Interview: Ikaruga’s beloved developer Treasure on keeping games old-school forever

Treasure won. Masato Maegawa and his crew of arcade game obsessives tore out of Konami in 1993 to start their own company. To make games the right way. “If we don’t find the game interesting ourselves,” said founder Masato Maegawa, “we won’t be satisfied with it.” They’ve never strayed from that ambition, churning out a series of mad boss rushes, huge sprites, blazing chiptunes, and weird comedy in games like Ikaruga, Mischief Makers, and Gunstar Heroes that remain unparalleled.

Unparalleled, but not unimitated. Indie game developers, especially ones making bizarre hardcore action games like Ikaruga, were scarce in the ’90s. Today every device on the planet capable of playing games hosts indie-made exercises in old-school formalism; fire up a Switch, an iPhone, or the Steam store, and it’s impossible to sift through the sprite art and retro fare. The new territory Maegawa and his collaborators set out to create is the foundation of the modern gaming market and art form.