him.
Then his phone rang.
Zaboru glanced toward it.
The caller was Yumi, his secretary.
His expression changed slightly.
Yumi rarely interrupted him inside the workshop unless there was an actual reason. She already understood perfectly well that Zaboru could disappear into development work for hours, and anything unimportant was usually left for later.
He answered.
"Yeah, Yumi-san?"
"Boss, Shun Midorikawa-san wants to speak with you."
Zaboru stopped moving.
"Shun?"
"Yes. He said it's important. Are you currently available?"
Zaboru leaned back slightly and looked toward the clock. Shun Midorikawa was ZAGE's head of Human Resources. He and Zaboru naturally spoke from time to time, especially considering the absurd number of employees ZAGE now had scattered across Japan and its international divisions, but Shun rarely requested an immediate private conversation without explaining the subject beforehand.
That made Zaboru curious.
"Yeah, I'm available. Tell him to meet me on the 50th floor."
"Understood. I'll inform him."
The call ended.
Zaboru stared at his phone for another second.
"Hmm..."
He saved the Gotcha Force documents and closed several windows.
"What does the head of HR suddenly want with me?"
He considered several possibilities. Hiring issues? Internal restructuring? Another team expansion? Employee complaints? Something involving one of ZAGE's foreign branches?
There wasn't enough information to guess.
Zaboru shrugged and stood.
"Well, if Shun says it's important, it's probably important."
Gotcha Force could wait a couple of minutes.
Leaving his private workshop behind, Zaboru stepped into the elevator and descended from the 51st floor toward the 50th.
Whatever Shun Midorikawa wanted to discuss, Zaboru had a feeling it wasn't going to be something small.
To be continued.
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