Mikito Ichikawa

Born on 6 March 1971 in Tokyo, Mikito Ichikawa alias Micky G. Albert began to take an interest in computers at a very young age, initially to carry out aerodynamics calculations! It was when he discovered games like Dig Dug (1982) that he began to create them for his classmates, first on a clone of Sharp MZ-80 customised by him, then on a MZ-700 after winning a programming competition.

As he had no talent for studying, he was taken on at the age of fourteen by Nihon Falcom where he worked part-time, then two years later at Dempa Micomsoft through an agreement allowing him to continue at lycée, where he met Yūzō Koshiro and, at the age of sixteen, founded his own company M.N.M Software in 1987. She continued to create games for Dempa and then signed a contract with the Japanese branch of Brøderbundfor which she adapted titles such as Shufflepuck Cafe(1988) or Prince of Persia (1989) on Japanese microphones.

The studio is also developing its own games, such as Star Mobile (1991), Pledge (1992) and Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star (1991), a 3D wire frame shooter in which you can change cameras. This feature enabled Mikito Ichikawa to testify in a legal dispute between the two companies. SEGAwhich had wrongly registered the patent for Virtua Racing (1992), to other developers. The company also creates sound tools for games Master System, Game Gear and Mega Driveincluding those from the studio Ancient by Koshiro, as Streets of Rage 2 (1992), in which Ichikawa was also involved. game design.

The following year, he supervised Slap Fight MDthe porting of a shoot 'em up from 1986 from Toaplanwhich included a real reinvention of the game as a bonus. But Ichikawa fell seriously ill and had to close M.N.M Software. Back on his feet in 1995, he founded Mindwarea new studio that divides its time between creating video games and pinball machines. In addition to middleware tools for other companies, it has designed highly original titles such as MaBoShi (2008), Flametail/Trailblaze(2010), Chain Crusher (2011), Super Chain Crusher Horizon (2014) and Cosmic Snake (2018), while rediscovering forgotten classics of Japanese video games through remakes of Cosmic Cavern (1980), Space Mouse (1981) and Heiankyō Alien (1979).