Lumines Creator Working on Second Life Tokyo

In a move that can be termed unconventional, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez and Lumines, will be creating a virtual Tokyo for Second Life, the online life simulation game that has garnered much attention.

Famitsu confirmed that he will be collaborating with Japanese ad firm Dentsu on the project. Appaently, Mizuguchi first refused: “[The game] is just too vast and involved too many loose ideas. But the more I thought about it, a lot of interesting ideas came up. My work all these years has been to entertain people through video games, but this Virtual Tokyo concept could be the next step and path.”

Don’t expect a full-fledged virtual version of the city though. They are creating it based on the “image of the city” and upon the perceptions of both residents and foreigners. There will also be a giant ski slope in the middle of virtual Tokyo, letting players take part in a Ski Jump Pair International Contest.

Finally, Mizuguchi states that he wants to make virtual Tokyo a “museum of Japanese pop culture.” No other information on the project is known at the moment.