4Gamer 20th anniversary game playthrough interview
The three replay the PlayStation game and treat it as an ordeal. Ueda recalls that game director Junji Nakahara switched the main 'persona' from a bust shot to a full figure with less than six months to master, arguing that Lain as keeper of a database should not look like a video-phone partner. Ueda typed every keyword-to-data link into Excel by hand over three days, and spent New Year's holidays inputting text before flying to Poland for a recording. He says the CESA ratings body refused to certify the game over its gore, so it shipped without CESA, and a famous game magazine declined to score it after he called it 'psycho-stretch-ware'. The power lines and the 'small i' style date from the game and the earlier Noel, and the 'to Be continued' card honors BeOS. The music box theme used real music boxes ordered from a maker in Nagano because Takemoto's synth version sounded thin. The team was about four people in a rented apartment for roughly a year and a half, overlapping the anime; Ueda and Nakahara filmed the Layer 12 ghost with a blanket in a parking lot. ABe drew about 46 of the 200 pictures first requested. Ueda turned down a Hamster PS Archives release because he thought the game too stressful, and invites fans to make a good unofficial 'lain 2' that he would stamp as official.
- Nakahara changed the persona to a full-body figure months before master
- Ueda hand-linked keywords to data blocks in Excel over three days
- CESA refused to certify the game; it shipped without CESA
- Real music boxes from a Nagano maker were sampled for the theme
- About four developers worked roughly a year and a half, overlapping the anime
- ABe drew about 46 illustrations against 200 originally requested
- Ueda declined a PS Archives release offered by Hamster
- Ueda would approve a good fan-made sequel as official
Sources: 4gamer.net