Makoto Shibata, creator of the "Fatal Frame" series, has been involved in the creation of creepy horror games since 2001: In conjunction with the re-release of "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse," Makoto Shibata wrote a special blog post on Xbox Wire (opens in new tab) The article was written by Makoto Shibata. The content of the article is that the ghosts and spirits in the game, and the game's specific examples, are "inspired by spirits that I have actually seen (and even touched) in real life."

Yeah, we're just getting started. Shibata explains, "Zombies and monsters aren't scary because they aren't real." Of course, you can believe what you want to believe, but it is interesting to hear Shibata talk about spirits after having dismissed certain horror creatures as not real.

Shibata talks about how in the Japanese game industry, developers often perform exorcism rituals when starting work on a horror title. Scared developers do so. Mr. Shibata believes that it is better to let the spirits appear, and he usually does not perform misogi in this series of games. Mr. Shibata attributes this decision to various phenomena he encountered during the development of the series. For example, when we were recording audio, there was actually a mysterious voice recorded in the background. I tried to remove that voice from the recording, but no matter what I did, the voice kept coming back into the recording, so I eventually gave up and left it in the game."

The excitement was so great that the team decided to leave it in the game.

The excitement is palpable. By the end of this blog post, I loved Shibata. Writing specifically about "Fatal Frame: the Mask of the Lunar Eclipse," Shibata talks about how the concept of the game was inspired by an experience that "still gives me goosebumps.

"One of the places you visit in the game is "Lougetsu-do." ' In fact, it is modeled after an old onsen ryokan that my relatives used to run. One night, my family was the only guests staying there, and there was no one else around. I woke up in the middle of the night and walked around a bit, lured by the fantastic atmosphere, partly because the hotel was dimly lit by the moonlight coming in through the windows. Until I saw a man I didn't recognize standing on the other side of the hallway, looking out the window under the moonlight.

"This man was definitely a stranger, even though there were supposed to be only my relatives around. As I slowly approached to see who he was, the man looked at me and quickly disappeared. More curious than scared, I went to where the man was standing. I looked out the window at the big moon. I looked at the moon for a while and noticed that I was in the exact same pose as the man I had seen earlier. I began to wonder. Was this a vision of someone else's past? Or was it just a vision of my future?

After continuing to speculate about the effect of humidity on spirits, Shibata moved on to one of the game's most outstanding elements. In "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse," the system is not just about pressing buttons, but about having to keep pressing buttons to slowly open a cupboard door, for example: and during the long animation, sometimes spooky things happen.

"This is actually based on a spiritual experience I had during the making of my previous film, Fatal Frame III: The Tormented. 'One night late at night, as I was sleeping at home, I felt someone grab my hand. I was sleepwalking, so at first I thought it was an illusion, but the cold hand held on and gradually became stronger. Ouch. Ouch." I exclaimed, finally feeling the cold hand pull away before I saw it disappear into the wall. I was sleeping against the wall, so there couldn't be anyone there. There was a spirit behind the wall."

Either this man is a genius or he needs medication. According to Shibata, this is not the first time he has encountered a spirit on this wall; he has heard them in the middle of the night and while working on "The Struggle". I heard a woman's voice saying, 'Let's go swimming. I was shocked because that was going to be the ending scene of the game. How did she know?

Or maybe it was the long hours she was working. While working late in the Koei Tecmo office, he says, "the spirit of a child was running around at night." Apparently a boy, he said, "He would play tricks all night and knock over books and papers on my desk if I didn't pay attention to him. When I said, 'Shut up,' the boy was gone immediately."

However, "Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" was made at Grasshopper Manufacture, not at Koei Tecmo's studio. No problem for the spirit-seeking hero. When we were working on the game late into the night, I used to sleep on this ping-pong table," Shibata said. Sometimes I would see the spirit of a girl running slowly and quietly around the ping-pong table. When I look at her and she doesn't respond, she walks to the window and sings a song. Four, Four, Six ......."

"Apparently she was singing numbers in the form of poetry. I didn't hear it clearly until the end, but I figured this was a message that she wanted me to include in the game, so I decided to include an event where the girl told me to sing the numbers."

Now that you know why the Fatal Frame game is so freaky, Matsuda shared one last favorite anecdote.

"A spirit named Sendo Kageri appears in Fatal Frame: The spirit named Sendo Kageri in "Mask of the Moon" is based on "Mr. Miyamoto" who sometimes appears in my dreams. Mr. Miyamoto is a slender man, walking with someone who looks a lot like him in a wheelchair. He is always polite and returns my bow when I bow, but the person in the wheelchair is obviously dead and crawling with worms.

"Sometimes Mr. Miyamoto is not present and only the wheelchair and the person sitting in it are left alone. When I tried to touch it to see if it was dead, Mr. Miyamoto would get angry and run up to me and tell me, 'Don't touch it. Then what I thought was a dead body would start moving toward me," he said.

In "The Mask of the Lunar Eclipse," there is a sanatorium, and each floor has its own spirit. Naturally, Shibata decided that Miyamoto must be there.

"Then, instead of recreating Ms. Miyamoto as she appears in dreams, I changed the character to a gothic horror-inspired woman, a spirit that users would want to photograph. Some staff members suggested that we keep the character's name as Ms. Miyamoto, but I did not know her first name and felt that it was too weak to be a boss spirit, so I went back to the studio and came up with a name appropriate for an enemy of the "Fatal Frame" series, Sendo Kageri ( Kageuri), an appropriate name for an enemy in the "Fatal Frame" series.

"It is strange, then, that Mr. Miyamoto has not appeared in my dreams since his appearance in the game. Maybe he was satisfied to some extent that the form has been completed."

Surprise: Shibata not only sees spirits, but apparently also expels them. Or maybe Shibata just gave the spirits a global influence and presence. The next time something happens in the middle of the night, I will think of Shibata and the little spirit he put on that disc and won't know whether to laugh or cry.