Shin'ichirō Tomie

is a Japanese game director, writer and part of Spike Chunsoft's affiliation. Since 1995, he contributes to the company with the Mystery Dungeon franchise as the main writer for the Shiren the Wanderer, and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. Prior to his affiliation to the company in 1992, he has also contributed in Tecmo's Tecmo Bowl series of sport games.

Career Tomie enjoyed association football since his youth, with the Captain Tsubasa series was his initial source of inspiration.

Tecmo Tomie joined Tecmo after graduating from university. During that period, he created football-centric games like Tecmo Bowl in 1987 and Captain Tsubasa II in 1990. During the development of Tecmo Super Bowl, released in 1991, despite limited NFL coverage in Japan during the late 1980s, he and programmer Akihiko Shimoji recorded games from NHK satellite broadcasts to accurately recreate them within the game. Tomie's passion on sports also helped the team to work on Tecmo Super Bowl.

The scenarios present throughout the Mystery Dungeon series were written so they would not interfere too much into the franchise's roguelike genre. The scenario for the Shiren the Wanderer series is smaller but also intriguing for each title as they are mixed with its difficulty. In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, the scenario has more presence in the gameplay than the former series and its appeal comes from "their directions and sounds" rather than the scenario alone. Furthermore, the series does not have a linear timeline between the mainline Pokémon franchise and this series so newcomers would be introduced easily into the series and the genre. In an interview held in 2022, Tomie claimed he was not aware of the western fanbase but was able to receive messages from Japanese fans of the series via letters, with some of them claiming Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness, and its sister game Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, his "magnum opus". Even if both series have not received a brand new title since 2010 and 2015 respectively, Tomie left a secret message in the 2020 port of Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, indicating he would still be able to work on the next games if there are enough voices from the fans to green-lit a new Mystery Dungeon game in the company. It eventually happened later with its Nintendo Switch version being better received than anticipated, leading to the completion of Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island with Tomie being the lead scenarist of that game.

Works