When I was surfing Japanese Twitter tweets for Virtual Boy related content, I’ve discovered the account of a user named Megumi Ayase (Twitter name- Megu-Tan) which happened to be the Programmer/Graphic Designer of the infamous Virtual Boy game, ‘Virtual Lab’ and the obscure Gameboy puzzle game ‘Chiki Chiki Tengoku’ (possibly the main staff of Nacoty, since both games were published by J-Wing and developed by Nacoty) https://twitter.com/Derekmegumishin

Within the July 2014 tweet conversation with twitter user ‘ORION80’, Megumi stated that, Virtual Lab was (indeed) made as a ‘Shovelware’ rushed to fill in Virtual Boy’s small library before its demise.

Within the May 2020 tweet conversations with twitter user ‘nikochin159’ (A Japanese Virtual Boy Collector), Megumi provided the development story, stating that:

・The game was programmed in a month, in order to gain more time for debugging,

・ In areas of the instruction manual, he has only participated in the ‘Game’s Plot’ (The Boxart and instruction manual was mainly handled by J-Wing)

・The majority of the Game’s program itself was ripped from ‘Chiki Chiki Tengoku’

・During development, Risa Katagiri (The girl on the Boxart, Manual and the game itself, aged 13) was called Megu (Aged 17).

・J-Wing chose to hire a different artist for the boxart/manual without contacting Megumi, causing the boxart’s character design to lack resemblance to the actual sprite.

・The Girl’s ‘Jiggle physics’ was implemented as a ‘Policy’.

・Nacoty was only able to obtain 1 Development Equipment from Nintendo, disallowing the chance to make a 2 player link mode.

Here’s the link for the series of tweets (in Japanese):

https://twitter.com/orion80/status/494805376953360385 (July 2014)

https://twitter.com/nikochin159/status/1266162495355412481 (May 2020)

Fantastic find, thank you for the great detective work! Virtual Lab was the only released game left that we had no staff credits information on. Some very interesting insights there as well. A bit shocked that the jiggly boobs mascot is supposed to be 13 year old girl…

Where did you find the name, Megumi Ayase? What’s that in Japanese? It’s probably just a nick name referring to the anime character, is it?

If we wanted to shoot some more questions at her, would you be up to ask them?

First thing that comes to my mind: Was he/she, besides the box/manual artist hired by J-Wing, the only developer at Nacoty? Was Nacoty basically just a one person contract develoment studio?

[XKizuha]

Thanks for the reply, KE155E!

It seems J-wing was too lazy to request Megumi to redo the sprites for the final appearance, forcing them to label the character sprite intended to be a 17 year old as a 13 year old.

Anyways the name, Megumi Ayase was found from the Pinned June 2020 tweet (in Japanese), showcasing her(?) first involvement in a Videogame business, as a Programmer/Graphic Designer/Question Creator of an unlicensed PC Engine hentai quiz game ‘Quiz Toukou Shashin’, released by Game Express (AKA-Hacker International). https://twitter.com/Derekmegumishin/status/1268785399792455681

I’m not sure whether Nacoty was Megumi’s one person studio or not, but based on how Chiki Chiki Tengoku was also made by the Nacoty/J-Wing duo, it could be possible. Since Megumi has also participated in a Gameboy version of ‘Armored Police Metal Jack’, it might worth a check whether the ‘Nacoty’ brand was also featured in that game’s ending credits (Although I’m not sure whether it includes the ending credit.)

Whilst It would be possible to shoot additional questions, I’m not sure whether Megumi’s alive and well, since her(?) last post was on July 15th and the final ‘Like’ tweet was on July 23rd and she was reported to be in hospital for a coronary artery surgery on presumably July 8-11.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by XKizuha.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by XKizuha.

she was reported to be in hospital for a coronary artery surgery

Oh, shit, hope he/she is OK. 🙁

BTW, Megumi posted a photo on Twitter once which shows a woman, but it has been put through FaceApp, which has the ability to do almost everything with portrait photos, including changing the gender, so it doesn’t tell us much.

On the Twitter description, it stated that he joined a VRChat group called ‘なでなでforce‘ (pet-pet force) and found out there’s a discord channel. From the introduction forum, it’s revealed that Megumi’s name is ‘綾瀬めぐみ‘ and he’s a man in the 50’s.

Yet again, nice detective work! I followed the same route and found some additional info in his Discord profile (Megutan#1623).

– Link to a Youtube channel, empty unfortunately: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIKRt7u_S2CL_kM0rrLe4BA
– Photo as profile picture

Below is his introductory post from July 11, 2020. His only post in the Discord. Screenshot also attached.

・名前：綾瀬めぐみ(ID:MegumiAyase)
・自己紹介:VR環境がなく棒立ちです‪・ﾟ・(*ﾉДﾉ)・ﾟ・‬頭撫でたいー:sweat_drops:
フレンド居なくてランク低いまま、まだアバターupできません!
中の人は50過ぎおっさんですがお願いします:;( ∩´﹏`∩ );:
twitter:Derekmegumishin

Since “Megumi Ayase” is a female name, it is likely a nickname, named after an anime character. What about the Twitter handle, Derekmegumishin? One way to interpret it would be that his real name is Derek, as in “Derek loves Megumi”, since “Shin” can mean “Heart” in Japanese!?

Attachments:

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   megumi-discord-profile-pic.png