2000 Karen Promo Book

Last updated: 2025-02-08
Original source: 『プリンセスメーカー4 がんばれカレンちゃん』

This is the fourth pamphlet acting as a teaser and promotional piece for Ninelives' Princess Maker 4, released on June 18, 2000.

A shift in editorial seems to have taken place starting with this book. This one strips away the rough draft presentation of handwritten notes, comics and ideas as seen in the previous doujin. Instead, sketches are showcased with professionally printed text, and less discussion of ideas that are still works in progress.

It is also the shortest of the books in total page count, coming in at only sixteen pages plus two sides of a curiously placed single blue page for eighteen pages total.

This book promises that Princess Maker 4 will have unique drawings for each phase of Karen's growth, all coming up from a shared "analog" base model. Akai boasts that his analog look keeps his drawings distinct from the competition.

The adult models for Karen are said to remain cute, unlike previous games where the girl's design would start as a child and the girl would have longer hair and more adult features as she grows.

Perhaps it's a sign of the times, as "moe" content is a bigger selling point in the Japanese games and anime market as we're in the middle of 2000. Or perhaps it's a means of cutting back on the content needed to ship the game.

A two-pager describes the backstory of Karen, and the protagonist's first meeting with Cube. Little here seems particularly new or unexpected from previous works. Somewhat noteworthy here is that Cube's first appearance is as the demon we knew him as in Princess Maker 2, even though the first screenshots of the game exclusively feature him as a dog.

What follows is a small set of sketches for various event scenes in the game, focusing on events in the first half of the game that seem fairly typical for the game's premise in modern Japan.

The last of these sketches hints at how Karen would pass through the gate to her home kingdom, requiring the player to find an item.

Details are scarce, as it's not clear what's feasible to put in the final game and clearly some of these events are intended to be a surprise to the player. Nonetheless, it's confirmed that Karen can go back and forth from the other world to modern Japan, similar to Princess Maker 5.

Ninelives' Princess Maker 4 is reportedly in production with an intended release date of 2001. Just prior to the credits page, Akai raises the specter of how game development requires more hands on deck in 2000 than it used to.

Akai mentions he's building the game "going back to his roots" as an individual effort rather than producing the game with a team, as he feels "buried" in a group.

That is a little surprising for a company that reportedly had 22 employees as of February 1999, and was able to ship Crest of the Stars for the PlayStation in May 25, 2000. Though as they had hidden the number of employees reported later in 1999, perhaps Ninelives had scaled down to be more of a solo effort?

The last computer game that Ninelives shipped was another reskin of Dennou Quizdom and Princess Maker Q, called Dennou Gakuen Millenium 2, released later that Summer in the August of 2000. This lends some credence to the idea.

Speaking of staff changes, the art style in this book appears different from what we had seen in previous works. Could somebody new be digitally outlining and coloring these works? No additional assistants are mentioned in this specific book, unlike the second and third books.