Kenji Eno

was a Japanese musician and video game designer. He gained a reputation as a maverick during the mid-1990s for creating unorthodox games like Real Sound and is perhaps best remembered today for his rebellious marketing techniques. Outside of his homeland he was best known for his survival horror video games, D and Enemy Zero. Apart from creating video games, Eno was also a well-regarded electronic musician and he created the scores for several of his games. Eno founded the video game development companies EIM, Warp (later called Super Warp), and From Yellow to Orange. He also worked in a variety of fields apart from video games and music including the automotive, cellphone, tobacco, and hotel industries.

Career Uncommonly interested in video games and music from a young age, Eno had experimented extensively with programming and recording, and one of his first games, Towadoko Murder Case, placed in a regional game contest. Eno's first job in the industry was with the nascent video game company, Interlink (responsible for the small 1989 hit, ). With Interlink, Eno was given a small degree of control in his projects and the company soon released a game in the Ultra Series under his co-planning.

Unsatisfied with his role at Interlink, and interested in more direct control over the projects, Eno used his savings to found the video game development contract company, in 1989. Eno's plan for EIM was largely modeled upon Interlink, however as a strict contract company EIM focused solely on sequels and spin-off titles. Though Eno was now able to choose projects and control the company's output through his selections, he remained unsatisfied by the limitations imposed on EIM by the need to be faithful to the creative visions of the groups that contracted EIM's services. For this reason as well as growing mental instability, (Ico and Shadow of the Colossus), Takeshi Nozue (Final Fantasy VII Advent Children) and Ichiro Itano (Macross), all of whom later became famous under different employment. While EIM had been modeled after Interlink, Eno modeled Warp after Panasonic's 3DO department. Warp's last four titles were designed exclusively for Sega. Due in part to the failure of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer as a video game console, in part to Eno's growing episodes of mental instability,

Thereafter, Warp was renamed Superwarp. Superwarp diverged from Warp in concentrating on DVDs, network services, and online music. With Superwarp, Eno worked on 20 or 30 widely diverse projects including work with NTT DoCoMo, creation of a cell-phone purchase interface for Coca-Cola vending machines, marketing cigarettes, and designing a trendy hotel. Eno also began blogging during this period. Superwarp was disbanded in 2005 without having released a single video game title. Eno explained that this was his final act of distancing himself from his past at WARP. In the September 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Eno stated in an interview that he was working on a game that would be revealed either in the "next issue, or the next, next issue of EGM." On March 23, 2009, Nintendo released You, Me, and the Cubes on the Wii's downloadable games service, WiiWare, with Eno's company fyto developing. Eno cited the Wii Remote as a key motivation of his return to game development.

In August 2008 Kenji Eno teamed up with Kenichi Nishi (Chibi-Robo!, Captain Rainbow, etc.) under the control of Fieldsystem, Inc. to write the score for and help develop Newtonica, a game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Personal life Eno attended a school for gifted children in his younger years, however the regular course of his childhood was greatly affected by the disappearance of his mother from his life during his second year of elementary school. Eno dropped out of high school at age 17 and, after brief jobs at Canon and a telephone-appointment company, he soon entered the video game industry. Eno got married during the development of D, he was not planning on having kids as he felt he wasn't economically stable "I was pretty broke back then, living in a one bed room apartment", however with the success of D Eno stated that he was able to "afford kids". Eno has claimed influence from electronic group, Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Music Eno's musical achievements are in general lesser known outside of Japan, although they have enjoyed more mainstream success than his video games. Eno has produced several albums independently as well as collaborated on albums such as The Cinematic Orchestra's Remixes 1998–2000. Eno is also credited with having composed music for several of his games including Juuouki, Casino Kid 2, Sunman, and the dark ambient scores to D and D2. Most recently he wrote the score for the Fieldsystem game, Newtonica.

Games Independently produced

With Interlink Juuouki (Famicom, 1990) – Sound Creator SD Hero Soukessen: Taose! Aku no Gundan (Famicom, 1990) – Supervisor, Musician (Famicom, 1990) – Planner

With EIM, Ltd. Parallel World (NES, 1990) (Famicom, 1991) – Concept Casino Kid 2 (NES, 1992) – Sound Programmer, Music Composer

External contract work newtonica (iPhone/iPod Touch, 2008) (Fieldsystem, Inc.) – Music Composer

Published works (1997) (1998, conversations with other game developers) (1998) (1999) (1999) (2006, with Ryusui Seiryoin) (2011)